Celebrating Achievements of Black Artists
3 Min Read • Community Connections
We’ve compiled a reference listing free resources for teaching lessons about specific artists of color. It is our hope that you’re able to pull from these resources not just during Black History Month, but throughout the entire year ahead. Some of the resources listed below are full lesson plans, some are articles or exhibitions that are free to access online, but all can be implemented in an arts integration classroom. Please note: this resource barely scratches the surface, but is a good starting place.
Visual Art
African American Architects Lesson (featuring Vertner Woodson Tandy, Robert Taylor, and Paul Williams)
This lesson combines visual art and math. Students look at the works of three Black American architects and measures the size and area of various construction blueprints.
The Quilting Tradition (featuring Harriet Powers and Faith Ringgold)
This is one of many articles available looking at the work of African American quilters! This article covers both historical and contemporary quilters and they ways African American quilting patterns are different than European quilting patterns. Including a video and audio recording, this resource would be great for writing a lesson connecting storytelling and visual art.
African American Visual Art at the Smithsonian
The SAAM is home to one of the most significant collections of works by African American artists in the world. The works in this collection would be a great jumping point for a middle or high school discussion, Socratic seminar, or visual thinking practice.
An Arts Integration Unit Featuring Romare Bearden
Are you looking to integrate the arts into your literacy block? Or to incorporate African American artists and history into your lessons? Or simply test out some project-based learning for 2018? Here’s a unit for you to use that does it all. While it is designed for enrichment 3rd graders, it could be used with fourth and fifth graders with little to no modifications.
Gordon Parks Exhibition and Interviews
Gordon Parks passed away in 2006 however his website lives on and includes a biography, gallery, and video. Parks was an instrumental photojournalist for Life magazine in the 40s through the 70’s and his work would be great for artful thinking activities (specifically the Headlines and Beginning, Middle, End Routines) or points of historical context.
Safety Patrol (Bisa Butler)
This lesson provides modular activities and an essay designed to engage students in exploring the artwork, its cultural and historic context, and the artist’s influences and process.
A New York Times article talks about the work of a contemporary visual artist working on her exhibition “Faces and Phases” as a response to homophobic hate crimes in South Africa. An advanced article that covers intense but important social justice topics that would be great for high schoolers to discuss.
Dance
The Dance of Anansi (featuring Garth Fagan)
This lesson by us addresses dance and ELA standards and assesses through student response. Get up and moving on those indoor recess days!
ArtsEdge by the Kennedy Center has a collection of wonderful lessons and this one is no exception. It examines cinquain poems (looking at you 8th grade ELA teachers!), melodies, and movement.
This is Misty Copeland’s artist website. Copeland is the first Black American woman to be promoted to principal while dancing for the American Ballet Theater! Her story is inspiring and her work is beautiful.
Walk through history with the Victoria and Albert museum as they recount famous dancers like Josephine Baker, Buddy Bradley, and Florence Mills.
Theatre
Slammin’ Poetry (featuring Gayle Danley)
In our Gayle Danley lesson, high school students learn about voice and rhythm through slam poetry readings. Engage students through the creation of original works while potentially introducing them to a new genre of performance art.
Watching Oprah (featuring Oprah Winfrey)
Ask students to read through this article from the National Museum of African American History and Culture and watch the clips showcasing the one and only Oprah Winfrey as they explore the impact her wildly successful show had on society’s views!
Visualizing Scenes of the Harlem Renaissance
This lesson from Teacher Vision has students getting into character while imagining they were living during the Harlem Renaissance.
Poems to Celebrate Black History Month
An extensive list of poems (and articles) that would be great to use for practicing theater techniques, not just during Black History Month but all year long. Pull from these as sources when practicing characterization, voice, and gesture.
Finding Your Voice: Its An Inside Job (featuring Charles Holt)
In this TEDxNashville talk, Charles Holt, a Broadway actor, talks about the process of finding his voice in the industry.
Lessons from Wakanda: Using Black Panther in the Classroom
Wakanda Forever! This Donors Choose article specified 4 things teachers should know about using Black Panther in the Classroom and offers several example lesson integration points!
Music
Jay Z’s Fife and Drum (featuring Jay Z)
This lesson can be used with any age group and combines Jay Z’s song Empire State of mind with Drum Corps techniques while teaching students about the Civil War.
The Blues and Langston Hughes (featuring Langston Hughes)
The Smithsonian offers this lesson four ways, simply choose your grade level off the menu and have fun teaching students about the structure of the Blues stanza, both in music and in the poems of Langston Hughes!
Musical Harlem: How jazz music is reflective of the Harlem Renaissance
In this lesson students will be listening to audio recordings and identifying different types of music and more specifically, the musical elements of jazz. This lesson also includes dancing and visual art so it’s great for all types of learners.
Follow the Drinking Gourd Song
Students learn about the songs of slavery through this lesson which analyzes a poem called The Drinking gourd. Teach about aural tradition and how songs and stories were passed down through generations.
Jazz and Math: Improvisational Permutations
In this lesson by Teacher Vision, students are working to explore rhythmic connections. Students will derive a mathematical relationship that will allow them to calculate the actual number of possible musical permutations given the limited set of options to choose from.
Celebrating Black Artistry through Music
This podcast episode features Ashleigh Gordon. Ashleigh is co-founder, Artistic Director and violist of Castle of our Skins, a Boston-based concert and educational series devoted to celebrating Black Artistry through music. During this episode, she shares the importance of connection and relationships as an invitation to learn more about Black heritage and cultural exploration.
Did you know NPR compiled a timeline of the history of Hip Hop? Each point on the timeline includes photographs as well as audio recordings and it makes for a great interactive activity or research point for a larger project!
While there is lots of information available about the African American role in jazz and hip hop, its less common to hear about the Black folks who were “instrumental” (sorry) in the development of rock. Teach Rock certainly does a great job at highlighting the Black Americans who helped to establish the “Rock and Roll” era of music!
