Many of our curricular topics are enhance by the use of primary sources. Remember that primary sources can be original cartoons or caricatures, paintings or photographs, statues or models, or other artifacts. The different strategies within the Artful Thinking model help the students learn to dig deeper into the small details of what they see, the feelings it evokes and to see the connection between the art and their unit of study. Artful Thinking is a product of Project Zero that was developed by Harvard.
Sometime in early February, the 100th day of school always occurs. This is a reason for great celebration in the early childhood and younger grades. One of our teachers asked me to help her gather photos from 1916 to use in a writing project on 100th Day. I ended up sharing those photos with Pre k through 4th grade and because of their interest I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to do an infograph based on 3 of the Artful Thinking strategies. I then shared the infograph with all our middle school teachers. The social studies/history teachers were the first to respond with ideas of how Artful Thinking reflections could benefit their students as they looked at primary sources.
*Look/Listen 10×2, Elaboration Game, What Makes you Say That?
Infograph create using Canva