Contemplating Your Theme: January 23, 2019

Focus: What's your theme, and how may art contribute to it?

1. Warming up with a physically close reading of "I, Too" and composing a creative response

2. Exploring the multidimensional message your poem might become!

Student Example #1 (student poem, Harlem Renaissance art, music)

Student Example #2 (Harlem Renaissance poem, student dance)

Student Example #3 (Harlem Renaissance music, student art, animation as narration)

Watching a commercial example.

• What's the first part of this poem/commercial about?
• What's the shift?
• What's the overall message, and how do the photos contribute to it?

3. Investigating "Song of the Towers" by Aaron Douglas (my favorite) with an MMM approach and extra step: Which figure is you? Why?

Song of the Towers, by Aaron Douglas (1934)

4. Offering you a preview of tomorrow and exploring other Harlem Renaissance artists you may wish to use in your Renaissance Little Project

Aaron Douglas
Jacob Lawrence
Palmer Hayden
Lois Mailou Jones

Your goal: Use your blog today to start collecting paintings that you might want to use in your Renaissance Little Project. Maybe they relate to the poem you wrote at the beginning of class. Maybe they remind you of something we've watched/read/talked about this semester. Maybe you just like the look of it.

• Paste the paintings and their links into your blog. 

• Be sure to include their titles, artists, and if possible, dates.

• For at least THREE of the paintings, try an MMM approach (moments, movements, meanings). You can type this on your blog underneath the paintings.

• Click HERE for an example from last year.

HW:
1. By Friday, please watch the Harlem Renaissance documentary linked below. It will give you the background on the Harlem Renaissance that you need to succeed this week. You can start the documentary 15 minutes into it. 

*WARNING: If you choose to watch the first 15 minutes (not required), there are upsetting photographs of lynchings between minutes 5 and 7.*

Documentary link: Making a Way Out of No Way

On Friday, you will be asked to take about 15 minutes to fill out a reflection sheet on the documentary. It will be divided into Level 1, 2, and 3 thinking. As long as you watched the documentary, you will be just fine. No need to memorize anything.

2. We will have an open-note, open-friend "quiz" on modifiers next Wednesday, Jan 31.

3. Renaissance Little Projects due February 2.