Learn about the art of Kenneth Ragsdale. After watching a short video, students will experiment with making folded paper structures that they will photograph, using lighting and camera angles to create different effects. Completing all activities will take 2-3 class periods.

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For more studio tours and other arts content from WMHT, visit AHA! A House For Arts. AHA! A House for Arts features the stories of artists, makers, and creative institutions right here in our backyard and across the country. A celebration of all things creative, AHA! features everything from the traditional to the innovative.

Students create their own monster trading cards using "powerful," vivid language to describe their creatures.

To familiarize students with Prehistoric art, the reasons for it, the subject matter depicted, style and colors used. This project is integrated with a 4th grade study of Native people.

This lesson plan uses filmmaking to teach and reinforce the concept of rhythm, which is one of the Principles of Design.  You could easily substitute one of the other Principles or Elements of Design instead of concentrating on rhythm. Although this lesson was created for an Interior Design class, it could also be used in an art or clothing class, or adapted for other content areas.Thumnail image - "A Principle of Design: Rhythm," created by Tamara Hardy

In this video from the American Masters film Ralph Ellison: An American Journey, scholars discuss conflicts between Ralph Ellison and the leaders of the Black Arts Movement. Ellison was often criticized for prioritizing aesthetics over politics, putting him at odds with a younger generation of Black artists who had lost faith in the integrationist ideals of an earlier era.

Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.

This is a lesson plan is part of nine-week fine art credit recovery class in Canvas that features a different artist for each module. Each module features an introduction activity, art project and photo challenge. In this lesson plan students will learn about Pablo Picasso and demonstrate an understanding of his work by creating and editing original photo to reflect this famous artist’s work.

Learn how classroom teachers, artists and arts organizations are using the arts to teach social and emotional learning (SEL). Social and emotional learning gives students strategies on how to manage their emotions and how to collaborate and empathize with others. These are important skills that help students succeed at school, work, and life. SEL can be incorporated into any subject matter and any grade level, but incorporating the arts can be an especially effective way to learn and practice SEL.

Award-winning filmmaker Leya Hale explores the traditional dress-making culture of Lakota and Dakota communities. Tanner Peterson, a member of the Upper Sioux Community, is the videographer and production assistant. Interviews with Gaby Strong, Pejuta Haka Red Eagle, Gabrielle Tateyuskanskan, Leah Thomas, Marcy Fiddler and Lonna Stevens discuss the materials, hand craft, adornments and cultural heritage of traditional Dakota and Lakota women's dresses.

This program was made possible by the voters of Minnesota through legislative appropriation from The Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

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Postcards is an award-winning series showcasing the arts, history, and cultural heritage of western Minnesota and beyond. Funding for Postcards comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. To watch more Postcards, visit the show page or video portal.

Jonathan Swift's 1729 pamphlet "A Modest Proposal" is a model for satirizing social problems. In this lesson, students complete multiple readings of Swift's essay: a guided reading with the teacher, a collaborative reading with a peer, and an independent reading. The online Notetaker tool helps students restate key ideas from Swift's essay as they read and elaborate upon these ideas postreading. After independent reading, pairs of students develop a mock television newscast or editorial script, like those found on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update," The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, or The Colbert Report, including appropriate visual images in PowerPoint.

In this activity from the Commonwealth Theatre Center in Louisville, Kentucky, students select several emotions and determine what these emotions would look like in a drawing and as a selfie. To understand and express our emotions we need to learn how to properly define them.

A lesson plan for teaching students how to create powerful and impactful documentary style short films.Image

Meet Bay Area artist Mike Shine, who discusses his carnival-inspired paintings, and his recent large-scale stencil murals. He makes art for people to enjoy, both superficially and in depth, and condemns much of modern art because of the context needed for interpretation. He wants his art to be able to be interpreted, regardless of how it is interpreted. He wants it to transcend cultural and language barriers. Check out how his art is made in this video.

At Bowling Green Junior High in Kentucky, technology teacher Dianna Wolf and reading teacher Brent VanMeter use stop motion animation to give students opportunities to experiment with technology, work together, and communicate things they’ve learned in a fun and creative way.

Question Man Joey Kola figures out how to decipher legalese; a "Milestones" portrait shows how an out-of-work Appalachian coal miner succeeded in changing careers; TV411's math-minded Calculating Women explore strategies for building up retirement savings; "Math Behind the Arts" features a New York City artist who works with clay and the formula for area when she makes tiles for the subway.

Newly minted writer Kathi Wellington enlivens a "Milestones" segment with her vivid stories of being a female steelworker; "Math Behind the Arts" visits origami artist June Sakamoto for a lesson on basic geometry; a TV411 special invites parents and children to interpret art and symbolism at a Philadelphia museum; "On Words Behind the Poetry," Broadway performers from Russell Simmon's Def Poetry Jam demonstrate how writing poetry can be hot and cool.

Question Man (Joey Kola) gets the scoop from a former reporter on how to read between the lines; "Straight to the Source" looks over the shoulder of political cartoonist Don Margolies as he practices the art of satire; a "Sports Smarts" segment shows how DC United soccer star Nick Rimando uses computers and the Net while he's on the road; "Book Club" visits a special class in New York where workers learn about the history of the Depression through Dorothea Lange's celebrated photographs.

Talon Wilson is learning the master craft of blacksmithing at Sätergläntan school in Sweden and the experience has caused him to think deeply about who he is and how his Dakota ancestry can influence his art.

A lesson plan for grades 9-12 is included as a gallery asset and in the support materials.

More About This Resource:

Postcards is an award-winning series showcasing the arts, history, and cultural heritage of western Minnesota and beyond. Funding for Postcards comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. To watch more Postcards, visit the show page or video portal.

This lesson can be broken up into smaller lessons to help young or special education learners begin to comprehend how stories work and what is being taught in them. Overall, the lesson should take about an hour. 

Brendan Monroe doesn't follow strict guidelines, especially when it comes to his artwork. He makes rough sketches of his ideas and improvises along the way, making sure to keep the blurriness of the concepts and the mystery. His aim is to encourage people to see living things in everything in their environment.

Nigel Poor is a photographer who spends time documenting everyday existence, exploring the meaning of the traces of ourselves that we leave behind. She focuses on ordinary objects and materials, researching what makes an object “worthy of preservation,” in her words. This KQED Art School video was created in collaboration with SFMOMA, who commissioned art-making activity ideas from Nigel Poor for their Open Studio project.