<p>This Learning Lab complements the National Portrait Gallery's student program, Portrait Detectives.</p> <p>Students will be transformed into Portrait Detectives, searching portraits for and analyzing clues to learn more about significant Americans.  Through interactive discussions and sketching and writing activities, students will read, compare, and contrast portraits across the collection. This module is divided into the following themes to best support your curriculum and student interests: Presidents, Activists, Icons, and Scientists.</p> <p><strong>Objectives:</strong></p> <p><strong></strong>After completing this lesson, students will be better able to: </p> <ul> <li>Identify important Americans and analyze their contributions to U.S. History <br> </li> <li>Identify key components of a portrait and discuss what we can learn about the sitter through these components.</li></ul> <p><a href="https://npg.si.edu/teachers/school-groups">Schedule</a> a virtual Portrait Detectives program with National Portrait Gallery educators.</p> <p>#NPGteach</p> <p><br></p>

<p>Visualizing a Portrait of a Graduate is aligned with Fairfax County Public School's 6th grade standards and curriculum. This Learning Lab collection complements the National Portrait Gallery's student program of the same name.</p> <p>The Visualizing a Portrait of a Graduate student program explores prominent Americans who embody communication, collaboration, resilience, creativity, and global citizenship, while investigating how these traits led to the individuals’ significant contributions to American history and culture. During their visit, students will communicate, collaborate, and engage in critical thinking as they consider portraiture. The program strives to inspire, connect, and provide relevance to the students as they complete/grow into their own self-portrait as a graduate.</p> <p>After completing this lesson, students will be better able to:<br></p> <ul><li>Identify key components of a portrait and discuss what we can learn about the sitter through these components, as well as investigate how these components reveal the viewpoints (of artist, sitter, and viewer) represented through the depiction of the sitters</li><li>Identify important Americans from colonial times to the present and analyze their contributions to US history and determine how they exemplify Portrait of a Graduate attributes</li><li>Analyze the various perspectives that artists bring to their work and examine the intended messages of the artists to discover a variety of ways to represent identity while determining if the portrait is realistic or idealized, representational or abstract, or if it fits on a spectrum</li><li>Utilize critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and citizenship skills.</li></ul> <p><a href="https://npg.si.edu/teachers/school-groups">Schedule</a> a virtual Visualizing a Portrait of a Graduate student program with National Portrait Gallery educators.</p> <p>#NPGteach #FCPS</p> <p>Keywords: Portraits, Attributes, Communicator, Collaborator, Ethical, Global Citizenship, Creative, Critical Thinking, Goal Directed, Resilient Individual, Significant Americans, FCPS, Sixth Grade</p> <ul></ul>

<p>This Learning Lab complements the National Portrait Gallery's student program, Exploring Identity through Portraiture.</p> <p>Exploring Identity through Portraiture explores the ways in which artists and sitters use portraiture as a means to convey individual, community/cultural, and national identity. By analyzing portraits, including self-portraits, students will consider how the artists tell the sitters’ stories, paying attention to how the artists’ choices reveal some—but perhaps not all—aspects of the sitters’ identity. Students will explore how portraiture can be an avenue that they can use to represent their own identities and make meaning of what is important to them.<br></p> <p><strong>Objectives</strong></p> <p><strong></strong>After completing this lesson, students will be better able to: </p> <p>• Examine how modern and contemporary artists use portraiture to reveal aspects of a sitter’s individual, community/cultural, and national identity. </p> <p>• Identify key components of a portrait and discuss what one can learn about the sitter through these components. </p> <p>• Discuss the artistic choices that portrait artists make and consider how such decisions can reveal the artists’ viewpoints and also influence the viewers’ understanding of the sitters’ identity. </p> <p>• Use the museum’s collection as a gateway to investigating and exploring one’s own individual, community/cultural, and national identity.</p> <p>#NPGteach</p>

<p>This Learning Lab collection complements the National Portrait Gallery's student program, <em>Portraiture and Social Emotional Learning (SEL).</em></p> <p>The <em>Portraiture and Social Emotional Learning (SEL)</em> student program approaches portraiture with a social-emotional lens. Students will consider how reading portraiture can lend itself to exploring social-emotional qualities such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.  This collection strives to provide opportunities to explore emotions and values in the context of portraiture.<br></p> <p><strong>Curriculum Connections: </strong>This lesson plan is suitable for students in grades 4-12 in multidisciplinary classes.<br></p> <p><strong>Objectives:</strong> After completing this lesson, students will be better able to: </p> <ul><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Identify key components of a portrait and discuss what we can learn about the sitter through these components.</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Investigate how these components reveal the viewpoints (of artist, sitter, and viewer) represented through the depiction of the sitters.</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Identify social emotional qualities and analyze the connections that can be made to portraiture.</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Utilize the museum’s collection and portraiture as a springboard to explore the range of social emotional qualities that include self-awareness, self- management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.</p></li></ul> <p></p> <p>#NPGteach<br></p> <p></p>

<p>This Learning Lab complements the National Portrait Gallery's student program, Visualizing Democracy. </p> <p>Students will visualize democracy from the colonial era to the 21st century by analyzing portraits of major figures who played a critical role—as government officials, engaged citizens, or both—in creating a democratic society for the United States. Students will investigate how portraiture can convey democratic ideals and how, as a cultural institution housed in a historic building, the National Portrait Gallery has been and continues to be relevant to American democracy.</p> <p><strong>Objectives</strong></p> <p>After completing this lesson, students will be better able to: </p> <ul><li>Identify key components of a portrait and discuss what one can learn about the sitter through these components. </li><li>Analyze the history of portraiture and understand how it has evolved from a means to document wealthy individuals to an accessible art form used to represent people from all walks of life. </li><li>Understand the nuance of the word democracy, to comprehend how portraiture’s evolution (the democratization of portraiture) has helped democratize society by giving voice to individuals who have historically been underrepresented. </li><li>Discuss the three branches of federal government and the value of citizen involvement in a democracy. Analyze the legacy of individuals who have been instrumental in creating, improving, and maintaining American democracy. </li><li>Recognize and analyze how cultural institutions, like the National Portrait Gallery, are important components of a robust democracy. </li></ul> <p><a href="https://npg.si.edu/teachers/school-groups">Schedule</a> a virtual Visualizing Democracy student program with National Portrait Gallery educators.</p> <p>#NPGteach<br></p> <p></p>

<p>2025 marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of gay rights and HIV/AIDS activist Larry Kramer’s play, <em>The Normal Heart</em>. This collection takes a close look at portraits of Kramer and other significant figures during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980’s and considers how portraits can be used to share this history.</p> <p><em>“Portraits of Determination: Figures of the AIDS Epidemic” is part of the teacher workshop series Classroom Conversations which uses portraits to explore topics and themes related to history and heritage months throughout the school year.</em> </p>

<p><em>What can you do to make a difference?</em> Introducing <a href="https://npg.si.edu/visit-home/digital-engagement">Our Struggle for Justice</a>, a digital collaboration between the <a href="https://npg.si.edu/">National Portrait Gallery</a> and <a href="https://www.capitalone.com/">Capital One</a> that explores activism and social justice through biography.<br><br></p> <p>How can you use your skills to spark conversation, create agency and inspire change? In this collection, meet individuals, past and present, from the museum’s collection whose thoughts and actions have made our nation better. Each featured individual is accompanied by thought-provoking questions, educational resources, and additional portraits to reframe the way we view activism and the causes closest to us.<br></p> <p>Join us on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/smithsoniannpg/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/smithsoniannpg">Twitter</a>, follow #OurStruggleForJustice for the latest updates, and look out for new posts each Tuesday. </p> <hr> <p>Through our Twitter and Instagram, we will delve into the museum’s collection to contextualize the pursuit of freedom and activism in the United States, sparking conversation and inspiring action. </p> <p>Our country was established on two basic principles: freedom and the pursuit of happiness. However, over the course of our history, these ideals have been broken, tested and reconstructed. Many times, the onus for upholding the nation’s moral foundation has fallen to the individual rather than the majority. </p> <p>American activism guides our nation toward its true vision, one that acts upon the ideals of its founding and celebrates the entirety of its population. And while many before us defined what it means to strive for a better America, there is no question that this work is ongoing. </p> <p>Through Our Struggle for Justice, we will meet individuals, past and present, whose thoughts and actions have made our nation better. Though their experiences and causes vary, these people have one thing in common: they fought tirelessly against injustice, using their time, strengths and sheer will to create meaningful change. </p> <p>In telling these stories, we aim to spark conversations around agency. Look for thought-provoking questions to reframe the way we think about activism and the causes that are closest to us. <br></p> <p>The campaign draws inspiration from the Portrait Gallery’s collection, including the permanent exhibition The Struggle for Justice, which celebrates pioneers and change-makers in the fight for social equity. </p> <p>One person can make a difference. In learning about these figures, we hope that you can, too.    <br></p>

<p>The National Portrait Gallery tells the story of the United States by portraying the people who shape the nation’s history, development, and culture. These individuals understand who we are and remind us of what we can aspire to be.</p> <p>In this guide, you will discover how to teach students to spot visual clues in portraits and then analyze them, similar to dissecting a historical document. Teaching students to use close reading skills with portraiture will produce a rich and memorable investigation of both the sitter and the artist. Use the close looking strategies in this collection as a springboard for classroom conversations. Portraits present insights into history and biography, prompt writing in the classroom, inspire students to create self-portraits, and even offer great ties to science and mathematics.<br></p> <p>The Learning to Look strategies in this guide offer unique ways to engage in close looking and portraiture with your students. The Elements of Portrayal provide more guiding questions to help you and your students learn how to read portraiture.</p> <p>#NPGteach</p> <p>#SummerSessions<br></p>

<p>This collection takes a close look at significant figures from the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Consider how portraits can add depth to students’ understanding of this important event and honor the people who made it happen.</p> <p><em>“Portraits of Change: Faces of the 1963 March on Washington” is part of the teacher workshop series Classroom Conversations which uses portraits to explore topics and themes related to history and heritage months throughout the school year.</em> </p>

<p>How can the past inform our future?  Imagine you are living in the U.S. in 1899. In this era of rapid expansion and increasing tensions many Americans are asking "what kind of nation do we want to be?" Across the United States, people are talking about what that means for themselves and for their country. For this lesson, students will imagine they are gathered in an issue forum. This guide  is meant to provide a framework for student deliberation by offering three approaches to the complex question: "what kind of nation do we want to be?" Each option is accompanied by possible actions to be taken and notes possible drawbacks.</p> <p>#NPGteach</p>

<p>How do we teach a balanced, comprehensive, and complex history of the United States? In this collection, explore themes of civil rights, labor history, environmentalism, Native history, and more. Through document analysis and reading portraiture strategies, uncover previously unknown stories and consider the pressures and motivations that shaped historical controversies.<br></p> <p>This Learning Lab collection has been created in conjunction with the July 2024 Teaching with Primary Sources and Portraiture professional development workshop, co-hosted by the National Portrait Gallery and the National Archives and Records Administration. <strong></strong><strong></strong></p> <p>#NPGteach</p>

<p>Meet the Native Americans who shaped the history, development, and culture of the United States of America. Use this collection to celebrate American Indian Heritage Month and embrace indigenous voices in the classroom year round. Native peoples have lived throughout what is now the United States since time immemorial and continue to make homes and communities here today. This collection mirrors parts rather than the whole of this continuing story. It also reflects the history of portraiture in the United States- we recognize that who is represented and how one is represented reflects the country's flaws as well as it's strengths<br></p> <p>#NPGteach</p> <p><strong>Keywords: </strong>Portraits, American Indian Heritage Month, American Indian, Native American, Indigenous, Ani-Yunwiya (Cherokee), Diné (Navajo), Chata (Choctaw), Sioux, Wah-Zha-Zhi (Osage), Ojibwe (Chippewa), Apache, Niitsitapi (Blackfeeet), Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Nuuchu (Ute), Nuwuvi (Paiute), Seminole, Muscogee (Creek), Quapaw, Portraits</p>