Authentic Lessons for 21st Century Learning

Competition or Collaboration: Which is More Influential for You?

Gifted and Talented Lesson: Art and Literacy

Lindsay Hawkins, Nicole Watkins

  • Grade Level Grade Level 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th
  • Subject Subject English/Language Arts, Social Studies
  • Course Course
  • Time Frame Time Frame 1-2 class period(s)
  • Duration More 60 minutes

Summary

Students will engage in a lesson that explores how competition and collaboration can influence our perspective or understanding of the world around us. The lesson focuses on literacy skills that range from kindergarten to 5th grade. The activities are infused with text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections. Students engage in authentic learning through student choice centers, peer-to-peer discussions, making distinctions and generalizations about new ideas, and applying or connecting ideas to personal experiences.

Essential Question(s)

How might working with others who are typically our competitors help us reach our goals through collaboration? 

Snapshots

Engage

Students will engage in a short activity that illustrates the differences between and activates the feelings associated with competition and collaboration. They will define the difference between competition and collaboration and begin to identify how both can influence individuals and promote growth.

Explore

Students will explore information through text while constructing knowledge about forms of art and literacy skills connecting text to text, self, and world.

Explain

Students will explain through different art forms how competition can influence our collaborative efforts and how embracing the collaborative process can transform our perception and improve the final product within our own work or project.

Extend

Students will participate in a Gallery Walk through a "museum" in groups or as individuals. They will extend their knowledge of the artists Picasso and Matisse by categorizing additional works of art as either artist's. They will analyze how the two artists were influenced by each other in their later works.

Evaluate

Students will select from various options to construct and demonstrate their understanding of how collaboration, even with a competitor, might influence or change their own understanding and perception of the world.

Materials

  • Book: When Pigasso Met Mootisse

  • Teacher PowerPoint

  • Literacy Center Signs (printed double-sided)

  • "It's OPTIC-AL" handouts

  • Center materials detailed on signs (e.g., scissors, markers, printer paper, construction paper, modeling clay, etc.)

Engage

Before the lesson, review the Literacy Centers attachment and choose a set of centers appropriate for your student's grade level. See the Teacher's Note in the Explore section for more details. Gather the materials needed for each center.

Arrange the classroom so that desks or tables are arranged to facilitate students working in small groups. Place an apple or another object that might be associated with the styles of Matisse or Picasso on each table or group of desks.

Open the Art and Literacy presentation and go to slide three, Vocabulary Competition. Give students approximately one minute to work individually to invent or create a word that best describes the object on their table.

After the minute is up, ask students to share their new word, what it means, and why they think it best describes the object with their small group. Instruct groups to discuss the new words and select one new word that "best" describes that item. After groups come to a consensus, have them share out their one "best" word with the whole class. Students might also share why it was the best, reinforcing the idea of competition.

After students have shared their one "best" word, transition to slide four. Instruct students to work together in their groups to create a sentence of invented words to describe their object. (NOTE: Words that were previously used can be used in the sentence in addition to common words for linking newly invented words.) Have students share out these sentences with the whole class.

Transition to slide five. Engage students in answering the questions displayed on the slide either as individuals or as table groups, and then ask students to share out answers with the whole group.

Transition to slide six for the second part of the ENGAGE activity. Starting here, students will observe and describe these three pieces of art. Ask the question, "What are some words you would use to describe these paintings?" Allow a few minutes for students to share their thoughts. Record these responses on the board or in a digital document for all students to view.

Once students have exhausted either allowed time or responses, transition to slide seven, and, again, allow students to share words to describe these three paintings. Allow a few minutes for students to share their observations. Record student thoughts in a separate column on the board or in the digital document.

Transition to slide eight and introduce the two artists, Picasso and Matisse. Ask the group, "How are the paintings from each artist similar?" Students can share verbally using new descriptors and the words previously recorded from their observations.

Next, explore the question, "How are they different?" Have students discuss as a whole group.

Tell students, "We are about to find out if these artists were competitors or collaborators."

Explore

Transition to slide nine. Read the book When Pigasso Met Mootisse aloud to the class. You can also view a video read-aloud here.

Go to slide 10. Provide students with instructions detailing how they will begin interacting with a text through different literacy centers. The main objective for these centers is for students to interact with the book’s text, becoming more familiar with the text while practicing literacy skills and concepts that are important for their individual grade level.

Allow students to select which literacy center to start with. Depending on students' grade level, some centers might require adult guidance.

Ask students to wrap up their task or activity and prepare to explain their learning.

Explain

Using slide 11, transition the students to thinking about the deeper relationship that Pigasso and Mootisse developed throughout the story. Ask students to reflect on the question, "How did their relationship change, and how did they influence each other in the story?" After students take a minute to individually reflect on the relationship and the influence, have them share their thoughts with their table groups.

Instruct students to write a headline, hashtag, or title that describes the relationship and influence among the two artists. Ask students to share their headlines, hashtags, or titles with the whole group. (Note: For younger students, show the images on the pages of the book where Pigasso and Mootisse begin to miss one another (or the two paintings on either side of the fence). Here students can take turns describing how the artists' competition might have influenced (changed) their future art after they each realized that the other was talented. Then, have them create a title for the paintings on the fence.)

Transition to slide 12. Read the exhibition announcement to the class and ask, "Could the headline, hashtag, title you created have been used with this announcement?" Explain that this was the first paragraph of an announcement to introduce the Matisse Picasso exhibition. It was a collaborative effort where museums and individuals from all over the world brought their Matisse and Picasso paintings to be displayed together. It was a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit.

Identify any information in the announcement that points to the concept of INFLUENCE.

Extend

Announce to the students, “We are going to take a field trip to see this once in a lifetime exhibit today! I need you to pack up and take only your pencil and the organizer that I am going to give you. You will analyze the art pairings and take notes as instructed." (These instructions are based on grade level and explained on slide 13 for upper grades and slide 14 for lower grades).

Allow students to walk through the "art gallery" for an appropriate amount of time, exploring and recording notes for the different art pairings.

Use slide 15 to transition as students return to the classroom. Read the quotes from each artist about the other's influence. Their statements drive home the respect and influence between the two artists. Ask students, "How did you notice the two artists had influenced each other?"

Evaluate

Transition to slide 16. As with the literacy stations, students will choose an art station and create a representation of someone in their life that is a competitor but who could also be a collaborator. (NOTE: Younger students may have a difficult time with the abstract directions. If so, instruct them to think about someone in their life who influences them to do better and create a representation of that person.)

After students have completed their art, have them share out about how the person they depicted influences them and why they represented that person the way they did. Display students' art either in the classroom or, if possible, in the hallways.

Resources