This teachers' guide includes a variety of materials designed to help you prepare your class for a visit to the collection of American art at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Thanks to funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and The San Francisco Foundation, we are pleased to offer you information about twenty-four objects that represent American art from colonial times to the Civil War period. The descriptive information about the artworks is accompanied by lesson plans which serve to enhance the 5th-grade American history curriculum.

This selection of objects was assembled to reflect the high quality of the works of art in the de Young collection. The degree of interest to 5th-grade students was also strongly considered in choosing pieces for this teachers' guide. Clearly, the works of art do not represent the full range of artists who were women, indigenous people, or people of non-European backgrounds who lived in America from the 1670s to the 1880s. The de Young Museum is committed to broadening its collection, and as the American art collection expands to represent a more diverse group of artists, we will make additions to this publication. The activities and research projects suggested in this guide give a more inclusive and complete picture of America during this time.

We hope that you enjoy the adventure and challenge of making America's history and culture come alive for your students.

Vas Prabhu, Director of Education

Sheila Pressley, Museum Educator

PHILOSOPHY

From colonial times to the 1880s, the artist in America played a critical role in transforming the ideas of "America" into a visual format. Before cameras were invented, the artists who drew, sculpted, and painted the American scene provided many Americans with images that helped them to visualize their vast country. Although the artists' work often reflected popular feelings, their creations were always interpretations of their own experiences, skills, and ideas.

A work of art can be appreciated for its beauty or for the skill of the artist who created. It can also reveal information about the historical era in which it was created, providing a glimpse into the cultural and political values of the past.

Museums are repositories of what a culture deems valuable and important to preserve for future generations. Museums collect objects for a variety of reasons including the beauty of the particular object, the object's representative value of an artistic tradition, and the rarity of the object. Art in a museum's collection is donated or purchased through private, corporate, or government funding.

Museum educators strive to further elaborate the exhibition curator's ideas and themes. This guide is an example of making the ideas and themes in the de Young's American art collection more accessible to teachers and their students. It is our hope that you and your students will enjoy the paintings and decorative arts displayed in the American galleries at the de Young Museum for both their historical importance and for their aesthetic qualities.

Teachers have the MOST CRITICAL role to play in introducing their students to:

  • looking at actual works of art
  • interpreting works of art
  • making connections between the American history curriculum and American art
  • visiting museums
  • using museums as a learning resource

Students represent future art enthusiasts, historians, donors, and artists. By viewing art in a broader historical context, students are able to make connections between past and present, art and culture, and develop their critical thinking skills by using works of art as primary source materials.

GETTING STARTED

The information, lesson plans, and slides included in this guide can be used in a variety of ways. The guide is designed to be flexible so that an individual teacher may easily adapt the information to best suit the specific needs of the students and of the classroom curriculum.

  1. We recommend first introducing Lesson Plan #1, Learning to Look at American Paintings.
  2. By showing the slides and presenting the information provided in the Introduction and Discussion paragraphs. Such an overview is an excellent way to prepare students for a visit to the American galleries at the de Young. The works of art in the Slide List can also be presented and analyzed individually in order to illustrate specific aspects of the American history curriculum; Links to American History Curriculum is included with material about each work of art.
  3. Information is provided about selected works of art that are on display at the de Young. Teachers may choose to make connections between these works and the 5th-grade American history curriculum either at the museum or after the museum visit.
  4. The American History Lesson Plans 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 may be used as classroom preparation before a museum visit, or after the museum visit to integrate the museum experience into the classroom curriculum.The lesson plans may be taught individually, as a unit, or in tandem with the Slide List. It is most effective to present the American History Lesson Plans while each specific historical period is being taught in accordance with the 5th-grade American history curriculum.

Introduction | One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Slide List | Museum Visit