Maps as Self-Portraits: Self + Story

Documentation + Assessment Suggestions

Project 1: Collective World Map
Students were assessed on their ability to complete the homework worksheet, and on their participation in the collective painting. They got points for filling in the worksheets with descriptions or pictures. Also if they were able to work as a team with their peers during the world map collective painting, and knew how to use their take-home sheet as a reference, they received points for that as well.

Project 2: Maps from Memory
Students were assessed on their integration of their memory maps into their final projects, and on their use of space and monochromatic colors. When grading their neighborhood maps, I looked to see if they had incorporated all of the places in their web maps within the final drawing of their neighborhood, and also checked for demonstration of their knowledge of monochromatic colors.

Project 3: Identity Maps
Students were assessed on their completion of their heart maps, on the craftsmanship of materials in their silhouette, and on the completion of the painting around it. Students got points for using the correct materials in the right areas of their maps. They also received points for completing the heart maps with their own drawings and descriptions. Lastly, they got points for the neatness and visibility of their silhouette within the painting.

Learning Activities

Projects 1 + 2 — Maps: From World to Neighborhood

• Discuss… Contemporary artists Janice Caswell and Lucie Conoley. Compare and contrast abstract and tangible mapmaking vs. detailed representation of a specific place.
  Complete Worksheet… Find the country your family and ancestors are from. Mark the country with a star, the name of the area, and the language spoken there. (This is a take-home worksheet that students complete at home with parents.)
• Draw… a line with pins and string to connect where you’re from to Chicago, and use paint to make a permanent mark of pilgrimage. Anchor one pin with several long strings to Chicago; have each student place a pin in the country of their origin. (They may not know where exactly in the country so I just had them choose a spot within the borders if they did not know.) Allow students to choose a string to connect and wrap around their pin. Then, following the string with a paintbrush, they create a straight line. When they’re done they can remove their pin and string for the next student’s turn.
  Investigate… a memory map/web diagram, writing down from memory all of the landmarks in your neighborhood (streets, stores, restaurants, schools, parks, etc.). I drew my example step-by-step so students could follow my thought process; you could also create a worksheet with the general outline of the web, and have them just add the specific details. However, some of their webs were very interesting when they had to draw their own, and several even included little drawings or pictures.
• Design… Your neighborhood map starting with your streets first, and draw the rest around your home. Choose one color to use to add monochromatic color to your neighborhood map. (Use a variety of thick and thin markers for the main aspects of your drawing: buildings, roads, trees, etc. Use a variety of colored pencils and values to fill in the remaining space of your drawing.)
• Install… the collective painting in the school for all students to identify and visualize how far they’ve traveled, and to reflect on the diversity of our the student population. Installing the work in the hallway allows other students to see and draw connections through their neighborhood to the map.

Project 3 — Identity Maps: Self and Family

• Discuss… contemporary artists Joseph Grigley and Yinka Shonibare. Compare and contrast ways artists incorporate identity into their artworks: memories and conversations vs. ideas and images from culture.
• Draw… a heart map with all of your favorite people, places, things, and images that represent who you are. I had a general guide worksheet with suggestions to create several pieces. Depending on the size of the heart they drew, and the shape and size of the pieces within, some students had many extra spaces. In those spaces I allowed them to add their own ideas or drawings.
• Photograph… yourself in a pose of your choice to use as a silhouette to overlap your self-portrait map, cutting out the photo to use it as an outline. While students were working on drawing their heart maps, I pulled them into the hallway in groups of 3 or 4 to take their photographs. Pulling them in groups allowed them to work out some different ideas for their poses, and allowed the more shy students to have peer support and suggestions.
• Investigate… where your family came from before arriving in Chicago (take-home worksheet on family stories and traditions). I wanted this to be fairly interpretive; many of my student’s parents don’t know any English. I created a variety of notepaper shapes with Joseph Grigley’s artwork in mind, so that students and their families could fill these in using words or drawings. The back of the worksheet has ideas and suggestions in case they need them.
• Complete Worksheet… Worksheet 3: traditions and stories about your culture and family. Have a conversation with your family and write down and/or draw 7 stories and traditions.
• Design… your heart map as a self-portrait to include traditions and stories from your worksheet, and overlay your silhouette to interact with your map. Choose a composition for your silhouette that creates balance, and outline your photograph. Use crayons to add color to the areas inside your silhouette. Use watercolor pencils and paint to finish adding color to the rest of your drawing. The silhouette creates a wax-resist effect so the silhouette is subtle, but present, in your self-portrait map. This was broken down into steps, with students using a specific material each day:
  • Day 1: Crayon to fill in the areas within the silhouette
  • Day 2: Watercolor pencils to color the rest of the heart
  • Day 3: Adding details from the worksheet and outlining them in crayon
  • Day 4: Watercolor paint to complete the space around the heart and silhouette. Some choose a solid color; some use patterns and designs.
• Install… your work in the hallway for other students to see and draw connections through their self-portrait maps.

MCA Connections

Students took a field trip to the MCA where they saw work by one of the artists for their third project, Yinka Shonibare. They were able to engage in dialogue on how Yinka Shonibare creates artwork that references his culture visually and conceptually. After the visit, students completed a take-home worksheet with their families with stories and traditions from their culture, incorporating these into their self-portrait heart maps.

Katie Preston

Passages Charter School

Katie Preston holds a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in fine art and art education. She is the visual art teacher at Passages Charter School, a preK-8th grade charter school in Andersonville, Chicago. The demographic at her school is mainly refugees from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. One of her main goals has been implementing art therapy techniques and approaches for refugees, special education students, and for the rest of the student population.

Katie reflects on her creative process
The process of developing this curriculum was an exciting one; through the Professional Development Sessions at the MCA I was able to refresh my knowledge about how I can view and share contemporary art with my students. The MCA motivated me to create projects that could help connect our students through their experiences as refugees, not just in terms of where they came from, but also by finding a new identity in a brand new environment.

Many of my students are Nigerian, so when I saw Yinka Shonibare’s sculptures outside the museum I realized there was an opportunity for them to draw connections to their own culture through his artwork. I then looked for artists who incorporated aspects of their identities in a visual way through artwork. I wanted the projects to reference the global diversity of my students, so a world-to-neighborhood idea for projects started to evolve. The first two of my projects were completed in a parallel process. They used Janice Caswell as inspiration to create a more tactile map using tacks and string, drawing physically tangible connections from their countries of origin to Chicago. They used Lucie Conoley as inspiration to create web diagrams from memory, with the centers being their homes, using the webs to create maps of their neighborhoods.

Students began to not just be able to describe where things were in their neighborhood; stories also began to evolve out of these drawings. Students were able to draw a connection through what they were making to another student’s work of art, and a dialogue among students was formed around these works of art during the process of creating.

I’ve always integrated contemporary art and artists in my curriculum. This process has validated the value of contemporary art for young lives. It serves as a more tangible and relatable experience of creating. Contemporary art in many ways reinforces the approaches of Common Core and Whole Brain Thinking with its creation of dialogue. Most people and even students think that you have to fall into the space of either an artist or teacher, but through this process I’ve realized that the two aren’t that fundamentally different. Good and effective teachers have to be creative in their teaching, and some artists view their teaching as part of their work, and continue a separate kind of work outside of the classroom. When these two can be fused together, I think it creates a really great opportunity, not for the artist, but for those that you aim to inspire.