Ancient Egypt Unit An Ethos of Creativity

Ancient Egypt:
An Ethos of Creativity
Chris McClendon
2015
Concept-Based Curriculum Unit
C.McClendon 2015
Unit Description
I.
Description of Rationale, Purpose, and Target audience
Rationale
Culture is defined as the arts and other expressions of human intellectual achievement regarded
collectively. Culture develops when a people in a particular place or location reach an advanced stage
of social development and organization. This advanced stage, which comes about through creativity
and ingenuity, may manifest itself into innovative developments in the areas of the arts, language,
technology and sociological growth that benefit the people. As history has taught us, it is at this point
when civilizations have been created and/or allowed to evolve.
Purpose
This unit gives students an opportunity to examine the concepts of culture and civilization as they
relate to Ancient Egypt and their creativity and their artistic expression. Exploration of this ancient
civilization is necessary for students to understand the massive influence and impact ancient
civilizations had on each other as well as the influence they have on our world today. The
multidisciplinary connections of art, language arts, sociology, and technology will be examined with an
emphasis on using ancient Egyptian culture to better understand our own culture and the potential for
future creative and innovative endeavors.
Activities designed for this unit will foster both creative and critical thinking for the gifted student.
Students will discover and explore art (i.e., architecture, creative expression), language arts,
sociology, and technology (i.e., invention) as representations of culture and creativity. Teamwork,
higher order thinking skills, productive thinking skills and professional practices are examples of how
students will explore this ancient culture and connections to todays society. Students will become
historical researchers, forecasters, artists, architects, designers, builders, presenters, and writers.
Target Audience
The target audience for this unit is fourth and fifth grade students who are in the Gifted and Talented
Resource classes. This unit can be adapted and modified to serve upper grade level students as
well.
Appropriateness for the Gifted Learner
Gifted students require more meaningful experiences in order for individual learning to be successful.
A curriculum must be developed that provides the gifted student opportunities to dig deeper and
solve real- life problems. Studying the culture and contributions of ancient civilizations and their
connections to current culture supports the depth and complexity of creative and critical thinking skills
and encourages their higher order thinking.
Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity
C.McClendon 2015
Prerequisites for Students

There are no prerequisites for this unit; however the teacher may assume that all students are familiar
with the basic concepts related to various forms of artistic and creative expression through the
language arts, visual arts, sociology, and technology.
II.
Concept Map/Web

III.
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Unit Flow Chart
Representative Topic
Conceptual Lens
Culture
Alabama Course of Study Standards (CS)

Visual Arts
Discuss ways in which the subject matter of other disciplines is connected with the visual arts.
(CS#6)
Describe historical and cultural influences on works of art. (CS#7)
English Language Arts
Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well
as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.(CS#17)
Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each
source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism
and providing basic bibliographic information for sources. (CS#28
Write routinely over extended time frames, including time for research, reflection, and revision,
and shorter time frames such as a single sitting or a day or two for a range of discipline-specific
tasks, purposes, and audiences (CS#30)
Social studies/Sociology
Describe how values and norms influence individual behavior. Comparing ways in which cultures
differ, change, and resist change, including countercultures, subcultures, and ethnocentric
beliefs. Comparing the use of various symbols within and across societies. Examples: objects,
gestures, sounds, images.
Illustrating key concepts of socialization, including self-concept, looking-glass self, significant

others, and role-taking. (CS#3)
Technology
Use basic features of word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and presentation software.
Examples: word processingreports, letters, brochures; spreadsheetsdiscovering patterns,
tracking spending, creating budgets; databasescontact list of addresses and telephone
numbers; and presentation softwareslideshow
Evaluating electronic resources for reliability based on publication date, bias, accuracy, and
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source credibility
Use technology tools to organize, interpret, and display data. Examples: spreadsheets,
databases, electronic graphing tools (CS#5)
Disciplines/Fields of Study and/or Practicing Professionals
Art
Social Studies
Technology
Art Historian
Writer
Archeologist
Architect
Concepts
Skills/Process
Facts
Students will understand
Students will be able to
Students will know
Innovation
Civilization
Systems
Creativity
Beliefs
Values
Customs
Conduct creative thinking.

Improve note taking.
Describe, interpret,
analyze & evaluate visual
symbols.
Develop research skills
Develop presentation
skills
Understand the role of
hypothesis formation.
Collaborate with fellow
students.
Design and create
innovative solutions.
Visual art is reliable

evidence of ancient
peoples beliefs,
customs and values
and proof of how they
lived.
Human productive
thinking generated the
ability to build
monumental structures
and develop new ideas
related to an advanced
civilization.
Essential Understandings/Generalizations
Students will understand
1.
2.
3.
4.
Creative expression is found in all cultures.

New systems are produced due to creative innovations.
Beliefs, values, and customs are rooted in the culture of a civilization.
Creative and artistic expression can identify and shape a civilization.
Essential Questions for Unit and Guiding Questions for Lessons

1. How is creativity expressed in societal cultures?
2. How are new systems produced as a result of creative innovations?
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3. How does creativity and artistic expression identify, reflect and shape a civilization?
4. How beliefs, values and customs are entrenched and rooted in a culture of a civilization?
5. How beliefs, values and creative thought may change and/or benefit a civilizations culture?
Guiding Questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What is culture? (C) What is civilization? (C)

Why are beliefs, values and customs needed for a civilization to survive? (C)
Were the beliefs, values and customs the same for everybody in ancient Egypt? (F) In your culture? (F)
What were the beliefs, values, and customs of the ancient Egyptian? (F)
What makes a civilization great? (P)
How may the beliefs, values and creative thought change or benefit a civilizations culture? (C)
(C) = Concept
(F) = Fact
(P) = Perception
Culminating Performance Task: Students will choose from one of four activities below.
1. You are an archeologist or art historian. You will create a new civilization. Based on your
research about ancient civilizations, design a new civilization with emphasis on the creative
expression of individuals who lived there. Create a written narrative with illustrations describing
your new civilizations culture and how individuals express themselves creatively. You may limit
your focus to one of the following systems of culture: government, education, economy, or
religion.
2. You are an advertiser/archeologist. You will act as an ancient travel guide representing Egypts
travel board. Speak as a historian, design and create a travel brochure highlighting key points
of creative interest. Areas of creative interest and expression include architecture, art work,
and cultural events that would entice individuals to visit. Present to the class in a persuasive
performance.
3. Create a commercial for T.V., website or printed resource selling a trip back in time so the
vacationer will experience life of a family living in ancient Egypt. The experience will focus on
understanding the beliefs, values, and customs which are rooted in the culture of families.
Include various aspects of art, culture and daily life in which the families live. You are
encouraged to use props and costumes. You will present in performance format to the class.
4. Create and design a product or an invention you think every Ancient Egyptian would have
been envious of. Design an advertising campaign to market and sell this product. Dont forget,
the time period is 3,000 years ago, be historically accurate, detailed and creative.
Instructional Activities
Pre Assessment
1. TSW be asked to create a list of all themes, objects and places. Create diagrams and knowledge block
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charts.
2. TSW be asked to plan, design and illustrate ideas visually and written format in sketchbook journals.
Post Assessment
1. TSW will complete daily exit tickets.
2. TSW complete a visual inventory test by identifying various visual landmarks and artifacts.
3. TSW describe subject matter, analyze style, interpret meaning and form a judgement of various
selected works of art.
4. TSW present various topic presentations and dramatics to class.
Lesson Activities
Understanding the background of Egyptian culture:
1. Lead the group in guided reading from a book related to Egyptian history, art, culture, and
origins of the civilization.
2. With the students, locate Egypt on the map. Invite students to find Egypt using Google Earth
site. [See www.earth.google.com]
3. With the students, view examples of Ancient Egyptian architecture, art and artifacts, and
culture. Use printed and electronic projected materials, maps, slides and other visual
examples.
4. View videos about Ancient Egypt, its art and technological advances.
Relate Egyptian culture to the students own experience:
1. Ask the students to brainstorm and journal about their activities and routines within a day.
2. Explore the manners in which all cultures have used the visual arts as a powerful form of
persuasion.
3. Students will analyze monuments and structures that have become visual symbols in their own
culture.
4. Students will examine visual symbols and meanings found in their own lives.
5. Explore the mystery and evidence of how the Egyptians may have invented unique machines
and devices. Write your evidence in an electronic presentation and present to the class your
findings and theory.
6. Become a historian; and write a detailed daily life narrative from the perspective of an Ancient
Egyptian boy or girl.
Extension Activities & Centers
Special Interests Activities & Centers: Students will be briefed on expectations about what to do when
they have completed tasks and have idle time. Students will be encouraged to complete one or
multiples of the following:
1. Students may choose to research a ritual or cultural practice using KidRex search engine and
journal about their findings. Students will be encouraged to share their findings with the class.
Students may choose to read, write or draw in their journals about a choice topic. [social
studies]
2. Students may also select to complete a teacher provided brainteaser activity/worksheet or pair
with a student to play a brainteaser quest game. Brainteasers will focus on the disciplines: art,
social studies, language arts, and technology.
3. Students will explore technology through experimentation with basic pulleys, levers, inclines
and other basic machines and theorize the movement of objects. Students will journal their
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hypotheses and their findings. [technology]

4. Students will design and create a visual symbol that represents themselves, their family and/or
culture. The students will sculpt this visual symbol in clay and present the symbol to the class
emphasizing how the symbol connects to them. [art]
5. Students will design and create a unique pictographic [hieroglyphic] language that they can
use to write and speak to describe themselves and their culture. [language arts]
Books and Other Resources
1. If I Were a Kid in Ancient Egypt: Children of the Ancient World
2. National Geographic Kids Everything Ancient Egypt: Dig Into a Treasure Trove of Facts, Photos, and
Fun
3. You Wouldn't Want to Be a Pyramid Builder!: A Hazardous Job You'd Rather Not Have
4. http://www.mummysmessage.com/
5. Building the Great Pyramid BBC Video
6. Mr. Peabody and Sherman. 2014

IV.
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Unit Outline: Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity
Essential Questions for Unit and Guiding Questions for Lessons

1. How is creativity expressed in societal cultures?
2. How are new systems produced as a result of creative innovations?
3. How does creativity and artistic expression identify, reflect and shape a civilization?
4. How beliefs, values and customs are entrenched and rooted in a culture of a civilization?
5. How beliefs, values and creative thought may change and/or benefit a civilizations culture?
Guiding Questions:
1. What is culture? What is civilization?
2. What is your culture? How is it identified by visual symbols in your daily lif?
3. Why are beliefs, values and customs needed for a civilization to survive?
4. Were the beliefs, values and customs the same for everybody in ancient Egypt? In your
culture?
5. What were the beliefs, values, and customs of the ancient Egyptian?
6. What makes a civilization great?
7. How may the beliefs, values and creative thought change or benefit a civilizations culture?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Lesson 1: Introduction to the Unit

Guiding Question(s): What is culture? What is visual culture? How may it be communicated by
artistic expression, the cultural beliefs, values and customs of a civilization? How do objects in your
daily life become a part of your visual culture and identity?
(6 hours)
Opening activity (hook): Mystery Boxes Introduction of the word ethos. The students will
observe and decide what they think is in the mystery box and attempt to pursued their team member
to draw the same conclusion. (Type II)
Pre-assessment activity: Students will be paired in partnerships of two and conduct an interview by
asking their partners a series of questions. (Type II)
After students have conducted their interviews, students will write a descriptive narrative of their day
and draw pictures to illustrate. They will present their personal cultures to the class. (Type II)
When students have finished their presentations, the teacher will lead the class in a discussion about
what is culture. We will discover that however different we may seem to be, we all have a very similar
pattern or routines and habits that bond us as the same which is our culture.
Students will be shown a slide of an ancient Egyptian wall mural depicting a scene of daily life such
as the one below featuring a pharaoh queen and an archer. (Type III)
After examining the mural, we will discuss what we see, describe what we see, what we think is
happening and make guesses about what is the purpose for this artistic expression.
Students will view a video clip from the movie Mr. Peabody and Sherman. The clip will be the part
from the pairs time travels to ancient Egypt. After the clip, we will discuss what parts of Ancient
Egyptian culture and be determined or assumed from the clip.
Before students leave the class, they will fill out an exit ticket answering the question, List and
explain one visual element, creative or artistic expression you saw today that could be used to tell a
story about one portion of a persons culture.
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Lesson 2: Exploring the Culture of Ancient Egypt through the Eyes of a Child.
Guiding Question(s): How can creative and artistic expression identify and shape a civilization?
What is a civilization? Various examples of a cultures essence can be found it objects and practices
in the everyday daily lives of its people. As you discovered in Lesson I, you have daily routines where
you perform rituals such as brushing your teeth, dressing yourself and preparing food for the day as
you leave for school. You travel to school and live out your day moving in and out of one ritualistic
activity to another. These daily rituals could be translated into customs by an archeologist. How might
your daily rituals look if it were of a person your age, but 3,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt?
1. Students will view a video about Ancient Egyptian life and culture from the kid safe website Neok12.com
titled History of Egypt part 1 and 2. (Type I)
2. As a large group, students will create a brain dump in journal format of things we know and have
discovered about Ancient Egypt including various aspects from its history that shaped its culture. Now
using your journal information from lesson I, compare and contrast your daily rituals to those rituals you
think an Ancient Egyptian your age may have encountered. (Type II)
3. Students will assume the life of an Ancient Egyptian boy or girl their own age and write a
historical re-tell of this boy or girls life in a one day scenario. This daily life scenario will be
creatively written as a narrative including descriptively explained historical detail and facts. The
story the students create will be typed in an electronic format using Google slides, pages or
Microsoft Word and should include visual information in the form of historical photographs reenactments or student created illustrations that will be scanned and inserted into the electronic
story document. The student stories and or slide presentations will be electronically shared with
me via email, Google docs. or teacher/student share files. Writer/Historian (Type III)
4. When completed, the students will present their stories to the class. This may take place in the
next class meeting.
Exploring the use of visual art as a powerful tool and communicator of power. (Guiding
Questions): Beliefs, values, and customs are rooted in the culture of a civilization. How may the
artists choice of placement and size proportions help to make the Pharaoh appear the center of the
viewers attention, appear larger and more powerful? What can we inference about the Egyptian idea
of man verses woman when observing how women are placed in murals and positioned in sculptural
sets? How does the Egyptian manner of drawing the human figure allow for much more detail and
identification than expected from more modern drawing styles? Can Artistic Expression be used to
spread Propaganda?
1. We will look at visual examples of Egyptian painting and sculpture.
2. Guest speaker, Toby Richards an education specialist from The Birmingham Museum of Art will
speak to the students about ways artistic expression has been used by many cultures through
time to associate power to their leaders. (Type I)
3. Students will discuss how the visual process of design was used to make a Pharaoh appear more
powerful than any other human pictured in a mural with him such as size and posture.
4. Students will brainstorm about events that have taken place in their lives such as an award they
received or a time they were lead in a play, performed a solo or made a field goal. They will be
asked to retell that moment in illustration using design techniques making themselves appear
heroic and powerful. Artist/Designer/Art Historian(Type II)
Lesson 4: Trial and error: Developing new systems and process for building structures.
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(Guided Questions): How and why may humans develop new systems that lead to creative
innovations. The Ancient Egyptians developed simple machine technologies that allowed them
means of transporting and stacking heavy large stones. What simple machine technologies did they
invent and how did they use them? The Ancient Egyptians developed mathematical formulas for
calculating precise angles to assist them in cutting perfect cubed stones and placing them atop each
other in a manner so they provided support for the pyramid structure avoiding collapse from the
extreme weight. What systems did the Egyptians develop that allowed them to figures angles and
proportions that enabled them to construct enduring structures such as the pyramids? What was the
purpose of these large structures?
1. Students will view example of the first pyramidal structures, observe their construction and
engineering processes, discuss their fail or succeed. (Type I)
2. Students will view the video Pyramid produced by BBC. (Type I)
3. TTW inform the students that they will be assigned teams of 3 and will have to design a structure
on paper (written and illustrated) using only assigned limited materials, newspaper, paper clips,
colored papers, glue, scissors, tag board scraps and tape. (Type II)
4. Students will be divided in teams with their engineering/construction design task and use the
productive thinking technique SCAMPER to complete their design.
5. Students will design a structure using scale drawing practices, inch equals 1.
6. After the plans are made for the structure, TSW use the materials given build a structure that will
house themselves and their team members. (Type III)
7. Students will notice during this team exercise that teamwork, productive thinking, listening to each
others ideas, use of limited tools and materials, accepting failure and trying again is exactly the
key to discovering the process the Ancients went through until they developed the right
recipe/system for assembling the perfect pyramid structure. Students will create sturdy load
bearing beams by rolling the newspaper and taping together securely. The beams will be
connected to other beams with tape. The beam structure will be covered with flat pieces of the
newspaper to make a structure.
Lesson 5: Art as a Tool for Control. Guided Question(s): Creative Expression is found in all
cultures. Creative Artistic Expressions may become symbols that shape Civilizations/Nations. How
may humans attach meaning to objects that visually communicate a thought, mood, feeling or
emotion? Human creative expressions are important parts of all civilizations culture, how may the
creative artistic expression be utilized as symbolic and meaningful by people? How do artistic
expressions become visual symbols that shape and create identity for people within a society? How is
creative and or artistic expression a part of the culture and civilization of your city or country? How
may creative and or artistic expressions be a part of the culture and civilization of your city or
country? The U.S Capitol Dome and the Washington Monument have become enduring symbols of
American Power and Freedom. Can you make other comparisons in world cultural architecture or
other forms of human creative expression where artistic symbolism is used? Ancient Egyptians
constructed monumental pyramidal structures to symbolize power and importance of their kings.
1. Pre-assessment- students will list in their journal examples human created artistic expressions in our
world, country, state or local community that may be used as meaningful symbols representing a
message, thought. Feeling or idea people may associate with their own identity. (Type II)
2. Students will create a symbol using materials that could be seen as a power symbol a culture of people
could identify with and unify around. (Type III)
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3. Visual diagram: compare and contrast symbolism in two pieces of artistic expression from anywhere in the
world. (Type III)
Example using a funnel diagram.
Patriotis
m
Heritag
e
Power
The Washington
Monument
4. Students will use materials provided to create a meaningful visual symbol for a made up civilization.
Lesson 6: Creative/Artistic Expressions that Speak. (Guiding Questions: Creative Expression is

found in all cultures, even our own. Humans often attach meaning to objects that visual communicate
a thought, mood, feeling or emotion.
1. Pre-assessment- Journal/sketchbooks: Can you think of any object you have at home that reminds
you of someone you could use in a creative expression such as a painting or drawing? TSW create a
list in their journal, make a selection and include a written explanation poem and sketches of selected
object. (Type II)
2. Guided/Direct Instruction: Activity:
TTW share personal stories about how objects have become memory makers for past loved ones. TTW
show pictures of these objects. TTW share a list of words that can be used as metaphors and
demonstrate their use. TSW create a list of metaphorical words and use them to in metaphorical
phrases. (Type II)
TSW: list objects they know that remind them of people they know or family and create a metaphorical
phrase using the names of the people they listed. (Type III)
Lesson 7: Plants and animals were often used as meaning visual symbols in ancient cultures; is this
(Guided Question): Beliefs, values and customs are rooted in the culture of a civilization In what
ways have humans used plant and animal symbols to communicate moods, feelings and
personalities of these plants and animals? How have humans attributed animals and plant
characteristic and behaviors to humans and human made products?
1. Pre-assessment- Journal/sketchbooks: Frayer
After a group discussion and guided looking at examples of Egyptian art that includes examples of animal
and plant symbolism, students will be challenged to create their own animal or plant symbol.
The discussion and guided looking session will include not only Ancient Egyptian artwork, but also
examples of other cultures use of animals and plants as visual symbols. The use of animal mascot
choices for sports teams will also be a topic. (Type II)
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Students must do research on their choices and prepare a slide presentation including the scientific
order, habitat, feeding habits and other important key facts. Students will present their findings and
persuasive convince the class why they selected this animal or plant as their symbol. Research will
include finding out how this animal or plant became a symbol of a particular or set of desired human
attributes. (Type III)
Lesson 8: A Book for Dead. (Guided Questions): How are a cultures beliefs, values and customs
reflected in its sociological class systems, stories and art work? Why are beliefs and values and team
efforts important in a culture and needed for its survival? How may team efforts and talent blend to
solve issues in productive way? How are creative products or art forms used to illustrate a cultures
beliefs, values and customs? How may human creative expressions personify and become the final
record of human life?
1. Pre-assessmentTSW engage in a game of Pass the Prompt TTW will pass around a paper with prompt about Ancient
Egyptian art and culture. The sheet will contain one prompt for each of the students in the class. The
students will read the prompt aloud and answer it to the best of his ability and pass the paper to the next
student. If a student has no response or comment about the prompt, the following student will read and
respond to the same prompt.
Prompt examples:
The ancient Egyptians held cats in the highest esteem; the penalties for injuring or killing a cat
were severe.
Women in ancient Egypt were ahead of their time. Elaborate on this expression. Use examples.
The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text The illustration below includes a scene
from Ancient Egyptian life, Explain what is happening, what are the roles of the people you see?
The ancient Egyptians regarded beauty as a sign of holiness. Everything the ancient Egyptians used
had a spiritual aspect to it, including cosmetics, which is why cosmetics were an integral part of their
daily lives. Look closely at the illustration below. Explain in detail what is going on.
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Eternity was an endless period of existence that was not to be feared by any Egyptian. Elaborate
on this expression; what does it mean? Use examples.
2. Guided/Direct Instruction/Activity:
Ancient Egyptian created The Book of the Dead and included it in burial tombs. It included stories
about the deceased with directions and suggestions of how to reach the after-life. TTW show some
visuals using PowerPoint/slides of these books as well as tomb murals. (Type I)
Students will be given a series creative of tasks using productive thinking techniques and create a
guide for dead Ancient Egyptian. (Type II)
TASK 1: TRAPPED!!!! In an Ancient Egyptian Tomb! Using S.C.A.M.P.E.R. productive thinking
techniques.
Student task script:
While exploring the Valley of the Kings, you accidentally fall down into a small whole that opens up
into a series of tunnels. As you stumble to adjust yourself and collect your bearings, you notice in the
dim light the opening to the whole is actually a door and its closing! You rush to get through the door
throwing a large backpack filled with most of your supplies, tools, food and camping gear. Too late!
The door comes to a grinding dusty closure and youre trapped in an Ancient Egyptian tomb!
So you are trapped in this dark vast and cavernous ancient burial tomb. You tossed most of your gear
through the closing door and now you are stuck with only the clothes on your back, a small backpack
with some water, granola bars and a big bottle of sun screen in it, fifty feet of rope, a book about
Egyptology and your pocket knife.
The door you just passed through has been re-sealed possible by some curse and has disappeared.
You have to navigate yourself through the cavernous tomb, survive and escape. You only have the
objects listed above to help you solve this problem, survive and escape this tomb; however you may
find some objects in the tomb to assist you.
Write a descriptive and or narrative essay employing S.C.A.M.P.E.R productive thing techniques
explaining how you will use the objects and materials you have with you plus three new objects you
find in the tomb. Do your research and use terminology and actual, authentic and legitimate objects
and materials you may actually find in a three thousand year old Ancient Egyptian tomb. You will also
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include detailed maps and drawings in your report. Your report, facts, maps and illustrations will
become part of your book for the dead. (Type III)
Final hands on creative artistic product (A Book for the Dead) will be constructed as a final summative
product. This creative summative piece will be constructed using book binding methods and will include
creative illustrations, maps, poems and any other forms of creative expressions that may be helpful for
the dead to know and remember about his past life. (Type III)
Task 2: The Pharaohs Big Event. Using Talents Unlimited Think Skills Strategies.
Student script:
You have just been accidentally sent back in time to Ancient Egypt because you became tired after a
series of poetry writing frenzies and went to sleep in your time machine. While sleeping your head
rested on the time selection wheel-a-na-tor button and a time and place was selected. Then you
needed to stretch and mistakenly pressed the GO button and back in time you went to 1220 B.C
during the 19th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt under the rule of the great pharaoh Ramses II. When you
arrived, your time machine struck a pyramid and broke your flux make-a-date-er, now you cannot
select a date in time to return to anytime soon until you somehow make the needed repairs.
You decide you must fit the part and not be recognized in the society so you have to find suitable
clothing to blend in. You find a small modest home with what looks to be laundry hanging outside to
dry. You grab some clothes from the line and quickly change and stash all your modern attire in the
river except your iPad of course which you conceal in a small leather waste satchel you find sitting by
the clothes-line post. Since you did not remember your history on Ancient Egyptian culture, beliefs,
customs and values, you did not know the modest plain clothes you selected belong to that of a
servant cook.
All of the sudden palace guards show up and escort you to the palace of Ramses II. There is some
sort of big party planned for this evening and you are part of the planning and preparing team. Since
you have not done this job before you will have to do your research to make sure you do everything
correct as expected by the touchy king or your fate will be sealed. Payment for making the king
happy will result in payment in gold bars which is what you will need to repair the flux make-a-date-er
on your time machine.
Now you will need to make use of research skills and observation skills.
Observe closely the following six mural paintings. Make a list and describe the use of the objects in
you see in each mural. Explain what is happening in the murals and the people involved in the action.
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You may use the notes you brought with you that are saved on your ipad and the visual information
you see in the murals to make sure you plan a suitable and enjoyable meal for the pharaohs big
even.
Using Talents Unlimited Thinking Skills Techniques, work in teams to create solutions and solve this
problem. You will assume and assign duties in teams of six depending on personality and academic
or interest strengths of your team members.
Create a list of supplies including food and tools needed for the food. List the number of extra servant
help you will need and make sure they are dressed appropriately. Plan and explain the menu for this
event. Your final plans will be included in your book of the dead. (Type I)
the dead to know and remember about his past life. (Type III)
TASK 3: Was King Tut Murderd? Using DeBonos Six Thinking Hats
Student script:
You have been assigned the task of archeologist, sociologist, journalist, art historian and forensic
scientists. As we know form the discovery of his ancient tomb in the early 20 th century, King Tutt was a
young king who ruled Egypt in the late kingdom period and died as well at a young age. The question
that has puzzled modern people is how did he die, was he murdered or did he die of natural causes
or occurrences? Using internet resources such as National Geographic on
line,http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131106-king-tut-mummy-death-mysterysolved-archaeology-science/ as evidence resources, build an argument and form your team opinion
of how King Tut died.
In a group of four to six, use DeBonos Six Thinking Hats productive thinking techniques to debate the
fact and solve the mystery. Each team member will wear one of the six hats and assume and personify
this role using the six hats descriptions.
Your team will research, debate, hypothesize and form a conclusion about what you believe to be the
cause of causes of Tuts demise. Your team will persuasively present your conclusions in a creative
format to this class which may include creative dramatics, videoing, podcasting, or other electronic or
hand build formats.
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C.McClendon 2015
the dead to know and remember about his past life.
For your final piece, A Book for the Dead, you may choose to add creative illustrations, maps, poems
and any other forms of creative expressions from all three of your productive thinking tasks or from two
or one or the three tasks. (Type III)
Unit Narrative: Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity
What drives the human spirit to create? The creative process

and artistic expression are valuable forms of communication
that record human existence. How may arts such as painting,
architecture, music and literature be used to record human
cultural beliefs, values and customs? How does human
creativity form a path to the creation of systems that lead to
creative innovations in technology? Why do humans devote
time, energy and money creating visual representations about
their lives? How do forms of creative and artistic expression influence people and help identify and
shape a civilization? How do these enduring examples of creative, artistic expression and
technological innovations make a civilization great?
These are just a few of the exciting questions we will answer while exploring creative, artistic
expressions and innovations made by humans of the past in our upcoming unit of study. Our unit is
titled Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity. You will time travel back in time and discover enduring
works of art, technologies and artifacts left behind by these fascinating ancient people and then blast
back to the present and soar into the future to create a new civilization of your own with its unique
cultural elements such as a written language, art, music, literature, architecture, and government
structure!
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C.McClendon 2015
Lesson Overviews and Component Menus for Lesson Plans
Lesson 1: Introduction to the Unit

Guiding Question(s): What is culture? What is visual culture? How may it be communicated by
artistic expression, the cultural beliefs, values and customs of a civilization? How do objects in your
daily life become a part of your visual culture and identity?
Humans have recorded evidences of their culture through the production of creative expressions
such as visual art (painting and sculpture) since the beginning of known civilization and before dating
back to the Neanderthal. Many of these images include strange ritualistic practices that we may find
odd based on our cultural backgrounds. Ancient Egyptians used the visual arts as a visual record of
their civilization and also as a visual guide for their dead to successfully reach the after-life.
1. Opening activity: Mystery Boxes- TSW will be paired in groups of three. Each group will be
given a box with a mystery object inside. Each student will be given a turn to examine (gently
shake and turn) the box without opening it. Each student will tell the group what he or she
predicts is inside the box. Each member of the group will take notes. Once ample time has
been given, the groups will present their conclusive predictions to the class and the teacher will
then open and real the mystery inside. The lesson is meant to be used to teach students how
archeologist cannot always see what they are looking for and must first use the human senses
to hypothesize. 30 mins
2. Pre-assessment activity (Type 1) Students will be paired in partnerships of two and conduct
an interview by asking their partners a series of questions. 1 hour
Interview Questions:
a) What did you see when you first woke up this morning?
b) What did you hear when you first woke up this morning?
c) What kind of things did you do when getting ready for school this morning?
d) What did you eat for breakfast?
e) How did you get to school this morning?
f) What will you have for lunch today?
g) What sort of things will you be taught today at school?
h) What tools and technologies may you use at school today?
i) How will you communicate your ideas and expressions to others today?
j) How will you get home from school today?
k) What will you do when you get home today?
l) Do you listen to music, play games, sports, read books, and have chores, hobbies or
pets?
m) What must you do before bedtime tonight?
n) Do you sleep in a bed?
3. After students have conducted their interviews, students will write a descriptive narrative of
their day and draw pictures to illustrate. They will present their personal cultures to the class.
4. When students have finished their presentations, the teacher will lead the class in a discussion
about what is culture. We will discover that however different we may seem to be, we all have
a very similar pattern or routines and habits that bond us as the same which is our culture.
1hour
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C.McClendon 2015
5. Students will be shown a slide of an ancient Egyptian wall mural depicting a scene of daily life
such as the one below featuring a pharaoh queen and an archer.
6. After examining the mural, we will discuss what we see, describe what we see, what we think
is happening and make guesses about what is the purpose for this artistic expression. 15 mins
7. Students will view a video clip from the movie Mr. Peabody and Sherman. The clip will be the
part from the pairs time travels to ancient Egypt. After the clip, we will discuss what parts of
Ancient Egyptian culture and be determined or assumed from the clip. 30-40 mins
8. Before students leave the class, they will fill out an exit ticket answering the question, List and
explain one visual element, creative or artistic expression you saw today that could be used to
tell a story about one portion of a persons culture.
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C.McClendon 2015
Components Menu for Lesson Plan
Lesson # 1
Topic: Visual Culture: A Visual Record of You.
Grade Level: 4-5
Discipline(s):
Instructor:
Visual Arts, Language Arts, Technology & Social
Christopher McClendon
Lesson Length:
6-8 hours
2 class meetings
Science.
Content
Knowledge/Stand
ards
Unit Conceptual Lens: Culture

Unit Essential Understanding(s): Creative expression is found in all cultures. New systems are
produced due to creative innovations. Beliefs, values and customs are rooted in the culture of a
civilization. Creative and artistic expression can identify and shape a civilization.
Unit Essential Question(s): How is creativity expressed in societal cultures? How are new systems
produced as a result of creative innovations? How does creativity and artistic expression identify,
reflect and shape a civilization? How are beliefs, values, and customs entrenched and rooted in a
culture of a civilization?
Additional Concepts for this lesson: Creativity, symbolism
Guiding Question(s) for this lesson: What is culture? What is visual culture? How may it be
communicated by artistic expression, the cultural beliefs, values and customs of a civilization? How
do objects in your daily life become a part of your visual culture and identity?
Standard(s):
Visual Arts
Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique,
relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. [W.6.3].
Social studies/Sociology
Describe how values and norms influence individual behavior. Comparing ways in which cultures
differ, change, and resist change, including countercultures, subcultures, and ethnocentric beliefs.
Comparing the use of various symbols within and across societies
Examples: objects, gestures, sounds, images. Illustrating key concepts of socialization,
including self-concept, looking-glass self, significant others, and role-taking.
Technology
Use basic features of word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and presentation software
Examples: word processingreports, letters, brochures
- spreadsheetsdiscovering patterns, tracking spending, creating budgets
- databasescontact list of addresses and telephone numbers
- presentation softwareslideshow
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C.McClendon 2015
Assessment
In this lesson,
students will
Know (content):
Pre-assessment:
(Type 1) Students will be paired in partnerships of two and conduct an interview by asking their
partners a series of questions to determine their visual culture.
Understand
(concepts/big
ideas):
Formative Assessment(s): Teacher observations, student participation in discussions. Student

written journal information from partner interviews.
Be able to
(skills/processes):
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique,
relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.
Use basic features of word processing, spreadsheets, databases, and presentation software.
Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures.
Introduction
Hook for this lesson: Your culture includes everything you see, hear, smell, taste and touch.
Teaching Methods
1. Opening Activity: Various Objects from the Mystery Box: Students will enter the classroom and
be confronted by a box in the center of their group table of six students. Inside the boxes, the
teacher has placed random items such as head bands, hair pieces, and tattoo designs, items
such as jewelry, fur, and leather and patterned clothing samples. The students will participate in
small group discussions answering questions such as Who or what kind of person would
wear this?
2. Teacher direct instruction. The teacher will introduce the lesson by showing the video,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32l-_U6nGY and sharing some visuals of people from
various cultures in cultural attire such as Kayan people of Burma and foot binding practices of
China. The teacher will also share pictures of American youth with tattoos, unusual hair color
and attachments, as well as select body piercing practices.
The teacher will challenge the students to discuss and defend opinion of these strange
cultural practices of other cultures and compare them to our own. Cool or not cool? The
teacher will introduce the term visual culture and move the students to discover how the five
human senses are used daily in our experiences to develop our opinions, lead into rituals,
and progress into the development of our culture. How do the things we see in media
influence the way we dress, eat and so on?
3. Teacher/student guided instruction. The teacher will instruct the students to pair into groups of
two, use their journal and conduct a detailed interview with their partner.
4. Student partnered small group discussion. The interviewer will ask a series of questions from
the printed guidelines page. The questions will lead the interviewee into a visual guided
experience of the rituals he/she goes through in a period of a day. Once the interviews are
complete. The students will return to single work, use the results of the interview and write a
detailed narrative describing their daily rituals.
5. Student presentations: After the students have been given time to write, share and discuss
their interview and journal results with their groups, students will use GoogleSlides,
PowerPoint or Prezi and create a presentation about their own visual culture to the class. The
slide presentation should include detailed descriptions of each daily ritual and include picture,
photo or illustrations objects associated with of each ritual. Student presentations will include
reasoning for selected rituals.
Learning
Activities
1. Brainstorming
2. Interviewing, summarizing, describing, analyzing, interpreting and judging.
3. Presentation skills
Resources
1. Computers with internet connection and available colored printer.

2. books
3. Magazines and other printed resources.
4. Art materials paper, pencils, journal/sketchbooks, colored pencils, crayons, oil pastels,
21

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C.McClendon 2015
markers.
1. Journal
2. Student made presentation.
Grouping
Whole group: Class discussions and presentations

Small group: Interviews and discussions.
Individual: Personal journaling and presentation construction.
Extensions
Special Interests Activities & Centers: Students will be briefed on expectations about what to do
when they have completed tasks and have idle time. Students may choose to research a ritual or
cultural practice using KidRex search engine and journal about their findings. This could lead to
sharing with the class. Students may choose to read, write or draw in their journals about a choice
topic. Students may select to complete a teacher provided brainteaser activity/worksheet or pair
with a student to play a brainteaser quest game.
Lesson can be adjusted or scaffold to meet diverse intellectual needs and interests of students.
Students may participate in a game of charades or dramatizations imitating movements associated
with daily rituals.
Differentiation/
Ascending
Intellectual
Demand
Lesson 2: Exploring the culture of Ancient Egypt

Essential and (Guiding Questions): How can creative and artistic expression identify and shape a
civilization? What is a civilization? Various examples of a cultures essence can be found it objects
and practices in the everyday daily lives of its people. As you discovered in Lesson I, you have daily
routines where you perform rituals such as brushing your teeth, dressing yourself and preparing food
for the day as you leave for school. You travel to school and live out your day moving in and out of
one ritualistic activity to another. These daily rituals could be translated into customs by an
archeologist. How might your daily rituals look if it were of a person your age, but 3,000 years ago in
Ancient Egypt?
Begin lesson with hook activity Play song and video, Walk Like and Egyptian. This will lead
into discussion about what beliefs, values, customs and rituals shapes a culture, how daily
routines become ritual and how these rituals become customs that others use to identify us.
Students will view a video about Ancient Egyptian life and culture from the kid safe website
Neok12.com titled History of Egypt part 1 and view slides of artwork including portraits of
ancient Egyptian people. http://www.neok12.com/Ancient-Egypt.htm
(Type 1) 30 minutes
As a large group, students will create a brain dump in journal format of things we know and
have discovered about Ancient Egypt including various aspects from its history that shaped its
culture. Now using your journal information from lesson I, compare and contrast your daily
rituals to those rituals you think an Ancient Egyptian your age may have encountered.
30 minutes.
Students will assume the life of an Ancient Egyptian boy or girl their own age and write a
historical re-tell of this boy or girls life in a one day scenario. This daily life scenario will be
creatively written as a narrative including descriptively explained historical detail and facts. The
story the students create will be typed in an electronic format using Google slides, pages or
Microsoft Word and should include visual information in the form of historical photographs reenactments or student created illustrations that will be scanned and inserted into the electronic
story document. The student stories and or slide presentations will be electronically shared
with me via email, Google docs. or teacher/student share files. (Type II) Writer/Historian
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C.McClendon 2015
2 hours+
When completed, the students will present their stories to the class. This may take place in the
next class meeting.
Lesson # 2
Topic: Exploring the Culture of Ancient Egypt
Grade Level: 4-5
through the Eyes of a Child.

Discipline(s):
Instructor:
Social Studies, Language Arts, Technology and Art.
Chris McClendon
Content Knowledge/Standards
3 6 hours
Assessment
In this lesson, students will
Know (content):
Lesson Length:
Standard(s): Social Studies grades 5-6: Describe how values and

norms influence individual behavior. Comparing ways in which
cultures differ, change, and resist change, including countercultures,
subcultures, and ethnocentric beliefs. Comparing the use of various
symbols within and across societies. Examples: objects, gestures,
sounds, images. Illustrating key concepts of socialization, including
self-concept, looking-glass self, significant others, and role-taking.
(CS#3)
English Language Arts grades 5-6: Integrate information presented in
different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in
words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.
(CS#17) Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital
sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or
paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding
plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources.
(CS#28). Write routinely over extended time frames, including time
for research, reflection, and revision, and shorter time frames such as
a single sitting or a day or two for a range of discipline-specific tasks,
purposes, and audiences (CS#30)
Visual Arts 5-8: Describe historical and cultural influences on works of
art. (CS#7)
Technology grades 5-8: Use technology tools to organize, interpret,
and display data.
Unit Essential Understanding(s): Beliefs, values, and customs are
deeply rooted in the culture of a civilization and maybe seen in the
daily life rituals of individuals of that civilization.
Unit Essential Question(s): How may the beliefs, values and customs
of a civilization is seen in the daily ritual tasks of its people?
Additional Concepts for this lesson: routines, rituals and visual
expression.
Guiding Question(s) for this lesson: What are some of the basic daily
life rituals or routines performed by an Ancient Egyptian child that
may reveal unique characteristics about his/her culture and
civilization?
Pre-assessment: Frayer Model, journaling, listing.

Formative Assessment(s): Journal, discussions, drawing (what would and
Ancient Egyptian kid look like)?
23

Understand (concepts/big ideas):
Be able to (skills/processes):
Introduction
C.McClendon 2015
Students will understand all human cultures have communicated messages

and meaning about their cultures through the visual arts.
Examine and determine message and meaning from artwork made in an
ancient time period.
Students will be able to associate meaning to objects and actions seen in
works of art.
Hook for this lesson: Students will enter the room and the teacher will play
the song Walk Like and Egyptian by The Bangles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv6tuzHUuuk
When the song if done, the teacher will ask the students what does it mean
to walk like an Egyptian? Allow time for discussion, then the teacher will
show some slides of art work depicting people posed in the required profile
face, frontal torso and profile foot position. Allow students time to move,
walk and pose in this position and decide if this is a possible and
comfortable position to walk in? Discuss how this simple rule of drawing
people in a particular pose has shaped the worlds ideas about Ancient
Egyptian people. The teacher will dismiss this cultural assumption and
explain (the Egyptian Rule) why the Egyptian artists painted and sculpted
people in this pose.
The teacher will pose a question for the students to debate. People in other
parts of the country and in the world as a whole see people from Alabama
in certain negative ways.
Using a Socratic circle, the students will debate this sensitive issue.
Teaching Methods
1. direct instruction
2. small and whole group discussion
3. individual project
4. whole group presentation
24

Learning Activities
C.McClendon 2015
1. Brainstorming and listing. Students will work together in small groups to

think, discuss and list ways other people may believe we Alabamians, think,
look, talk and behave based on they think they know about us from what
they have heard and not seen for themselves.
2. Research. Students will research by examining Ancient Egypt under a
looking glass to discover ways in which the ancient Egyptians lived.
Housing, government, transportation, food, education, fashion or another
topic about their culture. The teacher may share videos from the website
http://www.neok12.com/Ancient-Egypt.htm
3. Organize and group information: students will be asked to create titles or
group names for the information they have gathered and organize the
information under these group titles.
4. Discussion: Once the information gathered about the ways in which the
ancient Egyptians lived in categories such as housing, government,
transportation, food, education, fashion or another topic about their culture;
the students will be asked to discuss these daily rituals and compare and
contrast them with our own. A VENN diagram model will be created by each
group.
5. Presentation: Each student group will present their research and diagram
to the class.
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwPpEb0jcU0
7. Group activity TSW give the students the following directions.
TRAPPED!!!! In an Ancient Egyptian Tomb!
S.C.A.M.P.E.R.
While exploring the Valley of the Kings, you accidentally fall down into a
small whole that opens up into a series of tunnels. As you stumble to adjust
yourself and collect your bearings, you notice in the dim light the opening to
the whole is actually a door and its closing! You rush to get through the door
throwing a large backpack filled with most of your supplies, tools, food and
camping gear. Too late! The door comes to a grinding dusty closure and
youre trapped in an Ancient Egyptian tomb!
So you are trapped in this dark vast and cavernous ancient burial tomb. You
tossed most of your gear through the closing door and now you are stuck
with only the clothes on your back, a small backpack with some water,
granola bars and a big bottle of sun screen in it, fifty feet of rope, a book
about Egyptology and your pocket knife.
The door you just passed through has been re-sealed possible by some
curse and has disappeared. You have to navigate yourself through the
cavernous tomb, survive and escape. You only have the objects listed
above to help you solve this problem, survive and escape this tomb;
however you may find some objects in the tomb to assist you.
Write a descriptive and or narrative essay employing S.C.A.M.P.E.R
productive thing techniques explaining how you will use the objects and
materials you have with you plus three new objects you find in the tomb. Do
your research and use terminology and actual, authentic and legitimate
objects and materials you may actually find in a three thousand year old
Ancient Egyptian tomb.
Resources
1. Printed slides of Egyptian art

2. Computers and web connections
25

Products
Grouping
Extensions
Differentiation/
Ascending Intellectual Demand
C.McClendon 2015
3. journals
1. Frayer
2. Journal notes
3. VENN diagram
4. Slide presentations
5. Exit slips
Whole group: Discussion of the song and Egyptian poses
Small group: Discussion and VENN diagram
Individual: Journaling, note taking and writing the story from the perspective
of an ancient Egyptian child.
Read the book, If I were a Child in Ancient Egypt
Create a log inventory and classification of artifacts found in the Safari Ltd
Ancient Egypt TOOB kit.
Students may select to research and find their own examples of ancient art
forms and create a visual electronic collage presentation.
Students may select to read a book about Egyptian art or history.
Students may select a special topic( inventions, work of art, architectural
monument or structure, or human biography) about ancient Egypt and write
a paper or make a visual slide presentation about this topic.
Lesson 3: Exploring the use of visual art as a powerful tool and communicator of power.
(Guiding Questions): Beliefs, values, and customs are rooted in the culture of a civilization. How
may the artists choice of placement and size proportions help to make the Pharaoh appear the
center of the viewers attention, appear larger and more powerful? What can we inference about the
Egyptian idea of man verses woman when observing how women are placed in murals and
positioned in sculptural sets? How does the Egyptian manner of drawing the human figure allow for
much more detail and identification than expected from more modern drawing styles? Can Artistic
Expression be used to spread Propaganda?
We will look at visual examples of Egyptian painting and sculpture related to portraiture and events.
Guest speaker, Toby Richards an education specialist from The Birmingham Museum of Art
will speak to the students about ways artistic expression has been used by many cultures
through time to associate power to their leaders. (Type I)
Students will discuss how the visual process of design was used to make a Pharaoh appear
more powerful than any other human pictured in a mural with him such as size and posture.
Students will demonstrate fluency by brainstorming about events that have taken place in their
lives such as an award they received or a time they were lead in a play, performed a solo or
made a field goal. They will be asked to retell that moment in illustration using design
techniques making themselves appear heroic and powerful. (Type II) Artist/Designer/Art
Historian
Lesson # 3
Topic: Exploring the use of visual art as a powerful
tool and communicator of power.
Grade Level: 4-5
Lesson Length:
3-4 hours
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C.McClendon 2015
Discipline(s):
Social Studies, Language Arts, Technology and Art.
Instructor:
Chris McClendon
Standard(s): Social Studies grades 5-6: Describe how values and

norms influence individual behavior. Comparing ways in which
cultures differ, change, and resist change, including countercultures,
subcultures, and ethnocentric beliefs. Comparing the use of various
symbols within and across societies. Examples: objects, gestures,
sounds, images. Illustrating key concepts of socialization, including
self-concept, looking-glass self, significant others, and role-taking.
(CS#3)
English Language Arts grades 5-6: Integrate information presented in
different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in
words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.
(CS#17) Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital
sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or
paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding
plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources.
(CS#28). Write routinely over extended time frames, including time
for research, reflection, and revision, and shorter time frames such as
a single sitting or a day or two for a range of discipline-specific tasks,
purposes, and audiences (CS#30)
Visual Arts 5-8: Describe historical and cultural influences on works of
art. (CS#7)
Technology grades 5-8: Use technology tools to organize, interpret,
and display data.
Unit Essential Understanding(s): Beliefs, values, and customs are
deeply rooted in the culture of a civilization and maybe seen in the
daily life rituals of individuals of that civilization.
Unit Essential Question(s): How may the beliefs, values and customs
of a civilization is seen in the daily ritual tasks of its people?
Additional Concepts for this lesson: routines, rituals and visual
expression.
Guiding Question(s) for this lesson: What are some of the basic daily
life rituals or routines performed by an Ancient Egyptian child that
may reveal unique characteristics about his/her culture and
civilization?
Assessment
Know (content):
Pre-assessment: Picture/Art Image Descriptions, Analyzations and

Interpretations
Formative Assessment(s): Journal, discussions, art work/self-portraits in

heroic or memorable moment.
Introduction
Teaching Methods
Learning Activities
Hook for this lesson: Students will enter the room as the song We Are
the Champions plays and lyrics are shared. The students will be asked to
list in their sketchbook journals as many possible examples as they can in
ten minutes about when in their lives they felt really special or like a hero.
Example may be shared on a volunteer basis.
1. TTW ask students to reflect on a moment in their own lives when they felt
27
C.McClendon 2015
like a champion by winning an award or a game. TSW complete their

reflections by journaling in their journal/sketchbooks.
2. Once students have been given ample time to write a detailed journal
entry, TTW ask the students to continue their visualizations of their chosen
even and then create sketches to illustrate it in their journal/sketchbooks.
3. TSW be provided with 18x24 illustration boards or canvas, art supplies
such as acrylic paint and brushes, oil pastel and other mixed media art
materials.
4. TTW ask the students to use their journal entries and sketches and
create a work of art that illustrates their heroic and memorable moment.
5Artistic style and subject matter may vary, with the exception of use of the
Ancient Egyptian rule of portraying (through the principle of emphasis and
proportion) the victor as larger than real life and the center of the work of
art.
5. TTW share portrait style art examples that have been used as
propaganda (political, social and even in sports) TSW discuss ways in
which this visual representation is able to convey a strong message.
6. TSW critique and present their portraits to the class.
Resources
Products
Grouping
Extensions
Differentiation/
1. Printed slides of Egyptian art

3. journals
1. Journal/sketchbook formative writing and sketches.
2. Typed and printed formal descriptive narratives.
3. Completed summative self-portrait
1. Individual through self-reflection and journaling
2. Small group in small table top artwork observations and discussions
3. Whole group through class presentations and critiques.
Students may select another cultures (choice) artwork and use of art as a
tool for communicating power.
Students may use a collection of old magazines, cut and create a collage
piece of art that communicates a power theme. Students will present their
artwork in a group critique setting. This work of art does not have to do with
the student personally.
Lesson 4: Trial and error: Developing new systems and process for building structures.
(Guided Questions): How and why may humans develop new systems that lead to creative
innovations. The Ancient Egyptians developed simple machine technologies that allowed them
means of transporting and stacking heavy large stones. What simple machine technologies did they
invent and how did they use them? The Ancient Egyptians developed mathematical formulas for
calculating precise angles to assist them in cutting perfect cubed stones and placing them atop each
other in a manner so they provided support for the pyramid structure avoiding collapse from the
extreme weight. What systems did the Egyptians develop that allowed them to figures angles and
proportions that enabled them to construct enduring structures such as the pyramids? What was the
purpose of these large structures?
Students will view examples of the first pyramidal structures, observe their construction and
engineering processes, discuss their fail or succeed. (Type I) 20-30 minutes
Students will view the video Pyramid produced by BBC. 30 minutes
Students will be divided in teams of four, five or six and given an engineering/construction
design task. Use the materials you are given (newspaper and masking tape) build a structure
that will house you and your team members. Students will notice during this team exercise that
28
C.McClendon 2015
teamwork, listening to each others ideas, use of limited tools and materials, accepting failure
and trying again is exactly the key to discovering the process the Ancients went through until
they developed the right recipe/system for assembling the perfect pyramid structure. Students
will create sturdy load bearing beams by rolling the newspaper and taping together securely.
The beams will be connected to other beams with tape. The beam structure will be covered
with flat pieces of the newspaper to make a structure. (Type II & III)1.5 hours
Guidelines:
Structures will be scaled in size (example 1 equals 1 ) students will develop their scale.
The structures must be solid and sturdy.
The structures MUST accommodate all team members comfortably.
(Type III) Engineer/Architect

Lesson # 4
Topic: The trial and error, developing
new systems, process of building
structures.
Grade Level: 4-5
Discipline(s):
Social Studies, Language Arts,
Technology and Art.
Instructor:
Chris McClendon
Content
Knowledge/Standards
Lesson
Length:
3-4 hours
Standard(s): Social Studies grades 5-6: Describe how values

and norms influence individual behavior. Comparing ways in
which cultures differ, change, and resist change, including
countercultures, subcultures, and ethnocentric beliefs.
Comparing the use of various symbols within and across
societies. Examples: objects, gestures, sounds, images.
Illustrating key concepts of socialization, including self-concept,
looking-glass self, significant others, and role-taking. (CS#3)
English Language Arts grades 5-6: Integrate information
presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually,
quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent
understanding of a topic or issue.(CS#17) Gather relevant
information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the
credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data
and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and
providing basic bibliographic information for sources. (CS#28).
Write routinely over extended time frames, including time for
research, reflection, and revision, and shorter time frames such
as a single sitting or a day or two for a range of discipline29
C.McClendon 2015
specific tasks, purposes, and audiences (CS#30)

Visual Arts 5-8: Create works of art utilizing a variety of
traditional and nontraditional media and techniques.
Examples: torn-paper collage, weaving, wire sculpture, clay
relief. Applying steps artists use in the production of art,
including conceptualizing ideas and forms, refining ideas and
forms, and reflecting on and evaluating both the process of
production and the product. Applying the elements of art and
principles of design to the production of two- and threedimensional artwork (CS#1)
Technology grades 5-8: Use technology tools to organize,
interpret, and display data. 14.) Use digital tools to generate
new ideas, products, or processes. (CS#14)
Examples: ideaspredictions, trends
Products,animation,video,processes,models,simulations
Assessment
In this lesson, students
will
Know (content):
Pre-assessment: Picture/Art Image Descriptions,

Analyzations and Interpretations
Formative Assessment(s): Journal, discussions, finished 3-D
structure following guidelines.
Understand
(concepts/big ideas):
Systems and ways of doing things such as architecture and

construction takes time planning, working with teams and trial
and error.
Be able to
(skills/processes):
Develop methods of architecture and construction to build a

structurally sound, somewhat visually pleasing structure.
Design and build a scale model structure to house team
members.
Introduction
Hook for this lesson: Egyptian architects and builders often

spent their whole lives designing and building large
structures, many of which have endured the passing of
millennia. Was this because they needed housing for their
people?
Teaching Methods
Learning Activities
1. Productive Thinking Exercise: students will be given a

teacher selected list of items such as a box of plastic
trash bags, a bag of dried leaves, a pile of odd shaped
sticks, some balloons, a bale of hay, a load of old books,
string, tape, rope, wire or any varied array of objects. The
students will work in team groups of three and be given
the task (using S.C.A.M.P.E.R) of selecting three of the
objects from the list to create a dry shelter option.
2. Direct Instruction: TTW share visual examples of
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C.McClendon 2015
enduring architecture.
(Temples and other structures). Watch Video Pyramid
by BBC.
3. Discussion: TSW analyze and describe materials and
design of these structures, methods and interpret
purpose.
3. Team Activity: TSW work in teams of three and
design/construct a structure that can support itself as well as
house its team members.
Resources
1. Printed slides of Egyptian art and video

3. journals
Products
1. Journal notes and sketches.

2. Scale models
Grouping
Extensions
Differentiation/
Ascending
Intellectual Demand
Individual
Teams of three
Whole group
Trapped in a Pyramid Activity: TSW imagine they have been trapped in the
Pharaohs tomb Giza. They have arrived as an Ancient tomb robber who
first discovered the tomb with all its glory and artifacts untouched. TSW
develop heighted visual fantasy skills by developing a fantasy board game
program.
Students may opt out of team building activity and work alone with materials
or design a structure using online graphic software. Google Sketchup is free
to download. http://www.sketchup.com/
Explore the pyramids and other monumental human creative innovations
using https://earth.google.com/
Students may research the origins of paint from pre-history to modern times.
Students may experiment with various paint pigments, binders and solvent
to create a paint medium and use it to create a work of art.
Lesson 5: Art as a Tool for Control. Guided Question(s): Creative Expression is found in all
cultures. Creative Artistic Expressions may become symbols that shape Civilizations/Nations. How
may humans attach meaning to objects that visually communicate a thought, mood, feeling or
emotion? Human creative expressions are important parts of all civilizations culture, how may the
creative artistic expression be utilized as symbolic and meaningful by people? How do artistic
expressions become visual symbols that shape and create identity for people within a society? How is
creative and or artistic expression a part of the culture and civilization of your city or country? How
may creative and or artistic expressions be a part of the culture and civilization of your city or
country? The U.S Capitol Dome and the Washington Monument have become enduring symbols of
American Power and Freedom. Can you make other comparisons in world cultural architecture or
other forms of human creative expression where artistic symbolism is used? Ancient Egyptians
constructed monumental pyramidal structures to symbolize power and importance of their kings.
1. Pre-assessmentAncient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity
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C.McClendon 2015
TSW list in their journal examples of art or architecture in our country that may be used as symbols of
power which Americans may associate with their own identity.
TSW research and look for art work examples that use propaganda slogans and visual symbols or
imagery as a way to convey a strong message.(Type I&II)
2. Activity:
TSW research and look for art work examples that use propaganda slogans and visual symbols or
imagery as a way to convey a strong message.(Type I&II)
TSW create a symbol using materials that could be seen as a power symbol a culture of people could
identify with and unify around. (Type II & III)
TSW create a Venn diagram to compare and contrast propaganda, visual symbolism and slogans in two
pieces of art architecture from anywhere in the world. (Type III)
Lesson # 5
Topic: Art as a Tool for Control. Convince Me
Grade Level:
Lesson Length:
4-5
Instructor:
3 hours
Discipline(s): Art, Art History and Social Studies.
C. McClendon
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C.McClendon 2015
Standard(s):
Social Studies grades 5-6: Describe how values and norms influence
individual behavior. Comparing ways in which cultures differ, change,
and resist change, including countercultures, subcultures, and
ethnocentric beliefs. Comparing the use of various symbols within
and across societies. Examples: objects, gestures, sounds, images.
(CS#3)
Technology
Use digital tools to generate new ideas, products, or processes.
Examples: ideas, predictions, trends, products, animation, video,
processes, models, simulations
Unit Essential Understanding(s):
Creative expression is found in all cultures.

New systems are produced due to creative innovations.
Beliefs, values, and customs are rooted in the culture of a civilization.
Creative and artistic expression can identify and shape a civilization.
Unit Essential Question(s):
How is creativity expressed in societal cultures?

How did the Ancient Egyptians utilize forms of visual propaganda for
political gain of their Pharaoh?
How does creativity and artistic expression identify, reflect and shape a
civilization?
How beliefs, values and customs are entrenched and rooted in a culture
of a civilization?
How beliefs, values and creative thought may change and/or benefit a
civilizations culture?
Additional Concepts for this lesson: architecture and public works.
Guiding Question(s) for this lesson:

Creative Artistic Expressions become symbols that shape
Civilizations/Nations. How may humans attach meaning to objects
that visually communicate a thought, mood, feeling or emotion?
Human creative expressions are important parts of all civilizations
culture, how may the creative artistic expression be utilized as
symbolic and meaningful by people? How do artistic expressions
become visual symbols that shape and create identity for people
within a society? How is creative and or artistic expression a part of
the culture and civilization of your city or country? How may creative
and or artistic expressions be a part of the culture and civilization of
your city or country? The U.S Capitol Dome and the Washington
Monument have become enduring symbols of American Power and
Freedom. Can you make other comparisons in world cultural
architecture or other forms of human creative expression where
artistic symbolism is used? Ancient Egyptians constructed
monumental pyramidal structures to symbolize power and importance
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C.McClendon 2015
of their kings.
Assessment
Know (content): Visual symbols
are used to communicate
message, ideas.
Pre-assessment:
TSW be shown a selection of visual symbols found in everyday life such as
handicap, recycling and technology symbols. TSW hypothesize and
interpret meaning of these symbols in a class discussion.
Formative Assessment(s):

Visual art is a language spoken by
all cultures.
Introduction
Teaching Methods
Learning Activities
TSW journal interpretations of art work presented and researched in their

journal/sketchbooks. TSW participate in discussion and critiques. Formative
sketches and descriptions of student created symbols in
journal/sketchbooks. TSW will design and construct a Marquette/model of
an architectural monument or work of art that would be suitable for a public
location and represents an event or idea from history or made up event.
Hook for this lesson: TTW will play a section to T.V. ads and show a
selection of print ads. TSW participate in a discussion about how the
advertising artist used visual symbols to convince and persuade the viewer
to buy the product advertised.
1. Direct instruction.
2. Group discussion
3. Individual projects.
1. TTW introduce and lead into a discussion of art as a tool for
persuasion of the masses in a society to believe or feel a certain
way band-wagoning by showing political propaganda artwork from
Nazi Germany, Revolutionary France and America, as well as sales
ads from the 20th and 21st centuries. TTW lead the students into a
discussion about ways in which visual art can provoke people to
react on their emotions believe and develop connections with
otherwise unpopular opinion.
2. TSW work with teacher selected examples and in groups to
complete the analysis chart on their group art propaganda
example.
3. TSW research and design a work of art using already created and
recognized images of people, places or things. The medium may
be selected and or mixed.
4. TSW design and create a work of art that is original on the art
propaganda theme.
5. TSW reveals and presents their final work in a group critique.
Resources
1. Electronic and or visual samples of art work from Nazi Germany,

Revolutionary Russia/France/America, modern print ads for products.
2. Video commercial ads.
Products
1. Formative/sketchbook journal writing and sketches.

2. Student created works of art (2).
Grouping
Whole group: Discussions and critiques

Small group: describe, analyze, interpret and judge works of propaganda
art.
Individual: designing and creating individual works of art.
Extensions
View video clips from movies such as Dr. Zhivago and Les Miserable.
Differentiation/
Students may dramatically act out the action seen in a propaganda poster.
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C.McClendon 2015
Propaganda art Work Analysis Chart
1. What person or organization is the source of the ad?
2. What audience do you think the ad is trying to reach?
3. What position have the people who placed this advertisement taken?
4. What kind of opinion or action are they hoping to get from readers?
5. Can you determine from the ad what other views people might have on this subject? Explain.
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C.McClendon 2015
Lesson 6: Creative/Artistic Expressions that Speak. (Guiding Questions: Creative Expression is

found in all cultures, even our own. Humans often attach meaning to objects that visually
communicate a thought, mood, feeling or emotion.
Introduction/Background: The Ancient Egyptians believed the human soul was made up of five
parts, ib (heart), Sheut (shadow), Ren (name), Ba (personality)Ka (vital spark) and that these
personalies in whole or part could enter into or attach themselves to objects.
Many years ago, my Grandfather gave me an old upright wooden cased radio that belonged to a
Great-Uncle. Since Ive had the radio, I have always seen my Grandparents when I look at it. This
radio became has become a visual symbol for my Grandfather, Grandmother and the Great Uncle. As
an artist I may select this object as a visual symbol representing my relatives and it as subject matter
even abstractly in the design of a work of art. Students will use the descriptions of each of the five
parts of the soul to help you associate a human personality to their object.
3. Pre-assessment- Journal/sketchbooks: TTW pull some small objects from a box. The objects may be
a key, a silk flower, a hat, a paint brush, a light bulb, etc. TTW ask the students to call out a famous
person we all know whom this object reminds us of. After discussion, TTW ask the students to think on
their own. Asking Can you think of any object you have at home that reminds you of someone you
could use in a creative expression such as a painting or drawing? TSW create a list in their journal,
make a selection and include a written explanation poem and sketches of selected object.
TTW share personal stories about how objects have become memory makers for past loved ones. TTW
show pictures of these objects. TTW share a list of words that can be used as metaphors and
demonstrate their use. TSW create a list of metaphorical words and use them to in metaphorical
phrases.
TSW: create a piece of art using an object(s) they know of or have at home that remind them of people
they know or family and create a metaphorical phrase using the names of the people they listed.
Lesson # 6
Topic: People Create Symbolic Meaning to
Grade Level:
Inanimate Objects: Visual Symbols and Metaphorical
4-5
Language.
6-8 hours
Discipline(s):
Instructor:
Visual Arts, Social Studies, Language arts.
Chris McClendon
Lesson Length:
36

C.McClendon 2015
Visual Arts 6-8

Discuss strengths and weaknesses of a personal portfolio or
other work of art.
Defining the four-step process of critical analysis, including
describing what is seen, analyzing how each artist arranged
the elements of art and principles of design, interpreting
expressive intent and purpose, and judging the effectiveness of
communication
"What do I see in the painting'," "How did the artist organize the
elements of art and principles of design'," What is the
message that the artist is trying to convey'," and How
effective is the artwork'"(CS#4)
Social Studies /Sociology 9-12

Describe how values and norms influence individual behavior.
Comparing ways in which cultures differ, change, and resist
change, including countercultures, subcultures, and
ethnocentric beliefs Comparing the use of various symbols
within and across societies
Examples: objects, gestures, sounds, image.
Explaining the significance of socialization in human
development. Illustrating key concepts of socialization,
including self-concept, looking-glass self, significant others,
and role-taking. Determining the role of family, school, peer
groups, and the media in socializing young people. Explaining
the process of socialization in adulthood (CS#3).
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used

in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and
similes. [CS.RL.5.4]

Unit Essential Understanding(s):Creative and artistic
expression can identify and shape a civilization
Unit Essential Question(s): In what ways may humans attach
meaning to objects that visually communicate a thought, mood,
feeling or emotion to them in some way and remind them of
someone they once knew?
Additional Concepts for this lesson: Visual symbolism.
Guiding Question(s) for this lesson: Can inanimate objects
become representations or visual symbols for dead loved
ones?
37

Assessment
Know (content):
Introduction
Teaching Methods
Learning Activities
Resources
C.McClendon 2015
Pre-assessment:
Journal/sketchbooks: TSW create a list in their journal, make a
selection and include a written explanation poem and sketches of
selected object representing a person they know and admire.
TSW understand how humans place meaning and message to
inanimate objects and often associate these objects with spirits or
presence of people they admire.
Formative Assessment(s): Journal/sketchbooks: TSW will keep
written ideas, factual information and sketches in their sketchbooks.
Hook for this lesson: TSW project various images on the screen as well as
share printed images and actual artifact objects. TSW will be challenged to
examine the images, objects and artifacts and decide and draw conclusions
based on prior knowledge of these objects who the objects belong(ed) to.
TSW share their conclusions with the class.
1. Direct instruction: Teacher slide show display questioning and
demonstration.
2. Small group activities; Table top discussions
3. Whole group activities: Class whole group critiques and discussions.
1. TTW share personal stories about how objects have become
memory makers for past loved ones.
2. TTW show pictures of these objects.
3. TTW share a list of words that can be used as metaphors and
demonstrate their use.
4. TSW create a list of metaphorical words and use them to in
metaphorical phrases.
5. TTW share images of the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses and
discuss how each is a metaphor. (Ex. Ra, the Sun God - The Sun
is the source and sustainer of life, penetrator of the darkness,
warmer of the cold, nurturer of the seed deep in the soil. Its rays
reach out through the darkness of space and night, and give
warmth, light, and life to all they touch).
6. TSW: list objects they know that remind them of people they know
or family and create a metaphorical phrase using the names of the
people they listed.
7. TSW design and create a visual symbol composition for their
person and metaphor using a variety of art media.
1. Book - You're Toast and Other Metaphors We Adore
by Nancy Loewen and Donald Wu
1. http://ed.ted.com/lessons/jane-hirshfield-the-art-of-the-metaphor
2. https://youtu.be/A0edKgL9EgM
3. Egyptian Mysteries: Ancient Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Vol. 2 by
Ashby, Muata
Products
Grouping
3. Artwork Illustrations of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses.

1. Sketchbooks
2. Completed art work.
Whole group: Presenting final product art work.
Small group: Table top discussion
Individual: Designing and creating final product art work.
38

Extensions
Differentiation/
C.McClendon 2015
Research other languages, compare and contrast use of metaphorical

language in other world languages and the American English language.
Write a poem(s) using metaphorical language.
Create a new list of metaphors.
Lesson 7: Plants and animals were often used as meaning visual symbols in ancient cultures; is this
(Guided Questions): Beliefs, values and customs are rooted in the culture of a civilization In what
ways have humans used plant and animal symbols to communicate moods, feelings and
personalities of these plants and animals? How have humans attributed animals and plant
characteristic and behaviors to humans and human made products?
Pre-assessment
TTW begin the class with a bag of plastic or small stuffed animal models. TTW circle the room and
have each student reach in the bag blindly and pull out one of the animals. TTW as each student to
tell the class anything they know about the animal they have pulled out of the bag. TTW will ask each
student to think of and tell the class any associations they may have such as strengths, weaknesses
and other personal characteristic they know or assume about their animal selection. Next, TSW be
given a teacher made handout/worksheet list, including pictures of selected animals and plants. TSW
be asked to examine the list and pictures and write what attributes we associate with these plants and
animals with as in emotions or feelings they identify with or sense about each plant or animal.
Information/Introduction:
TTW use the following example and lead a guided looking and discussion of ways the
Ancient Egyptians applied or associated desired or otherwise human characteristics
or attributes to the objects listed below.
The Lotus Flower: The Lotus Symbol - The Water Lily. The Lotus is used as a symbol in
Ancient Egyptian art representing the sun, of creation, rebirth and was a symbol of Upper
Egypt. As a symbol of the sun it is closely associated with Atum-Ra, the Sun god and later
with Nefertum, lotus god of perfume. Lotus flowers, also called water lilies, open in the
morning and close again at night symbolizing rebirth and regeneration. The lotus flower, water lily, was also
used to symbolize the deceased upon entering the underworld and the process of rebirth, regeneration and
reincarnation.
The Domestic Cat: The ancient Egyptians respected all animals and lived in
basic harmony with them all, but the cat was regarded highly as if it were a
god. The Egyptian society was an agrarian society whose livelihood rested on
crop production. The crops were often threatened by rats, mice and snakes for
which the cats fed upon. The ancients respected the cat so much as a
protector, he was soon welcomed in the home and went on hunting trips. Cats
were even featured in tomb murals.
The Scarab Beetle: The beetle was admired for its ability to push large ball of dung. The females would
deposit larvae in the dung ball and young beetles would emerge days later. This creative aspect was
associated with the god Atum. The ray-like antenna on the beetle's head and its practice of dung-rolling
caused the beetle to also carry solar symbolism. The scarab-beetle god Khepera was believed to push the
39
C.McClendon 2015
setting sun along the sky in the same manner as the beetle with his ball of dung. In many artifacts, the
scarab is depicted pushing the sun along its course in the sky.
Activity:
TSW participate in a table top group discussion including a guided looking session about Ancient Egyptian
artwork and other examples various cultures use of animals and plants as visual symbols, students will be
challenged to create their own animal or plant symbol. Discussion will include reasons why and how a
beetle, a cat, a hippo and a lotus flower took on deep symbolic meaning in ancient Egyptian culture.
TSW do research on their choices including the scientific order, habitat, feeding habits and other important
key facts. Research will include finding out how this animal or plant became a symbol of a particular or set
of desired human attributes.
Once student research and findings have been recorded in the sketchbook journals, student will be
grouped in groups of three to six and be given the task of creating their own sports team mascot. Students
will use their findings about the historical uses of specially animals (plants can be used too) as desirable
our powerful symbols of attributes humans see as needed to represent their team.
After more research and planning has gone into the project, students will present their mascots and
reasoning for selecting this animal to represent their team.
Students will present their findings and persuasively convince the class why they selected this animal or
plant as their symbol.
Student presentations will be group presented and must contain research, facts and information in a
creative slide presentation as well as include hand crafted product to help illustrate their ideas.

Lesson # 7
Topic: Animals as Visual symbols and Human
Desired Attributes.
Grade Level:
Lesson Length:
4-5
6-8+ hours
Discipline(s):
Instructor:
Visual arts, Social studies, Technology.
Chris McClendon
40

C.McClendon 2015
Standard(s):
English Language Arts 8-9
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and
link to and cite sources as well as to interact and collaborate with others,
including linking to and citing sources. [W.7.6]
Visual Arts 6-8
Create works of art utilizing a variety of traditional and nontraditional media

and techniques. (CS#1)
Technology Education 6-8
Publish digital products that communicate curriculum concepts such as

web pages, videos, podcasts, and multimedia presentations. (CS#2)
Assessment
Know (content):
Introduction
Teaching Methods

Unit Essential Understanding(s): Animals and plants are often used
in artwork from various world cultures to represent both desirable and
undesirable human attributes. Various world cultures developed gods
and goddesses based on plant and animal attributes and behaviors.
Unit Essential Question(s): How have world cultures such as the
Ancient Egyptians used plants and animals as symbols of both
desirable and undesirable attributes, behaviors and personality
traits?
Additional Concepts for this lesson:
Guiding Question(s) for this lesson:
Pre-assessment: Journal listing, group and table top small group

discussions.
TSW will know and understand how various world cultures such as Ancient
Egyptian associated human personality and behavior attributes to certain
plants and animals.
Formative Assessment(s): Take notes and perform, demonstrate and
reinforce research skills in sketchbook journals and through verbal
presentations.
Hook for this lesson: Students will enter the room and hear the theme
song from Rocky or other sport team fight song. TTW present images of
Ancient Egyptian murals that include visual images of animals included in
these murals and in sculpted form.
1. Direct instruction
2. Small and whole group discussion
3. Independent work
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C.McClendon 2015
Learning Activities
1. TTW introduce activity by sharing slides of artwork from Ancient Egypt

that display visual images of plants and animals. TTW lead a discussion
using thought provoking questions leading the students to come up with
ideas and reasoning why and how these animals may have been given
such priority in these ancient murals and sculptures.
2. After a group discussion including a guided looking session about
Ancient Egyptian artwork and other examples various cultures use of
animals and plants as visual symbols, TSW be challenged to create their
own animal or plant symbol. Discussion will include reasons why and how
a beetle, a cat, a hippo and a lotus flower took on deep symbolic meaning
in ancient Egyptian culture.
3. TSW do research on their choices including the scientific order, habitat,
feeding habits and other important key facts. Research will include finding
out how this animal or plant became a symbol of a particular or set of
desired human attributes.
4. Once student research and findings have been recorded in the
sketchbook journals, TSW be grouped in groups of three to six and be
given the task of creating their own sports team mascot. Yes, sports team
mascot. TSW use their findings about the historical uses of specially
animals (plants can be used too) as desirable our powerful symbols of
attributes humans see as needed to represent their team.
Resources
1. Electronic and printed visuals of Egyptian painted murals with animals

and plants.
2. iPads, laptops and books for research.
3. Book - Ancient Egypt (Sacred Symbols) by Thames and Hudson
1. Formative plans in sketchbooks
2. Presentation slides
3. Completed artwork
Products
Grouping
Whole group: Group discussion, presentations and critiques

Small group: Table top discussions and small group planning and
presentation.
Individual: Journal sketchbook and note taking entries, research and
individual tasks such as art work and data collecting.
Extensions
TSW do research to discover other ways animal symbolism may have

been used such as in the production of 20th century automobiles.
Students may design and construct an invention that carries the name
symbolically of a specific animal or plant. The plan would include scale
drawings with measurements.
Students may write an effigy or eulogy for a deceased cat or other animal.
Extinct animal choices may be good options.
Students may work individual or in small groups, use art materials to
complete a painted mural on moveable board or large canvas.
Differentiation/
Lesson 8: A Book for Dead. (Guided Question: How are a cultures beliefs, values and customs
reflected in its sociological class systems, stories and art work? Why are beliefs and values and team
efforts important in a culture and needed for its survival? How may team efforts and talent blend to
solve issues in productive way? How are creative products or art forms used to illustrate a cultures
beliefs, values and customs? How may human creative expressions personify and become the final
record of human life?
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C.McClendon 2015
TSW be given a series creative of tasks using productive thinking techniques and create and construct a
creative summative product at the end inspired by the Ancient Egyptian Book for the Dead. These tasks will
require students to use productive and creative problem solving techniques using the SCAMPER
technique.
TSW create and construct a bound book making activity. The book will be made in the style of the
Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. The Ancient Egyptians created The Book of the Dead as a
guide for the deceased and included it in burial tombs. It contained within it stories about the
deceaseds life with directions and suggestions of how the deceased could reach and be
successful in the after-life.
Lesson # 8
Topic: Sometimes Creativity Happens by Team

Efforts: Stress and Peer Pressure within a Culture
leads to Creative Outcomes.
Grade Level:
Lesson Length:
4-5 plus
6-8 + hours.
Discipline(s):
Instructor:
Visual Arts, Social studies, Language Arts and

Technology.
Chris McClendon
This lesson will span
Standard(s):
Visual Arts 6-8
a two week period

with the extended
product creation.
Discuss ways in which the subject matter of other disciplines is connected

with the visual arts.(CS#6)

Unit Essential Understanding(s): New systems of problem solving and
creative innovations develop over time and require teamwork from all
members of a society.
Unit Essential Question(s): How do humans work together to
creatively solve problems and survive. How can stress and conflict
limit productivity?
Additional Concepts for this lesson: Sociological practices of a culture.
Guiding Question(s) for this lesson: How can varied talents play a
role together in solving problem?
Assessment
Know (content):
Pre-assessment: Discussion, journaling ideas.
How teamwork is important for solving big problems. How stress can
negatively affect productive thinking. How planning a creative work takes
time to research and plan.
Formative Assessment(s): Notes, plans, research and presentation.
Research historical period artwork, plan and present ideas using

technology and other means of presentation.
Utilize art materials and techniques to design, plan and construct a finished
comprehensive product with meaning and message.
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C.McClendon 2015
Be able to analyze details in a work of art and compare and contrast works
of art through social and historical contexts.
Introduction
Teaching Methods
Hook for this lesson: TSW enter the room and the teacher asks them if
they are ready to do their presentations from the previous weeks
homework assignment. In addition to the presentations, as part of the
assignment, create a device do something silly such as make a device to
hold your pencil. TTW tell the students they have five minutes to work in
small groups to finish the product and prepare for the presentations. TTW
lead them on as much as they can take, since this in only a joke. When the
teacher thinks they have had enough, tell them you are only joking and
there are no presentations today. TTW explain what each of the students
experienced was stress. TTW will play the song Had a Hard Day by Daniel
Powter https://youtu.be/GPHo72HjzYc as a mood lifter.
TTW explain how teamwork is important for survival and explain to the
student how stress mat effect our judgements and make it difficult for us to
think quickly even in our most talented or gifted areas.
TTW use the S.C.A.M.P.E.R techniques guide and poster in the room
TTW assign students career titles to group members, Architect,
Archeologist, Art Historian, Sociologist, Engineer, Writer and Inventor. The
career titles do not all have to be assigned if groups are smaller than the
number of available careers.
TSW develop a plan to get off the island. TSW take notes and draw out
their plan using illustrations of the inventions they created using the objects
they landed on the island with (fifty feet of rope, 5 balloons, and a book of
poetry) and three other items that may be already present on a tropical
deserted island.
(TTW could change the hook to a video from the new craze breakout
which could lead to a discussion about teamwork and group problem
solving).
1. Teacher led direct instruction.
2. Hands on activity
3. Table top discussions
4. Discussion and presentation
44

Learning Activities
Resources
Products
C.McClendon 2015
1. TTW introduce the concept of stress and its effects on the
individual to think and process information as we as work well with
others.
2. TTW teach the students how the S.C.A.M.P.E.R technique of
productive thinking works.
3. TSW work in groups of three and solve a problem titled stuck on a
Desert Island. (See directions).
4. TSW present their plan to the class in the form of group discussion,
electronic slide show, and student made props and or creative
dramatics.
5. TTW introduce other problem solving techniques, Talents Unlimited,
and DeBonos Six Hats.
6. TSW be paired in problem solving teams and select one of the
three problem scenarios provided by the teacher.
7. TSW complete the task using the assigned problem solving
technique and present their results to the class.
8. TSW use the information gathered during their tasks to create an
artistic book in likeness to the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The book
will be constructed using various art papers and bound together
using the accordion folded hanged method or may be stitched
using thread, needle and hold puncher. The book will include
instructions for the deceased in the form of detailed maps and
written instructions, poetry, collaged photographs and student hand
drawn illustrations. The theme for the book will be student created
and may be built around any one or three of the scripted scenarios
or tasks. (See student tasks).
1. S.C.A.M.P.E.R , Talents, and Six Hats posters.

2. iPad/laptops with internet connections and presentation software.
3. Craft materials, balloons, yarn, pencils, scissors, paper, cardboard or old
books, markers, glue, watercolor paints, oil pastels
4. Creative dramatics scarfs.
1. Electronic presentation or display board.
2. Bound creative book (Book of the Dead) type finished product for each
student. (See Instructions).
Grouping
Whole group: Teacher Intro. and discussion.

Small group: Table top discussion and partner groups.
Individual: Individual creative product. (Bound book).
Extensions
Students may create an instruction book for a new student to survive the
transition to their school.
Scenario: School culture can sometimes be scary and challenging for new
students, what could you do to make a new student at your school feel
better and handle the transition? What particular elements of your schools
culture to feel to be important for a new student to be aware of and or be
able to navigate?
Differentiation/
This lesson provides students with a wide variety of differentiation within the
lesson. If more room for intellectual growth is needed.
Students with more readiness will identify and sort differences in artworks
within the same theme. TTW challenge individual students with this need to
do more research, create more technical charts and grafts, or add more
creative writing such as more abstract forms of poetry. TSW use the
Internet and print resources to research, write and present art historical
information through technology or other selected presentation methods.
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C.McClendon 2015
TSW create charts and graphs using technology.

TSW demonstrate knowledge of art in historical and cultural contexts.
Compare and contrast artists' styles, use of a theme, and cultures.
Compare and contrast the style and purpose of buildings that were created
in different times and different places.
Stranded on A Desert Island Challenge.

Introduction
This activity will introduce you to the decisions that go into designing well performing houses, or in other words,
houses that provide comfortable and productive spaces.
Your job in the Stranded! activity is to work with a group of students to design a reasonably comfortable shelter for a
scenario in which you are stranded on an island and only have a few given building material supplies and a few more
options from which you can select.
You will be given choices of what materials you want to use to design your shelter. After you have made your choices
and designed your shelter, you will compare your choices and design to ones that experts have made to see how your
shelter will do in providing adequate and comfortable quarters.
Directions
Your teacher will put you in teams of 3-4 students. Your team will first need to choose three supplies from a list of six
to use in combination with what you find on the island to build your shelter. Then decide how you want to build the
shelter from the supplies youve chosen. You will have to justify (explain) your choices. Finally, make a drawing of the
shelter along with a one or two paragraph description.
The Scenario
You have just swum up on shore after you ran your boat into a reef. Bummer. Youre confident youll eventually be
rescued, but you also realize that you may have to survive on your own for a month or so before that happens. You
need come up with some kind of a shelter!
This is what your island looks like. A quick survey tells you that
its only about the size of a football field and fairly flat with only
a few palm trees. The good news, though, is that there are a
lot of coconuts and even some oranges that have washed up
on shore - so youre o.k. on food.
Youve been boating in the area long enough to also know a few things about the area. There should be no real
problems with animals or biting bugs, but it gets close to 90 oF almost every afternoon and there is a lot of sunshine,
making staying outside for long periods during the day impossible. On the plus side, you also know that nighttime
temperatures are usually between 70 and 75oF.
Generally winds are light except they can get very strong during afternoon rainstorms that occur 2-3 times per
week.
Along with the coconuts, youve found a few items that have washed up on the island that should be helpful. These
include:
46
C.McClendon 2015
(6) 4' x 4' pallets (pallets are slats of wood fastened together, typically used in shipping -- assume the pallets
will block rain and the sun well enough to be used as walls but not as a roof)
(1) 4' x 8' sheet of exterior plywood
(1) Knife (rusty, but usable)
A few small pieces of driftwood
The Swim
While thinking about the items you have just found, you look up to see your boat slowly sinking. Its a hike (well, a
swim) out to it, but youre a good swimmer so theres just enough time to grab any three of the options below from
the boat before it goes down. Work with your team members to decide which three items to select:
4' x 8' plastic tarp
Bubble wrap (4' x 20' roll)
Aluminum foil (16" x 25' roll)
100' rope
Staple gun
Video game (battery powered)
The Challenge
Once youve decided on three items, as a team, decide how to build the shelter from the supplies youve chosen. Make
a drawing of the shelter along with a one or two paragraph description to explain what you made and why you made it
the way you did. Remember as you work that youre trying to create as survivable and comfortable a shelter as you
can- your life may depend on it! After completing the drawing and description, see the Activity
Feedback: Stranded! section to see how you did.
Learning/Interest Center 1:
In this center, students will be presented with four works of art each from a different culture. Each of
the works of art will be portraits of people and will include visual details, postures, sizes, symbols and
proportions to help the viewer detect clues about the persons identity and status. The students will
create a graphic organized, visual or written journal about their findings from each of the works of art.
47
C.McClendon 2015
Examples of artwork:
Learning/ Interest Center 2:

Students will view selected works of art such as those included below of Ancient Egyptian Daily life of
food gathering and preparation. The students will assume the role of an art historian and write
descriptive narratives from the point of view of one person in teacher or student selected works of art
such as the mural examples below.
Learning/Interest Center 3:
The ancient Egyptians developed many products to ease daily life and adorn and preserve the
beauty. How did customs, belief, ritual, aesthetics and basic need in the Ancient Egyptian civilization
spark new ideas and invention?
TSW research and develop a new product or invention such as cosmetics (based on materials
and supplies the ancients would have had access to). TSW design, create and provide a marketing
strategy. TSW pair in a team of two or more and perform their marketing strategies using creative
dramatics.
48
C.McClendon 2015
Assessments:
Students will be assessed by performance based/summative on teacher observations,
participations in group discussions, products produced, formative journal entries, and individual
interest projects. A formal rubric may be attached to some products. (See Rubric Example below).
Art Criticism Process

Describes: what is seen
in a work of art. (Subject
matter. Color).
Uses art terms and

descriptive words to
explain in detail what
is seen in a work of
art.
Uses art terms to

explain what is seen
in a work of art
Uses few art terms

and everyday words
to explain what is
seen I a work of art.
Uses everyday
words to explain
what is seen in a
work of art.
49
C.McClendon 2015
Analyzes: which
Explains in detail
Explains where and
Explains where
Uses every day
elements of How
art are
where and
whyhow
an the Explains
whyofanart are Tellswords
how thewhy
element
elements
to tell where
Judgement:
doseen Explains
an is Explains
that an
in a work
of art.to(Line,
element is used an artwork
artwork
used an
seen
within artwork
usedisinnot
an liked
artwork. artwork
the art
elements
people
respond
is not
liked
is not
liked. are
shape, form, texture,
within
a work
isseen
not liked
and
then of and
and then lists one
a work of art.
used in a work of art.
artworks?
color, space,
art. Detailed
explains
two ways in then explains a way way
Consider
what value).
they
explanation
which
it
is
stilland use in which it is still
in which it is still
learn from:
of
art
terms.
"good"
art.
"good art".
family/culture/spiritual
"good" art.
beliefs
teachers
local/state/national
identity
Interpret: What is the
Uses art terms and
Uses art terms to
Explains an idea
Uses everyday terms
peer group
mood, message,
EXAMPLE
explains
in
detail
a
explain
the
artists
about
the
artworks
and limitedRUBRIC
details to
TV/film/music/advertisin
thought, feeling or idea
personal
intent
through
mood,
meaning
or
message
express
an
idea
g
SELECTION
communicated in the art
interpretation
of
the
message,
thought,
with
use
of
limited
art
about
an
art
works
personal experiences
form?
artists
intent
through
feeling
or
idea
with
terms
and
detail.
meaning
or
with the
mood, message,
use of limited art
message.
subject matter the
thought, feeling or
terms.
purpose of the artwork
idea
(e.g.,
to copy life, express
emotion, be
useful,
teach,Scored
entertain, Advanced
Objective
Proficient
Basic
Below Basic
decorate)
Scoring Rubric Basic
50

Ancient Egypt Unit An Ethos of Creativity

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Ancient Egypt:

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Description of Rationale, Purpose, and Target audience

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Prerequisites for Students

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Unit Flow Chart

Alabama Course of Study Standards (CS)

Describe historical and cultural influences on works of art. (CS#7)

English Language Arts

Illustrating key concepts of socialization, including self-concept, looking-glass self, significant

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Students will understand

Students will be able to

Students will know

Conduct creative thinking.

Visual art is reliable

Creative expression is found in all cultures.

Essential Questions for Unit and Guiding Questions for Lessons

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

What is culture? (C) What is civilization? (C)

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

hypotheses and their findings. [technology]

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Unit Outline: Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Essential Questions for Unit and Guiding Questions for Lessons

Lesson 1: Introduction to the Unit

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Lesson 6: Creative/Artistic Expressions that Speak. (Guiding Questions: Creative Expression is

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Unit Narrative: Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

What drives the human spirit to create? The creative process

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Lesson Overviews and Component Menus for Lesson Plans

Lesson 1: Introduction to the Unit

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Topic: Visual Culture: A Visual Record of You.

Grade Level: 4-5

Visual Arts, Language Arts, Technology & Social

Unit Conceptual Lens: Culture

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity

Concept-Based Curriculum Unit

Formative Assessment(s): Teacher observations, student participation in discussions. Student

1. Computers with internet connection and available colored printer.

Ancient Egypt: An Ethos of Creativity