Project Overview

4th Graders partnered with the Clyfford Still Museum to deepen their learning about the guiding questions and big ideas as modified to include Language Arts and Visual Arts: What inspired artists to create? They learned about methods of Abstraction and using artifacts as inspiration, applying this knowledge to poetry and visual art. As a culminating performance task, students chose an object of personal significance to inspire their abstract art and poetry. They wrote an essay reflecting on where they found inspiration and where there is evidence of that inspiration in their writing and artwork. They displayed and presented these works at the museum during a special event. On that evening students acted as docents for their families, guiding their observations and understanding the works of Clyfford Still and where evidence of his inspiration and life journey is seen in his art through color choices, concepts, themes, scale, and the power and beauty and worth of the Arts.