Which memories do you remember the best? Use Crayola® Markers to create artwork that tells a story in the tradition of Rivera, Ringgold, and Picasso.

• 1.

  Visit a local museum, peruse artwork online, or look through art books to view images that tell a story. Explore the artwork of Diego Rivera. Interpret the stories depicted in Faith Ringgold's Neighborhood Quilts. And interpret the hidden images in Pablo Picasso's Guernica.

• 2.

  What is your favorite memory of where you live or used to live? It might include friends, family, neighbors, buildings, festivals, or weather.

• 3.

  Using Crayola Washable Markers and Multicultural Markers, draw your memory on colored construction paper. Make the edges of your drawing irregular (not straight).

• 4.

  Write a description of your memory around the edges of your drawing, using Crayola Washable Fine Tip Markers.

• 5.

  Trim the irregular edges of your drawing with Crayola Scissors.

• 6.

  Glue several drawings on a posterboard with Crayola Washable Glue Sticks to produce a classroom mural.

• 7.

  Describe your work for the group. How is it similar to other artists' work? How is it different?

Standards

• LA: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.
• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
• SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.
• SS: Use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools to generate, manipulate, and interpret information.
• VA: Select media, techniques, an processes; analyze what makes them effective or not effective in communicating ideas; and reflect upon the effectiveness of choices.
• VA: Intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of experiences and ideas.
• VA: Use subjects, themes, and symbols that demonstrate knowledge of contexts, values, and aesthetics that communicate intended meaning in artworks.

Adaptations

• Possible classroom resources include: My Book About Me by Dr. Seuss; Diego by Jonah Winter; Faith Ringgold by Mike Venezia; Who Was Pablo Picasso by True Kelley
• Encourage students to extend this lesson plan by illustrating ideas about any curriculum topics, such as food groups, endangered species, etc.
• Students collaborate to create a mural of their collective experiences during the school year. Post the completed mural in a public place in the school.