EMOTIONAL LIFE

By: Tamara Duran, Rachel Leonard,

Thanya Lopez, and Melissa Maccini

Grade
level:
4th

Lesson Overview
The students will understand they are in a
nonjudgmental environment where they can express their
emotions freely through their artwork. After a brief
review of our past history unit about the structure of
United States government, we will tie that into emotional
life and how it can affect our everyday lives.
We will explain the variety of emotions one can feel
and how they can be applied to specific colors into
creating a self-portrait. To conclude the lesson, we will
have a gallery walk to see everyones work and have a
discussion about the articles and what the students have
learned.

Vocabulary

Emotional Life
Government
Feeling
Portrait
Unique
Expressive
Democracy
Election
Riots
Poverty

Key Concepts
Em otionallife is a characteristic or expressive em otion.
Em otionallife is about feeling.
Em otionallife can relate to love, hate and fear.
Em otionallife usually accom panied by physiological
changes.

 W hat is em otion?
H ow do you express em otion?
W hen in your life have you felt a great am ount of
em otion?
W hat is rationalthought?

Essential Questions

Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-8B7PNbMro
https://youtu.be/Rlmygu_hn9U

Lesson Objectives
Content Area 01:

Content Area 02:

Content Area 03:

Literacy:

Visual Art:

History:

The students will (TSW) be

able to identify the big idea
of the lesson, comprehend
vocabulary words,
complete a memo to
summarize articles, and
participate in discussion
questions to fully
understand Emotional Life.

The students will (TSW) be

able to portray what they
have learned through a selfportrait. The self-portrait will
be made with watercolors
and the colors the students
use will represent a specific
emotion that represents their
Emotional Life.

The students will (TSW) be

able to understand how the
government is one example
of how emotions can
impact your life based off
the decisions people make.
They will understand how
people reacted to the
election through emotion.

Government affect on Emotional Life

Art making is a deeply emotional and, some would say, spiritual process.
(Allen, 2005; Malchiodi, 2002; Wuthnow, 2001)
Yet, even art is often dominated by our rational mind.
We carefully plan our projects, making sure to have the correct materials,
the right timing, and the technical knowledge. Due to this pressure to
produce great art, many of us who do not consider ourselves artists,
poets, or actors; refrain from engaging in these activities at all.
But,
What if we embraced creative projects for their learning potential?
What if we gave up on the need to be technically correct or to produce
anything of value?
What if we lived in the moment?

Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28sHuEJzYh
(Stop at 3:45)

 What are some examples of how people

expressed their emotions in these
videos?
What are some examples of everyday
activities that affect your emotional life?
What piece of artwork made you feel very
emotional and why?

Emotional Portraits

Instructions

Collect materials for the lesson:

Construction Paper

Scissors

Color Pencils

Watercolors

Acrylic Paint

Paint Brushes

Water/Bowels

Sharpies/Markers

Other forms of media provided, Etc.

Connect with your past, present, or future emotions.

If uncomfortable, work independently and respect your peers

Create a self-portrait of yourself based off of your emotional life. Depending on the emotion, use colors we discussed to match
up with how you are feeling.

When finished, clean up materials and place back where they were found.

Collaborative Learning and Closure

Group 01: Article 1 The recognition of emotion is based around three interlinked and often fluid domains:
Developing emotional capacity in students to engage in a creative process (person); stimulating emotional
engagement through appropriate learning contexts (process); facilitating the emotional interfacing with creative
outcomes (product).

Group 02: Article 2 Art stimulates both those who make it and those who witness it. Creating, imagining
and witnessing all instill you with a new sensibility about how you experience yourself in the world

Group 03: Article 2 ...describes flow as a state of being totally absorbed in an activity. There is no

preoccupation with outcomes or worries about failing. The past and future do not exist. One often loses track of
time and space. A person in this flow state is working intuitively, and it often seems as if the poem writes itself
or the painting just appears.

Group 04: Article 3 Many adolescents are overwhelmed and underprepared when faced with emotions.
Group 05: Article 3 Emotional intelligence is defined by Salovey and Mayer (1990) as "the subset of social
intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate
among them and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions

Questions
?
Thank you!
Group 6 Facilitators