Alfred Thompson Bricher, At the South Head, Grand Manan. Oil on canvas, 55 7/8 x 45 3/4 inches. Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
Feodor Zakharov, View of the Shimmering Sea from Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Oil on canvas, 32 x 45 inches. Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.
English Language Arts
Grade 2
5: Hand-Me-Down Tales From Around the World
2 45-60-minute lessons
main idea
Why do we hand down stories?
How are poems, folk tales, and art alike?
How are they different?
I can listen to a poem and understand what the author is trying to say.
I can show my understanding by drawing a picture.
I can use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast different versions of the same setting.
Introduce the unit by asking students about using their imaginations to go places. We use our imaginations as we are reading or listening to reading for the purpose of visualizing a place (setting).
Introduce a poet who lived over 100 years ago and also loved to go places in his imagination: Robert Louis Stevenson. As a child, he was sometimes sick. While confined to his bed, his mother read him many stories and he would imagine going to these places. He loved the sea. Later in his life he wrote many poems to express his love of travel and adventure.
Today you will listen to a poem called “Where Go the Boats?” As you are listening, I know you will be able to form a picture in your head. Read the poem (students listen first). Read the poem again.
Have each student draw his or her visual perception of the poem.
Review what you and the students did in the first lesson.
Reread the poem “Where Go the Boats.”
Show the artwork At the South Head, Grand Manan with a scene of the boats and the river. Whole group: Ask who, what, when, where questions to work on compare and contrast of the poem and work of art.
Use a graphic organizer of your chart.
Tell the students you are going to read a folktale about a river and you will show them a piece of art that you think shows the visual perception from the author of the folk tale.
Read “River Talk” from Aesop’s Fables.
As soon as you are finished show the students the art image View of the Shimmering Sea. Discuss what they see and how it relates to the folktale. Ask who, what, when, and where questions again to help students see the relationship between the folktale and the art piece.
Describe how the beginning of the story may relate to the picture and how the ending of the story may clarify the picture more clearly.
Product: Use Venn diagram to compare the two different pictures
copy of the poem “Where Go the Boats?”, by Robert Louis Stevenson, written on chart paper; copy of the poem “Where Go the Boats?”, by Robert Louis Stevenson, for each student; art paper, colored pencils or crayons
folktales, diverse cultures compare and contrast, foam
Alfred Thompson Bricher, American, At the South Head, Grand Manan, 1880s. Oil on canvas, 55 7/8 x 45 3/4 (141.9 x 116.2 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. Museum purchase with funds provided by the John A. Schwarz III and Anita Eerdmans Schwarz Family Endowment, 2002.18.1. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.
Feodor Zakharov, American, View of the Shimmering Sea from Woods Hole, Massachusetts, c. 1927. Oil on canvas, 32 x 45 inches (81.3 x 114.3 cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. Museum purchase, 1996.6.1. Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion.