Lesson plans for ages 15-18 in Art: Repatriation and Graphic Communication

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Akbar Khurasani became a Ukrainian citizen after 17 years in the country.

© UNHCR/N.Prokopchuk

LESSONS 2 and 3: Persecution and exile

Preparation

Book the school library for the class. Discuss with the Librarian the types of resources which the students will need to locate and use, in order to complete the assignment (art history books, encyclopaedias of art, prints/reproductions of works by the artists under study, periodicals indexes to find appropriate journal articles).

Obtain reproductions of Cardplaying War-Cripples by Otto Dix and The Fate of the Animals by Franz Marc.

Procedure

Review the various responses to the Discussion questions from the previous lesson.

Show the two pictures Cardplaying War-Cripples and The Fate of the Animals and discuss the possible motives of the artists in producing their respective works. Talk about the students' own aesthetic and emotional response to the two works and ask them to write down a few lines about their responses. Their written responses will be required for a later lesson.

Library assignment

Divide the students into small groups and assign each group an artist to research. For each artist, the students need to find out information about:

The main events in the artist's life. Aspects of society about which the artist felt compelled to express his or her viewpoint. How the artist expressed his or her opinion, referring to particular works.

During the research time, encourage the students, within their groups, to discuss how they respond to the artist's work.

Finally, copies of the finished product from each group should be given to the other members of the class.