Arts-Based Lesson Plans

Listen and Draw

Adapted From Smithsonian in Your Classroom, Fall 2002)
In this lesson, students use their visualizing and interpreting skills to produce original writings and drawings.  First, they listen to an adaptation of William Clark's description of the sage grouse.  As you read aloud, they form mental images that they translate into drawings of the bird.  In the second part, Meriwether Lewis's observations of the black woodpecker might serve as inspiration for the students' descriptions of animals.  Ideally, each student chooses an animal to write about on a field trip to a zoo or a museum.  If this is not possible, pets or even pictures of animals will do.  Students might even describe animals they have created out of their own imaginations.

Materials

Unlined paper Crayons or markers in brown, black, red and yellow William Clark's rendition of a sage grouse

Instructions

Part 1

1. Explain to students that you will read a description of an animal, which they will then try to draw.
2. Let them know that William Clark wrote the description, but do not name or define the animal yet.  Tell them you will read it twice:  the first time to help them form an image of it, then again to "guide" their hands as they draw it.  They should stop drawing when you finish reading the second time.  Let them know that accuracy is more important than artistic talent.
3. Read the following paragraph aloud twice.  Ask students to draw the animal as if viewing it from the side.

This bird is nearly the size of a turkey.  The beak is thick and short.  The top of the beak is bigger than the bottom.  The nostrils are large.  This bird is covered with feathers that are mostly dark brown with shades of red and yellow mixed in.  The feathers are also speckled with black.  Its wings are only dark brown.  The tail is long and comes to a very sharp point.  The legs of the bird are covered with feathers down to about half the distance between the knee and the foot.  It has four pointed toes on each foot.  The back toe is the shortest of all. 


4. Ask students to stop drawing now.
5. Distribute copies of the picture of Clark's sage grouse.  You might point out that Lewis and Clark were the first American citizens to describe it for science - the first, in fact, to see it.  Ask students to compare their drawings to Clark's.  How are they alike?  How are they different?  Remind them again that this was not an exercise in drawing perfectly, but in following the instructions.  What might Clark have said - or said better - to make the description clearer?  Seeing errors in the drawing might lead students to a good critique of the description.  Did they notice that Clark didn't describe the eyes?  Did they draw eyes anyway?

1. Have student draw their animals (whether from a field trip or their imaginary animals - they could even be composite animals with the head of one animal, the body of another, and feet of another)
2. Distribute copies of the "Your Animal" information listed below.
3. Explain that this is a description of a black woodpecker written by Meriwether Lewis, which each student can use as a kind of guide to write his or her own detailed description of an animal.
4. Assist students who need additional reading and comprehension support.  Allow the class 30-35 minutes to complete the exercise.
5. Have students pair up and read their descriptions to their partner who will draw based on the information (like was done as a group in Part 1).
6. Have students make revisions to their descriptions based on this experience.

Lewis and Clark wrote about animals in the West for readers who had never seen them.  The words in quotation marks below were written by Meriwether Lewis to describe a black woodpecker, now called Lewis's woodpecker.  Read his words and think about the questions that follow.  This might help you write about your animal in the way that Lewis and Clark wrote about new animals.

"He is about the size of a turtle dove."
What size is your animal?  Can you compare your animal's size to another animal's size?

"The beak is one inch in length, black, curved at the base and sharply pointed."
Would it help your description to use inches, color, and shape to describe your animal's mouth (or its beak, if it's a bird)?

"The top of the head, the back, the sides, and the upper surface of the wing are glossy green."
Can you describe the body of your animal?

"The tongue is barbed and pointed."
Does your animal have a strange-looking tongue?"

"The eye is rather large, the pupil black and the iris of a dark and yellowish brown."
Can you describe your animal's eyes?

"The tail is equipped with ten feathers."
Does your animal have a tail?  How do you think it helps your animal?

"The legs and feet are covered with scales."
Does your animal have some kind of protection like scales?

"He has four toes on each foot, two in the rear and two in the front."
What can you say about your animal's feet?

"The nails are much curved and remarkably sharp."
Can you write about your animal's toenails?

Now that you've finished writing, do you have a picture of your animal in your head?  Draw it exactly as you imagine it, then ask a friend to draw it as you read the description.  Compare your drawing to your friend's.  How do they compare?  You may need to make revisions to your description to help your friend draw it the way you see it.

Science

Students draw an animal.  They are then paired with a partner to sit back to back.  One student orally describes their animal while the other student attempts to draw that animal.  Students may not turn around to look at what the partner has drawn.  When finished, the drawings may be shared.  Partners then switch and other the other student describes their animal.  After both students have had turns, they can share why their animals have certain characteristics (i.e. why the giraffe has a long neck).  They can also add the animal's habitat and food to the background of the picture.  (Idaho Standards 112.07 - observe and explore the life cycle of plans and animals and their basic needs; 112. 08 - recognize that animals live in different habitats for which they are suited; 112.09 understand living things need food to survive; 107.52 follow three-step oral directions)

After a birds of prey unit, teacher lists 30 different birds (not all birds of prey) which have been discussed throughout the unit, on slips of paper.  Students will choose a bird, but will not tell or show it to anyone.  Students will draw their bird on drawing paper, then describe the bird using sentences.  Teacher discusses the importance of using descriptive words and phrases.  (Idaho Standard, Language Arts 698 reading, 699 writing, 700 listening, 701 speaking, 702 viewing; Science 576)

Use this lesson to help students describe and draw planets and other heavenly bodies in our solar system, to describe and draw plants and their parts in order to meet Idaho Standards 573.01 and 573.05. 

Music

There are many different symbols used in music.  This project will be used to have students practice drawing music notation.  They'll have to be able to describe the symbols, and they'll have to be able to do this correctly.  Here are some examples:

5 horizontal music lines - the music staff
    name the 5 lines - EGBDF (Elvis's Guitar Broke Down Friday)
    name the spaces - FACE

Note values
    draw an eighth note
        stem
        filled in head
        one flag
  
    draw a half note
        step
        empty head

Notes on the staff

Symbols:  accent, staccato, crescendo, decrescendo, fermata, etc.  The student would describe the symbol to their partner, the partner will draw it and have to name the symbol correctly. 

This is a great project for assessing understanding.  (Standard 5 - reading and notating music)

Math