New Media Portraits MEDIA ARTS PROJECT. Learning about Similes and Metaphors through Media Arts. Grade 6

Transcription

1 New Media Portraits Topic Learning about Similes and Metaphors through Media Arts Grade 6 Subject Language Arts Descriptive Sentence Students will use writing from different points of view to create descriptions of themselves incorporating similes, metaphor and onomatopoeia. A parallel path of description and self-exploration will be created through the use of digital photography and digital imaging software (Photoshop). Students will explore self-portraiture and image manipulation. Lesson One In preparation for this class, the teacher should introduce and or review the major literary devices such as the use of metaphors and similes. Read a passage from a story or poem that uses descriptive writing from the first person and the third person perspective. The passage should include language that encourages students to think past the standard manner of describing something or someone. This passage will include similes and metaphors. Ask the students to listen for similes and metaphors. Ask for responses from the class regarding elements from the passage that stuck in their minds. Those elements may stand out because they caused an emotional response or because the use of language was powerful and unique. Were the passages written in the first and third person different in their perspective and use of language? The class will discuss the potential for language to reach out and engage the reader and cause all kinds of images to flow through his/her mind. Were there any similes in that passage? How did you identify them? Were there any metaphors in that passage? How did you identify them? Use a group activity to help reinforce the structure of the literary devices the simile and the metaphor. Create groups of three and pass around slips of blank paper and a photocopy of a brief passage of a story or poem that employs both similes and metaphors as well as writing in the first and third person. Each group will get a different poem or passage to analyze. Ask the groups to find and record what they think would be three metaphors and three similes found in the passage, one of each for each student. Ask the students to label the sheets with the term metaphor and simile. Have the students pass in their metaphor sheets into one pile and their simile sheets to another. With the class, read through some of the sheets from either pile to see whether or not it identifies the literary device correctly. Compile a list of similarities between the structures of the similes.

2 Compile a list of similarities between the structures of the metaphors. Post this list of simile and metaphor criteria prominently in the classroom. Ask the groups to identify their passages as either written in the first person or the third person. Do the passages from different perspectives describe things in different ways? If so, list some of the ways that the passages use descriptive language. Create a list with the class of these two perspectives of writing. Each student will be given the name of an object and a photograph of it (these could be clipped from magazines or found on the internet) eg: a paintbrush, a basketball or a light bulb. They will be asked to write a short paragraph for that object, first as an outsider describing the object. Then they will be asked to write in the first person, from the point of view of the object itself and how it is used. Both paragraphs should use similes and metaphor. Students will share their paragraphs with their groups. As a group they will work with each other to pick out one sentence from each of their writings that stands out to describe each of their objects. Were there similes and metaphors used in the descriptions? Did they use other forms of descriptive language such as adjectives? Have the class come together and review what they have learned about the potential of language and writing from different points of view. Specifically discuss the way that similes and metaphors operate. Lesson Two It would be extremely helpful if 3-4 parent volunteers (or perhaps high school students from the area) were available to help out with the digital photography session. The more digital cameras that are available, the more volunteers will be needed. Materials Needed Digital cameras (ideally, one for every group of four to five students) that can easily download images onto the school computers. Computer lab with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. Show samples of portraits and self portraits by historical artist such as Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Kahlo. Lead a discussion with the class about the value of creating portraits and why we have continued to do this through our history. Show some more examples and ask the class to describe what they might understand about the artist and his or her life by carefully examining the self-portraits. What elements in the artwork help the viewer to form opinions about the artist and his/her life at that moment? How does the body language the facial expression change your perceptions? How does the use of colour influence your interpretation? Does the sum of all of these various elements bring us to a new understanding of who that artist is? Lead a discussion about the importance of showing the character of a person in their self-portrait. The class will review the visual elements of how to display a person s character: facial expression, body position/language, colour of clothes and background, size of the figure in frame, point of view from which the photograph is taken. Show examples of strong photographs, both technically and visually.

3 Ask the students to help describe what makes these photographs work well technically and visually. Show examples of images that are weak because of visual problems such as images that are not well balanced, too much empty space around the subject, or cropping off an important element. Ask the students to describe what the visual challenges are with the photos. Create a list of these challenges with the images Discuss how to overcome these problems. Show examples of technical challenges such as images that are out of focus, underexposed (not enough light), overexposed (too much light), or have camera shake. Ask the students to describe what the technical challenges are with the photos. Create a list of the technical challenges with the images. Discuss how to overcome these problems. Show how close the digital cameras can come to the subject and still make a photograph that is in focus. Discuss how important the composition of the photograph is: how to choose framing for the subject that will be visually interesting and pleasing to the eye. Discuss how important it is to consider the size of the figure in frame and from what point of view from the photograph is taken. Show examples of successful portraits and have the class discuss why they work. Demonstrate how to operate the cameras and how to download the photographs onto the computer. The students break into small groups and use digital cameras to take pictures of each other. Each student should have at least three photographs taken of them. The photographs from each camera group should be downloaded onto the computers and saved in a student or class folder that will be easily accessible for the next lesson. Lead discussion with the class about the use of the digital cameras. Pose questions similar to these: Was there something new about using a camera that they discovered today? What was the most challenging part? What was the easiest part? Lesson Three Teacher Directed Ensure that every student has had their portrait taken and downloaded onto the computer. Read a passage in which a person is being described by the author or another character in the story. The passage should include similes and metaphors. Lead a discussion about the use of language in the passage and the point of view from which it was written. Lead a discussion about the power of words to describe a person as well as the potential for hurt feelings if words are used maliciously. How can we use positive terms to describe someone? Lead a discussion with the class about describing a person with positive descriptive language. The class will pick a famous person, such as a celebrity or political figure and create similes and metaphors for that person. The students will work with a partner and through positive exploration, write a short description of them.

4 The students will work on their own to write the brief descriptions of their partner that would best describe them. The writing should include similes and metaphors that they feel best represents this person. As a guide for creation the students can describe the other person by comparing their characteristics to those of an animal as be fuel for the similes and metaphors. eg: She is as quiet as a mouse, Mike is a proud lion, walking through his kingdom Have them repeat that process with other elements that could be used metaphorically eg: a landform, a type of weather, earth, fire, water, air or type of plant or tree. Lead a discussion with the class about the use of descriptive language and writing about someone. What was the most challenging aspect of this? What was the most fun aspect of this? If some of the students feel comfortable, they could share some of their writings with the rest of the class. Lesson Four Lead a discussion with the class about the need for revising and editing. It might be helpful to consider examples outside of writing in which we revise and edit our skills. Ask questions such as: What was it like the first time you went skating? Did you immediately skate right across the ice or did you fall down and have to get up and try again? When you play a computer game with different levels on it, do you get to the end the very first time or do you need to try many times, learning how to take on the challenges each time? Share a passage of descriptive writing that demonstrates an excellent use of similes and metaphors. Lead a discussion about the strengths of the passage. Read a passage that demonstrates poorly written descriptive language with unclear or misleading similes and metaphors. The class will help to revise and edit the passage so that it is stronger. The students will input their descriptive writing in a word processing program. The partners will work together to help each other edit the descriptive writings about each other. Lead a discussion about the editing process. What challenges were there in revising the work about you? How did it feel to read someone else s perspective of you? Did they seem accurate? Is that how you see yourself? Lesson Five This lesson will take place in the computer lab using the application Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. If there are any parent or high school volunteers available, it would be helpful. Discuss the software Photoshop Elements with the class. Pose questions such as: Has anyone used this program before? What do you think it may be for? Show some images that have been created using Photoshop. Show some examples of text and images being used together. The class will help to create a list of visually successful uses of text with an image, including use of different colours, types and sizes of fonts as well as the placement of it. A visual reference chart will be created for the students to help with the addition of text to their portraits.

5 Lead a demonstration for the class on the computer of how to open up Photoshop Elements and open an image file. Demonstrate how to resize the digital camera portraits that were taken. Demonstrate how to add text to a document in Photoshop. The class will review the list that they created for strong use of text with an image. A handout with instructions for all of the appropriate steps will be provided so that the students will have a guide to refer to after the demonstration. The students will open their photographs in Photoshop and resize them to the appropriate size. The students will add text to their portrait. The text will be a selection from the descriptive writing that their partner wrote about them, eg: As bright as a summer s day. Lead a discussion with the students about the use of Photoshop. What was challenging about working with Photoshop? What was the most fun? What did you do to make your piece of text work well with your portrait? What was it like to have someone else s words describe you? Lesson Six Read a passage that includes a first person description of themselves. This passage should include descriptive language and similes and metaphors. Lead the class in a discussion of what the first person account was like. Was it different than the third person accounts that they have previously read? The students will play a brief self-description game in groups of five. Distribute three half sheet pieces of paper to each student. On the papers, the students will write a simile or metaphor about themselves. They will write three of these in total. Each of the descriptions will be on a separate sheet. In their small groups, all of the self-descriptions will be put together. They will take turns reading each of the self-descriptions and trying to guess who the author of each is. The students will use the three similes or metaphors that they created for the game as a starting point to do a fuller description of themselves using descriptive language and similes and metaphors. Lead a discussion with the class regarding the descriptive writing about themselves. What was the most challenging aspect? What was the most fun part? Is it harder to write about yourself than writing about others? If so, why? Lesson Seven This lesson will take place in the computer lab. If there are any parent or high school volunteers available, it would be helpful. Show the class some portraits that have been manipulated on the computer. Lead a discussion about what the class sees present in the portraits. How do the digital manipulations change the viewer perceptions about the portrait? What emotional response do they create in the viewer? Demonstrate how the functions of Photoshop are used to create distortions in an image using different filters and functions. The students will use Photoshop to manipulate their portrait. It is very important that they use manipulations that are in keeping with the nature of the description that they will use about

6 themselves, eg: if the text is going to read As calm as a pond on a windless day, it would be not be helpful to use a Photoshop motion filter that made the image look more agitated and chaotic. Lead the class in a discussion on the manipulations that they explored that day. Which functions produced the results that you liked the best? Why did you like them? Was it difficult to find a manipulation that worked for your particular literary description. Lesson Eight Lead a discussion with the students reminding them of the value of revising and editing their work. Share a simile and metaphor about yourself that needs some work and have the class respond by helping to revise and edit it. The class will participate in a brief activity to further recognize similes and metaphors and their appropriateness in a particular passage describing someone. Divide the class in half and assign each half the task of listening for similes and the other half the task of listening for metaphors in a passage to be read. The class is to take note of each of the uses of the literary device they are looking for and how it fits into the context of the description. Read a passage written in the first person describing yourself. This passage will have some similes and metaphors that don t quite fit together in the context your description of yourself At the end of the passage, the class will list the number of each of the literary devices heard and a key word or phrase to refer to it. Then the class as a whole will refer to the passage as a whole and discuss if all of the similes and metaphors seem to fit. They will help the teacher revise and edit the passage describing them. The students will work with their partners to revise and edit the passage that they have written about themselves. Lead a discussion about the revising and editing process. What challenges were there in revising the work about someone else? How did it feel to read someone else s perspective of themselves? Did they seem accurate? Is that how you see them? Lesson Nine This lesson will take place in the computer lab. If there are any parent or high school volunteers available, it would be helpful. Share some examples of portraits that have been manipulated and have text added to them that are very successful in the uses of both of those elements. Lead a discussion about what is successful in those image/text combinations. Share some examples of manipulated portraits with text that don t work very well. Lead a discussion about why those image/text combinations don t work well. Lead the class in a review of how to create text in the image. Demonstrate how to manipulate text in Photoshop. The students will work on their individual portrait to add text to it and manipulate that text. They will try different possible versions of the manipulated text to see which works best. The students will ask their partner for advice in revising and editing their image and text selfportrait.

7 When the students feel that they are completed with their project, they can share both the straight portrait with another student s description of them and the manipulated image and text selfportraits. Possible methods are a class display, sharing in small groups with discussions, sharing the portraits with another class or at a parents night. Lead a discussion assessing the project and the creation of the self-portraits using metaphor and similes. Pose questions similar to these: Which one of the portraits was more interesting to create: the portrait with someone else s word to describe you or your own words? Which one was more challenging to create? Lead a discussion reflecting on the project as a whole. What did you find most challenging about the project as a whole? What did you enjoy the most? Did the revising and editing of the text help you to make a better description? Did the manipulations of the image and the text help to make the self-portraits more descriptive and revealing?