<p>This collection reflects an entire Inquiry unit that ultimately lands on the compelling question about who (or what) is Dorothea Lange.  Is she primarily an Artist, a Historian, or Something Else, and if the latter, then what?  Rather than place this question before the students initially, however, they are allowed to consider Lange's life and work while the teacher guides them to discover and frame the question itself. </p> <p>Althought the unit will be used to model curriculum development through strategic planning and inquiry-based pedagogy for teacher candidates in an educator preparation program, it may also be used by practicing teachers in whole or in part.  It began as a social studies skill builder lesson (adapted from Teachers Curriculum Institute's <em>History Alive! </em>curriculum) where teams of high school students (can be adapted to middle school or even younger) read a collection of quotations by or about various groups that were impacted by the Great Depression.  The quotations are excerpted from primary and secondary sources (teachtci.com).  Students then match their quotations to a Dorothea Lange photograph, from which they compose Field Notes as if they were the photographer herself.  Teams assigned the same photo then take turns sharing field notes, along with a description of the photo and a "most representative" excerpt chosen from their quotations. This way the entire class gets exposed to lots of content applicable to different groups with students doing the presenting and teacher "lecturing in the side door" (as I like to call it). </p> <p>The unit you see here still contains that original lesson.  However, it has evolvled in several substantive ways, including the insertion of assorted art pieces and numerous Project Zero routines to guide the conversation:</p> <p>First, the stage is set for the visual inquiry by exploring who and what is reflected and symbolized in the Bing Crosby song, "Brother Can You Spare a Dime."  Students do this by listening and following lyrics while considering a simple but profound question: "Who is Al?" in the song?  Without realizing it, they have already been exposed to "fine arts" --- in this case music -- as an artifact of history.</p> <p>Second, visual art is immediately added to the inquiry when students are asked to compare Crosby's song to a painting by John R. Grabach titled "The Fifth Year" (1934, five years since the stock market crash of 1929).  Then, after listening to the song again --- this time with images from the 1930s accompanying the music -- students revisit the question "Who is Al?" in terms of the song, the painting, and various photographs and historical images.</p> <p>Third, students now consider Lange's iconic photgraph "Migrant Mother" using a couple of different routines, eventually adding its content and composition to our comparison of who we think "Al" is in Brother Can You Spare a Dime (the song) and The Fifth Year (the painting).  Histocial and artistic information about Lange, the 1930s, and the Great Depression, is inserted "in the side door" throughout these early explorations.</p> <p>Fourth, the original lesson then ensues in the form of an Experiential (role playing) Exercise where students end up with a photograph that matches their particular set of quotations.  They compose and present field notes as if they are Dorothea Lange.  Several features are added to the original lesson: (a) a description of the Experiential  Exercise  process as a synthesis of several Project Zero routines; (b) modeling of the process through a whole class trial run using only quotations aboput Children and Lange's photographs where Children are the central element; (c) the insertion of several pieces of visual art to accompany the photographs.  The intent (hope) is that students will be curious about the art and this will begin an incidental discussion about the role of photography as not only history but art AND the role of paintings as not only art but history.  </p> <p>Fifth, with formative assessment taking place along the way (e.g. during the photographic analysis and field note presentations), a culminating activity invovles another synthesis of Project Zero routines, where students develop an essay that identifies a central theme in their own thinking as well as key takeaways from the entire inquiry as evidence to support their theme.  A Project Zero routine called  <strong>Connect, Extend, Challenge</strong> helps guide the essay writing process.  They are invited to compose the final essay in terms of one final painting which they use to frame their own theme and takeaways.</p> <p>Finally, the last piece of the inquiry is to explore the compelling question itself.  By now the teacher has guided students to consider and discover aspects of of historian and artist (and other roles) along the way, but now the inquiry addresses the question explicitly.  This is initiated by offering an interesting discovery that not only is Migrant Mother part of a series of photos taken by Lange, but how Lange once doctored the famous image prioir to its first public exhibition in 1940.  Why would she do this?  Students are invited to speculate and hypothesize about her motives, then address them by looking at additional photographs, Lange's own field notes, scholarship on the subject, and excerpts from later writings by Lange in articles and books (including her autobiography).  The students are invited to weigh all the evidence and decide whether they think the photographer was an Artist, a Historian, or something else -- with enough information integrated throughout the inquiry, they might be expected to come up with responses such as political activist, muckraker, empathic observer, entrepreneur, et al..  Of course, she might be an amalgam of different things, and that might be part of the overall outcome of the inquiry.</p> <p>An answer to this inquiry question could become the summative assessment for the unit.  However, since students have already developed a culminating essay as presented in this collection, I have decided to leave it as an "enrichment" part of the inquiry, counting on the intrinsic interest of the students and teacher in this fascinating footnote to carry the day and lead to the next big inquiry in the class.</p> <p></p>

<p>This is a collection of links to various artists' rendition of Brother Can You Spare a Dime.  This classic song became emblematic of the common man during the Great Depression. Written in 1931 by lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg and composer Jay Gorney, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" was part of the 1932 musical New Americana. The melody is based on a Russian lullaby Gorney heard as a child. It became best known, however, through recordings by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee, with additional covers by famous performers such as Al Jolson and, more recently, Judy Collins and Tom Waits, among others. All of those performers are represented in this collection, which is in turn embedded in a collection used in teaching a unit based on the photographs of Dorothea Lange and titled, <em>Art vs. Artifact: Dorothea Lange as Artist, Historian, or Something Else.  </em>Crosby's and Vallee's versions were released right before Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election to the presidency and both became number one hits on the charts.</p>