Multi-cultural Celebrations!

Rationale & Goal

!

Unit Plan #2 !
Ellen Gessert

For my second unit plan, I am focusing on my fifth grade classes and multicultural celebrations and education. Multicultural education and diversity education are extraordinarily important in our schools, at all age levels. To have a classroom that is diverse in education, all students feel welcome and engaged. There is so much diversity in schools, every student needs to understand and be aware of what multiculturalism is and how they can encourage it. Multicultural education and diversity are themes that need to be built into the curriculum for students to develop a deep understanding. By doing this, students and even teachers will begin to foster a tolerance and appreciation of differences in our schools and communities. Through knowledge, learning, and creating, students will begin to overcome prejudice/inequality and appreciate the diversity that is all around. Multiculturalism is absolutely crucial for students to understand. Students will learn the definition and purpose, but also recognize the incredible people who have worked to make multicultural celebrations possible. In this unit, students will be studying various celebrations, significant individuals working for equality and diverse ways to work together to create art! By looking at these different themes, students will develop a sense of perspective; a new view point to these ideas that develop empathy and acceptance. Essentially, the questions of this unit will be based around; HOW can we use Art to celebrate multiculturalism, diversity, and friendship? WHY is perspective important for our students to understand? WHERE is this perspective/empathy visually or verbally represented in Art? WHAT symbols, colors, shapes, elements and principals of design will effectively communicate your theme? To begin our unit, we will celebrate National Diversity Week, November 18th through the 22nd. We will be looking at Martin Luther King Jr. and his historic speeches that recognize diversity. I will choose specific quotes from his speeches and assign one to each class. From here, each student will design the selected words in a creative and expressive way. Students will be creating a piece of art that focuses on the question; how does text fit into the art world? We will also focus on expression in terms of empathy and perspective. Students will study famous graffiti artists, such as Bansky. For our second project, we will continue our study on MLK in preparation for the MLK celebration Day, January 20th. For this project, students will specifically focus on MLKs I Have A Dream speech and think about their own dreams for their lives. Students will create a Pop-Out book that illustrates what they dream to accomplish in their future, based around how they could improve the world around them. Students will be master how to successfully combine text, drawing, and images.

Once these projects are completed, it will be the Season of Peace, which takes place from February till March. During classes taking place during these months, students will discuss the meaning of the word peace and how it relates to multiculturalism and diversity education. For their projects, they will choose a material to represent three dimensionally how they wish to make the world a better place. They can use clay, model magic, things brought from home, natural materials, recycled materials, etc. To unite these 3D projects all together, students will work in collaboration to create shadow boxes, one per class. For the final project, students will get to use technology to make a school wide filmed documentary. As a group effort, students and their table groups, each equipped with a video camera/digital camera, will interview each other about how they can make the world a better place and about what they wish to accomplish in order to do this. With special permission, they will be allowed to interview teachers and other grade level students to include their ideas. Students will spend two classes working on computers to edit and assemble their footage into a 5-minute short film! Students will only be able to successfully create this once they truly understand the meaning of multiculturalism, diversity, friendship, and working together for a greater purpose! !

True motivation comes from within from the willingness to see a dream fulfilled from the desire to leave the world better then you found it.

Mother Teresa