Lesson 1 - LearningThroughMuseums

Lesson 4
The Midwest: The City and the Farm
Summary
In this lesson, students complete extended responses and descriptive paragraphs as they learn to “read”
a painting, applying skills of reading to interpret paintings that represent urban and rural life. They
develop critical thinking skills as they infer and support the main idea of a painting. They compare and
contrast urban and rural life and summarize differences and then create their own images and writing
to communicate what they have learned.
Featured Artworks
Alson Skinner Clark (American, 1876–1949)
The Coffee House, 1905
Oil on canvas
38 x 30 inches
Grant Wood (American, 1891–1942)
American Gothic, 1930
Oil on beaver board
30 ¾ x 25 ¾ inches
Illinois Benchmarks
Reading
1.B.2a:
1.C.2e:
1.C.2b:
Writing
3.B.2a:
3.C.2a:
Establish purposes for reading: survey materials; ask questions; make predictions;
connect, clarify, and extend ideas.
Explain how authors and illustrators use text and art to express their ideas.
Make and support inferences and form interpretations about main ideas, themes,
and topics.
Generate and organize ideas using a variety of planning strategies.
Write for a variety of purposes and for specified audiences in a variety of forms.
Social Studies
18.A.2:
Explain ways in which artistic creations communicate about a culture.
Art
25.B.2:
26.B.2d:
Understand how elements and principles combine within an art form to express ideas.
Demonstrate knowledge and skills to create works of visual art using problem solving,
observing, designing, sketching and constructing.
64 • Lesson 4: The Midwest ‒ The City and the Farm