Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Transform words into images: Create a collage diorama illustrating a setting from poetry.
Grant Street SchoolTeaching artist: Kim Fairbanks Grade 2
Classroom teacher: Allen Fox
Lesson: Students create a collage diorama showing layers of space in landscape to illustrate the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost.
Student:
Target learning: Identifies setting in the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”.
Criteria: Recites part of the poem, describes descriptive language for time and place
Target learning: Creates perspective in 3-dimensions using paper.
Criteria: Layers foreground, middle ground, and background from front to back, withspace in-between in collage diorama.
Target learning: Represents a poem through visual art.
Criteria: Identifies and uses specific imagery linked with the poem in collage diorama.
Vocabulary (click here for the glossary)
3-dimensional
Background
Collage
Folk Art
Foreground
Grandma Moses
Landscape
Middle ground
Robert Frost
Resources
Grandma Moses by Charles Graves
Paintings by Grandma Moses
Music: The High Road by Joe Euro
Materials
construction paper in white, blue and black
pencils, erasers, glue sticks, scissors
Creative process and resources introduced
Teaching artist:
Reads the poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost with students. Guides students in closing eyes and creating a vision inspired by the poem. Student reads, closes eyes, and creates a vision. Leads discussion of what students visualize: what they see, hear, feel…time and place, details…Reminds students to reach into their own experience with snow…visualizations are shared. Teaching artist explains the process of using paper collage to create a diorama about the poem.
Introduces new vocabulary of: foreground, middle ground, and background: Foreground is what is all around us, middle ground is what we see beyond the foreground: we could get in our car and drive to it. The background is very far away: too far for us to drive to.
Introduces idea of using words from the poem as inspiration for imagery of diorama. Shows work of Grandma Moses and connects her paintings to the poetry of Robert Frost by discussing time and place (rural East Coast woodlands) and simplicity of painting and language. Also discusses how the foreground is lowest on picture, middle ground, in middle, and the background is the highest. Helps students to understand that Grandma Moses was a folk artist and did not use relative size of objects in space as many painters did: she did not shrink the size of objects as they are shown farther and farther away. Student discusses relationship of work of author and artist. Discusses representation of space in paintings.
Explains construction of project by modeling how to use papers for foreground, middle ground and background: “The narrowest is for the foreground, with each layer getting wider”. Guides students in choosing key imagery based on descriptive language in the poem. Models creating imagery by cutting, layering, and placing colored shapes on paper layers. Demonstrates and assists students in gluing foreground, middle ground or background layers to box constructed out of paper: emphasizes leaving actual space between each layer to create a three-dimensional representation of space. Assessment: Students trade paper layers before they are glued, and identify fore, mid, and background in each other’s work.
Assessment:
Reflection Questions:
What are some words in the poem that tell us about time (season, time of day) and place (landscape, community)?
Show us foreground, middle ground, and background in your art.
Describe what parts of the poem you chose to illustrate in your diorama.
Essential Learnings
Arts: Concepts: 1.1 Space
1.2 skills and techniques: paper construction
4.2 Connection between content areas: art and literature
Reading 2.1 Comprehension: Ideas and details