When you visit an art museum and enter one of the halls filled with paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures your eye falls on the image closest to you and you wonder what is that picture about? This lesson plan focuses on helping students to answer that question by investigating the subject of works of art.

This resource provides a list of art words and phrases that can be used to describe any form of art and artistic expression.

Students will analyze the sculpture Head with Horns by Paul Gauguin through objective and subjective writing activities and class discussion.

Students will watch and discuss an excerpt from Ono's "Cut Piece" 1964. Students will also record sounds to create audible poems, produce a school-wide sound-sculpture project, and create short videos in response to a series of prompts.

Students will explore the work of Yoko Ono, an artist activist for peace, human rights, and feminism. They will examine, describe, and discuss several of Ono's "action" pieces; installations dealing with plastic and visual expression. Students will also organize an event in defense of the environment at school; set up a school or classroom blog inviting all students to participate, learn about armed conflicts that are taking place around the world today, and participate in Yoko Ono's action piece "Imagine Peace Map".

In this lesson, students learn about Irving Penn’s “The Small Trades” collection. They then scan The New York Times (or other newspapers) for photographs of people at work, clip these images for more in-depth examination, and take their own photographs of people on the job in their community for a class exhibit.

Students will:
1. Examine portraits from Irving Penn’s “The Small Trades” collection.
2. Learn about a famous collection of photographed portraits by reading and discussing the article “Blue-Collar Elegance: Getty Acquires Penn Series.”
3. Analyze images of people on the job clipped from copies of The New York Times (or other newspaper).
4. Take photographs of people in jobs that are either unique or typical to their local community.