Tuesday 18 April 2017

Image challenge - IS 'street art' ART?

Image Challenge - week twelve

Can we call it Art?



So here is another exciting week with images. As for the past weeks we talked about Art, today I would like to stay wih the topic but maybe leave museums and art galleries and go outside.....to the street. Can we find art in the street? Sure we can!!!

Recently, I've had a text about graffiti in the coursebook with my 12 year-olds. It really inspired me to prepare a lesson that would be completely devoted to street art. I wanted to check the way they perceive it and expand the topic a bit. Since street art is not only graffiti but also murals, symbols, tags etc. I wanted them to understand that painings on the wall can have a message - even very powerful one, as in case of Banksy, for example. The street doesn't only limit to the walls but also pavements/sidewalks and this is where 3D street art developed with top names such as Julian Beever.


LESSON PLAN


'Graffiti is a poem the city writes to itself' (seen somewhere on the wall)

Vocabulary to pre-teach

tag - a signiture of an artist representeed by letters or an image
mural - a large picture painted directly on a wall or ceiling
epigram - a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement.
(there is also a special graffiti language but we don't want our students to become graffiti painters, instead we want to make them aware of a few facts and encourage to produce some language)

Level - interemediate+

Age - 14+

WARM UP -5 min

Ask your students some questions regarding graffiti:

some typical tags on the wall
1. Do you think street art is ART or VANDALISM? Why?
2. What kind of graffiti is commonly found in your town or city? Are they images or words?
3. Are they tags, murals, symbols, logos, icons or messages?
4. Where can you see graffiti?
5. Why do people paint graffiti?
6. What type of music is often associated with graffiti? (hip-hop, punk)



Suggested answers: Why? For political reasons, out of boredom, to express their anger, to mark the territory etc. Where? On the trains, train or underground stations, walls, tunnels etc.

STAGE ONE

Show your students two different types of graffiti. One with typical tags and signs and the second one with some painting. Students compare the photos telling which one they would call ART. Ask your students: Which of them would you like to see in your hometown? Why? Why not?


STAGE TWO - group discussion

Ask your students: Do you know any famous graffiti painters? Which ones? Why are they famous? Some students may be familiar with Banksy and his works, others not. Explain who Bunksy is and what kind of art he does.

Banksy is an anonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist and film director of unverified identity. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark homour with grafftiti. Banksy's works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. (source -Wikipedia)

Divide your students into 3-4 groups depending on the number of students you have in the class. Each group gets one of the Banksy's works. They are given a few minutes to discuss what it represents, where it is located and what is the message . Group discussion. A few examples below. There are plenty available on the internet.



Show me the Monet reworking of Claude Monet's Water Lillies, showing the connection between nature and mankind


                                                                                Hope for the future on the Israel - Gaza barier wall


No trespassing painted in San Francisco - comments on indigenous rights of native people whose lands have been invaded and occupied


                                                                            The Slave Labour mural as it appeared in May 2012


Then each of the groups presents its version and discusses it with the rest of the class. Tell them the true story of each of his paintings (you can find easily on the internet).

STAGE THREE

Street art doesn't only limit to walls. There are some artists who decided to use pavements and streets to create their art. Ask your students if they know any of them. Present briefly Julian Beever:

Julian Beever -  is known all over the world for his pavement drawings, more especially his 3D illusions, drawn in a special distortion to create an impression of 3D when seen from one particular viewpoint. He is often called Pavement Picasso. (http://www.julianbeever.net). 

You can do this in two ways: either print out a few copies and put it on the board or open google graphics and show a slide show of his works of arts. Below a few examples: 





Discuss with the students if we can call it art. Students describe selected photos telling what they can see and where they think they were painted and why. For example, the first one was painted by the river to stop people from speeding. 

Since all the photos are 3D you can use them perfectly to practice the language of description (there is always something happening in them and they are colourful) and revise the vocabulary such as: in the foreground, in the background, in the corner, at the top, in the middle, in the top left-hand corner etc.


STAGE FOUR - pair work activity

Students open Pinterest and look for graffiti art. Their task is to find the one they would like to have on their bedroom walls.  Students work in pairs and explain each other why they would like to have a certain graffiti on their walls. Then they change partners. 


Follow up activities: you can print out students' names in graffiti fonts and hand in each of them. Students colour them the way they want. With younger students you can take some chalk and go out to do same pavement art:) You can also watch a film where is presented how Julian Beever works or there is also the film about Banksy's life and works that you can recommend to your students.

Hope you will enjoy the lesson with your students:)


Friday 14 April 2017

14TH APRIL 1912 - TITANIC AND THE UNTOLD TRUE STORY

Water Of Life


Stories have been part and parcel of our lives since prehistoric times. People used to sit around the fire and tell them one after another. But every story has a twist and every story can have a different perspective. In today's post, I would like to show you a great activity where the story changes depending on a storyteller.

                                         



LEVEL - pre-intermediate +

AGE - 13 +

THE PLOT

Set in 1912, 'Uisce Beatha' (Gaelic for Whiskey or Water Of Life) is the true story of Tom, a young Irish man who leaves his home in rural Ireland to cross the ocean on the ill-fated 'Titanic'. But a night of celebration beforehand results in a twist that will affect Tom's fate drastically....


Film address:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtJgMViTbNo


WARM UP

Ask your students if they know what happened on 14th April 1912. Some students may be familiar with the date, some not. Tell them the story of Titanic and asked them if they have seen the film. Class discussion.

STAGE ONE

Divide your students into groups of 4. Give each of the groups a set of 5 screenshots from the film. Tell them that this is a true story that took place in Ireland in 1912 on the day Titanic set off. Give them a few minutes to prepare their own version of the story. Monitor the use of L1. When they finish, each group has to present its version. One last screenshot is missing, give them the last photo a minute before the end (it can be any photo, to mess up a bit in their story:). Ask how it influences their story. Does it change? You want to make students aware that knowing a fact or two more, can change the perspective completely.






STAGE TWO

Play the film to the end. Ask students which version was the closest to the original story.


                                


STAGE THREE

Ask your students to work in the same groups. This time they have to retell the story but from a different perspective.

Group one - you are the father whose son decides to leave hometown and travel to America. Tell your own story (feelings, opinion etc.)

Group two - you are the son who cannot stand poverty and decides to leave his father and look for work and a better life in America

Group three - you are the bar owner who meets a young naive boy who boast about going to America

Group four - you are one of the 'new friends' met in the bar who meets a young man who is planning to travel by Titanic the following day

Give your students a few minutes to prepare their own version of the story and choose one person from each group to tell it aloud. 

STAGE FOUR

Students work in pairs this time. One is a journalist, the second one the young man. Let's imagine that the story took place in modern times. All media would like to hear this unbelievable story of the man who fooled his destiny. You are the journalist and have to run an interview. Prepare a short role-play and act it out. Choose two pairs of students to act it out in front of the class.

STAGE FIVE

Questioning the truth. And what if it wasn't Titanic that sank but a completely different ship. It's still a mistery but there are a few versions of the story going around. Ask your student to look for a video of a conspiracy theory about the real Titanic. There are plenty of videos available on Youtube. Give it as homework.

REMEMBER - you can change it up side down if you want and not mention anything about Titanic at the beginning and let the story develop.....

Hope you will enjoy the lesson and this beautiful story:)