<p>My unit focuses on an exploration of motifs in August Wilson’s play Gem of the Ocean. Chronologically first in Wilson’s “Century Cycle”-- a series of ten plays each meant to represent a decade of African-American life in the 20th century, Gem of the Ocean is set in 1904 Pittsburgh. However, the play examines also history, legacy, and ancestral/family trauma through a metaphysical journey back to the Maafa or Middle Passage.</p> <p>Wilson develops his meaning through a variety of dramatic motifs-- especially fire, water, the stars, quilts, and walking sticks. While my students will track these motifs throughout the play in order to develop arguments about how each contributes to  and complicates the meaning of the work as a whole, this Learning Lab collection will collect images related to these motifs to engage students in a “close-reading” of visual text to provoke initial understanding of their power as symbols.</p> <p><br>NOTE: I have also included some additional images that I would add as resources and points of discussion for my daily GoogleSide decks on the play. Some are meant to illustrate historical background relevant to specific references in the play (ex: images of Cinque and the Amistad, tintype portraits to help visualize main characters), while others act as provocations to begin discussion (the Sankofa symbols).</p>

<p>This is my collection of images that connect with this film pairing,</p>

<p><strong>Rationale:</strong> Midway through watching<em> Winter's Bone</em>, I will ask the students to pause, step back, and imagine the buried histories of the people who live in Ree's world.</p> <p>The students will use the "Step In, Step Out, Step Back," and "Unveiling Stories" thinking routines to imagine the inner lives of the subjects of the photos (taken from two different photographic portfolios at SAAM: Roger Minick's <em>Ozark Portfolio</em> and Terry Evans <em>Kansas  Documentary Survey portfolio</em>). They can even  assign an identity of a film character to the images: for example, perhaps the young girl holding chickens is pre-teen Merab, or maybe the young boy glancing shyly out of the shadows is young Teardrop.</p> <p><strong>Process:</strong></p><p><strong>"Step In, Step Out, Step Back" Directions</strong></p><p>1) Choose. Identify a person or agent in the situation.<br />2) Step-in. Given what you see and know at this time, what do you think this person might experience, feel, believe, or know?<br />3) Step-out. What else would you like (or need) to learn in order to understand this person's perspective better?<br />4) Step-back. Given your exploration of this perspective so far, what doyou notice about your own perspective and what it takes to take somebody else's?</p><p><strong>Unveiling Stories</strong></p><p>The questions to ask include:</p> <ol><li>What is <em><u>the</u></em> story?</li><li>What is the human story?</li><li>What is the new story?</li><li>What is the world story?</li><li>What is the untold story?</li></ol><p><strong>Wrap Up: </strong>After engaging in these thinking dispositions, students are invited to use Sharpie to mark up the images (with words or text) to add this additional information and to capture some of the "hidden" or "obscured" information or factors which might inform these characters' lives.</p>

This lesson serves as a pre-reading/activating activity for Zora Neale Hurston's novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Ideally, it should be delivered before students have gained exposure to the text ( and before they have read a summary). In this activity, students will use VTS protocols on "Portrait of Mnonja" by Mickalene Thomas and "SOB, SOB" by Kerry James Marshall to explore themes related to the text and to anticipate Hurston’s complex characterization of Janie Crawford, the protagonist of the novel. Students will have a chance to engage with literature and anticipate Huston's style in the second half of the activity by engaging in a "Think-Pair-Share" with an out of context quotation from the novel. The student pairs will combine their literary analysis with their visual analysis to determine which quotations should be collaged with each painting, and they will have the opportunity to share out and justify their opinions. Learning Targets: 1)Students can use visual art to practice their ability to close-read and unpack 2)Students can synthesize multi-media resources to develop opinions 3)Students can use visual art to anticipate themes and characterization in "Their Eyes Were Watching God" #SAAMteach