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Emotional Portraits

Students will learn about the importance of being true to oneself and create a portrait that expresses feelings related to that concept.

Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Paper

Steps

  • Step 1

    "A Bad Case of Stripes" is a book written and illustrated by David Shannon that came out in 1998 and still used today as a resource to prevent bullying. Read the book or a synopsis of it, which centers on a girl who tries to suppress her love of lima beans because everyone else hates them. This causes her to go through many metamorphoses that begin with her waking up covered with stripes and then progress to other weird manifestations. In the end she learns that the only cure for her disfigurations is to eat lima beans and not worry about what others will think of her.

  • Step 2

    Have a class discussion about the importance of being true to oneself and not giving in to peer pressure or bullying. Ask them to list ways they could achieve this, such as by making decisions based on how they feel and not on what others think or what they see on social media, embracing their differences as assets that make them unique, reversing a negative self-reflection by restating it in a positive manner, etc.

  • Step 3

    Have students reflect on something about themselves (or a character from a book or movie) that was deemed "negative"or where the person tried to adopt the feelings others had instead of staying true to their own feelings. Then ask them to create a portrait of themselves or the character and illustrate it with images of this aspect. For example, perhaps the girl in the image on the left is covered in music symbols because her love of classical music resulted in classmates teasing her.

  • Step 4

    When the artwork is done, have students discuss what they drew, who it represented (if it was a book or movie character), and how they learned or could learn to feel proud and accepting of their perceived differences.

Standards

SEL: Self-Awareness: Recognize one’s strengths, emotions, and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose.

SEL: Social Awareness: Understand the perspectives of and strengths of others.

Adaptations

Have students write a letter to their future selves in which they talk about how perceived negatives will turn to positives. For example, the girl who loves classical music will tell her future self to be proud of her passion because it will lead her to a successful career with an orchestra.

Ask students to recall a time when they thought negatively about someone, perhaps because of a perceived shortcoming, quirky trait, or non-conforming behavior. Then have them identify at least three positive aspects or strengths about that person.