Last updated: March 8, 2019
Lesson Plan
Mood Masks
- Grade Level:
- Upper Elementary: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
- Subject:
- Literacy and Language Arts,Social Studies
- Lesson Duration:
- 60 Minutes
- State Standards:
- NATIONAL/STATE STANDARDS:
Historical, Cultural and Social Contexts.
Creative Expression and Communication. - Thinking Skills:
- Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Applying: Apply an abstract idea in a concrete situation to solve a problem or relate it to a prior experience. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts.
Essential Question
How do visual representations of emotions help us communicate?
Objective
Students will be able to create visual representations of a range of emotions.
Visual Art Standard: Historical, Cultural and Social Contexts
Benchmark: Recognize and describe visual art forms and artworks from various times and places.
Visual Art Standards: Creative Expression and Communication
Benchmark: Demonstrate knowledge of visual art materials, tools, techniques, and processes by using them expressively and skillfully.
Background
Creating visual representations of a range of emotions.
Preparation
Materials for this plan include construction paper, scissors, glue, markers, crayon, string, fabric pieces, craft materials, copies of Paul Laurence Dunbar's We Wear the Mask.
Materials
Procedure
Direct Instruction (10 minutes): The group will listen to a few stanzas of We Wear the Mask. Students will try to interpret the message of the poem. The instructor may share the social context in which Dunbar lived, and its implications for African-Americans.
The instructor will ask students if they have ever been angry or upset, but unable to express their emotions. The class will discuss the idea of having a visual representation of their mood, or of having an artwork with the power to change someone's emotions from one to another.
Students will discuss their favorite emotions, and what kinds of images best represent them.
Individual Work Session (30 minutes): The instructor will demonstrate some mask-making techniques, and let students begin creating their own mood masks. After selecting an emotion, students will cut a mask base out of construction paper. Facial features and ornamentation can be cut and glued with other colors of paper, or drawn on with crayon and marker. Additional ornamentation can be added with string, buttons, fabric pieces, or other craft materials.
Clean Up (5 minutes): Wet masks will need to be stored on a drying rack or flat surface, scraps stored in a bucket or discarded, and scissors, glue, and other materials put away.
Vocabulary
Emotion
Assessment Materials
The success of this project can be ascertained through the quality of the artwork. The instructor can also ask a series of questions regarding the objectives of the lesson to determine how well students have comprehended the material.
Alternatively, the rubric below can be used to rate each child's performance during the working period.
Art Rubric
| Category | Possible Points | Earned Points |
| Craftsmanship | 20 | |
| Time on Task | 20 | |
| Following Assignment Guidelines | 20 | |
| Use of Materials | 20 | |
| Clean Up | 20 |
Additional Resources
Social Studies – The group could examine the use of totems in Native American and other cultures.
Extensions
Mask forms can be cut and ready for use before the project begins. Simple shapes can also be cut and made available. Students could also use pictures from magazines to make features on their masks.Additional Resources
Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, by Paul Laurence DunbarCrafty Masks, by Thomasina Smith
Hour of Freedom: American History in Poetry, compiled by Milton Meltzer
Making Masks, by Renee Schwarz
Making Masks, by Violane Lamerand
Masks!, by Alice Flanagan Masks
Tell Stories, by Carol Gelber