Tar Beach
ACTIVITY 1--Biography of Faith Ringgold 1. In a small group, students will read and briefly discuss the book Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold.
2. At the computer, students will key in the URL http://www.artincontext.org/artist/ringgold/default.htm and bookmark the site. They will then peruse the website, taking notes and collecting biographical information about Faith Ringgold.
3. Students will be given paper quilt block templates. Together they will creatively arrange the biographical information they’ve collected on the blocks. For example, they could color the background and write the information in black marker to mimic quilt top stitching, or write the words in color, filling up areas in the quilt blocks. Depending on the keybording skills levels of your students, this activity could also be completed in a word processing program on the computer.
4. Students may want to store their notes and finished squares in a folder. Information from this activity will be utilized in a subsequent writing activity.
5. The group will share their quilt squares with the whole class as a part of the closing events.
Book Task
Explain to the students that it is their responsibility to present this book to the class. They will be doing the teaching and the testing of the material. As a group they must decide on a method of presentation that will effectively get the information across to their classmates and demonstrate their knowledge of the subject matter.
Give the group a copy of the Rubrics.
Teacher will meet with this group daily to discuss progress.
ACTIVITY 2--Journal Responses
1. At the computer, students will key in the URL http://www.archervalerie.com/mlk.html and bookmark the site. They will then listen to excerpts from famous speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the website.
2. Students will respond to the following journal prompts for each of the excerpts.
--What is the main idea of this part of Dr. King’s speech?
--What does this idea mean to you?
--How do you feel about what Dr. King said?
Ideally, they should write while at the computer. If time does not allow for this, students could jot down notes and then write longer responses to the prompts later.
3. Journal responses will be used in another session to complete an essay activity. Responses may be stored in a folder so they will be easy to find.
ACTIVITY 3--Art Investigation
1. In a small group, students will carefully examine a poster of the story quilt Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold. Your school’s art specialist can be helpful in obtaining a poster. If this proves difficult, students can access the piece online at the website used in Activity 1. They simply locate the previously bookmarked website in the Favorites folder.
2. Students discuss the story quilt, Tar Beach, as they complete the Art Investigation guide. Please note that this guide is generic in nature and can be used again to examine other works of art. The last section of the guide will be completed in another session as a separate activity.
ACTIVITY 4--Writing an Essay
1. Students will work through the five steps of the writing process as they create an essay explaining the meaning of Faith Ringgold’s story quilt, Tar Beach. The prompt for this essay is the final section of the Art Investigation guide. Students may consult their notes, journal responses, biographical information, and websites from earlier activities. The essay should be three to five paragraphs long. Review the five steps of the writing process with students:
Prewriting: list ideas and group them according to commonality
Drafting: put ideas into complete sentences and organize them into paragraphs
Revising: read and discuss each paragraph, making suggestions for more interesting word choices
Editing: check and correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation
Publishing: make a final copy to share with the rest of the class
2. Final piece may be published using a word processing program on the computer, if desired. The group will share its essay as part of the closing events.
ACTIVITY 5--Faith Ringgold Bus Tour
1. At the computer, students will key in the URL http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/nyct/bus/index.html and bookmark the site.
2. From the opening page of the website, students will select “Maps” from the menu. On the next page they scroll down until they see a selection of routes and choose “Manhattan Bus Routes”. This will lead them to a bus map of Manhattan. It’s instructive for students to navigate through a site to find specific information, but you can have them key in the URL for just the final map page if you want.
3. Students will need to increase the magnification of the map to 150 or 200 by clicking on the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the window left of the horizontal scroll bar. By maneuvering the scroll bars, students move around the map looking for the places listed on the Faith Ringgold Bus Tour worksheet and planning a bus route to each from a central location (the George Washington Bridge Bus Station). Point out that the index of important sites to the right of the map and the legend in the bottom corner will be helpful in their task. The map may be printed to make searching easier. Students can also print a "bird's eye view" map of Manhattan from this website http://www.nycvisit.com/maps.html to further assist them.
4. After planning a route to each location on the map, students need to go back to the Faith Ringgold site http://www.artincontext.org/artist/ringgold/default.htm (using their bookmark). To complete the Faith Ringgold Bus Tour worksheet, they need to navigate through the website in order to find out why each location is significant in Faith Ringgold’s life and notate their findings on the worksheet.
Dreams