Clementine Hunter Paintings, Take 2

Two years ago I posted about our Clementine Hunter art integration project we did with our fabulous art teacher, Mrs. Schepker.  Clementine Hunter was the daughter of former slaves, and was a self-taught artist.  The subject of her paintings were the slave memories and stories that she heard from her parents and (former-slave) grandparents.

Clementine's style was very primitive and childlike.

I loved the way this project turned out so much two years ago I decided we needed to do it again.  It combined art with primary sources: the perfect integration piece for our Civil War unit.

The students were first asked to analyze 8 different primary source slave quotes in detail.  We spent some time in class analyzing these and discussing these.  Students then were introduced to Clementine's work and her style and technique were discussed and critiqued with Mrs. Schepker.  Students then selected one of the 8 quotes they analyzed that they connected with to then paint--in Clementine's style--on a canvas.  They sketched their painting first, then got out the acrylic paint and started replicating her style.

Once students finished their painting, they were given these directions to reflect on their own painting, the quote they selected to illustrate, and Clementine's style.  Students used the screencasting feature built in on QuickTime on their laptops to do this video reflection.  They then uploaded their reflections to the class YouTube channel--that was how they "turned in" their painting and reflection.

Check out some of their final Clementine Hunter paintings and reflection videos below...you can click here for the entire playlist.  I am so proud of these kiddos and how their art integration project turned out!

Wall Map

One of my favorite projects in 7th grade is the giant to-scale wall map the students create using latitude and longitude points.  Here's the map the 7th graders from 2 years ago created: class of 2016 wall map. We do this project in conjunction with our geography unit, which highlights a ton of the geographical features and resources that we cover in class (i.e. latitude and longitude, states, capitals, countries, landforms, water bodies, etc...).

The reason this map "works" in my classroom is because there is a giant "blank" wall (which happens to be a retractable wall between my room and the math room) which allows for our map canvas to unfold.  Side note: if you're interested in doing this in your own classroom and don't have a giant open wall at your disposal, no worries!  You can do this same project on your ceiling--you just get to get even more creative in attaching it to the ceiling.

We start off by first covering 5 of the 6 wall panels with blue paper (approximately = X feet).  We then use giant world atlases to help us locate the latitude and longitude points of the different continents.  Students are divided into continent teams of 2-4, depending on the size of the continent.  Students in each class have a continent, and then the next class continues work on the continent that their peers were working on beforehand.  Students use a 2 inch x 2 inch grid as their latitude and longitude guide, where each 2 inch = 4 degrees (either latitude or longitude).

This is the longest "leg" of the project: making sure the longitude and latitude coordinates are matching up from the atlas to the paper, and between the different continent groups in the different classes.  Students, despite becoming frustrated at times, keep pushing through until their continent took shape and had borders.  Once the borders were done, then the "filling in" happened: country outlines, labeling capital cities, drawing rivers and mountain ranges, and so on.

Then, when it was all said and done, students outlined their continents in marker (we'd been using pencils up until this point!) and then start cutting out their continents.

The final stage was then putting the continents on the blue paper, using different coordinates and latitude/longitude lines (i.e. equator, prime meridian, etc...) as our guide.  Then, voila!  The wall map has come together, and the students have a super cool giant world map visual at their for the rest of the school year.  Golly, I sure love this project.

Metrolink Expedition, Part 2

Here it is!  The follow-up post to our Metrolink Expedition.  Students spent about a week in either art or tech creating Metrolink pieces: students created a Metrolink route, using pictures taken from the expedition as well as created videos that compared and contrasted the two stations the groups stopped at.


For the art pieces, students created a collage. Each piece represents a community with a MetroLink station. They created the sky from magazine pieces and represented their stops through photos that they took during the expedition.  When each collage is complete, all of the individual art pieces are connected to create a “St. Louis Block,” modeled after the Harlem Renaissance artist Romare Bearden’s, “The Block.” We have also created our collage in his style of art.  QR Codes are added to each work of art to connect the video projects created by the tech (video) groups also comparing and contrasting communities. 


For the video pieces, students took the videos and pictures they took on the expedition and created a video that compared and contrasted the two stations the group stopped at.  Students used the 5 themes of geography (MR. LIP) to first identify the different movement, region, location, interaction, and place within each station, and then used it to compare and contrast the stations together.

All in all, I am soooooo impressed with the art and videos the students came up with!  Seriously, these 7th graders continue to amaze me with their creative skills.  Take a look below at a few of the art pieces (nicely QRed with their video project linked) and videos from the expedition.  Enjoy! ...and if you'd like to check out ALL of the videos, here's the link to the 2012 Metrolink Expedition Playlist.

Metrolink Videos:

Metrolink Art Pieces:

Clementine Hunter Paintings

This past week we spent time integrating our current Civil War social studies unit with art, specifically the artistic style of Clementine Hunter.  Haven't heard of her?  Check out some info about her here.  She really is a fantastic artist, with a very childlike style.

The students, after reading and analyzing eight primary source documents written by slaves, selected one document that spoke to them.  They then used that document, as well as Clementine Hunter's style to create slave paintings.  Once again, I was so impressed with what these students came up with!  Not only did they do a phenomenal job of recreating Clementine' style, but they did a great job of making the primary source documents come alive in their artwork.