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The Pack contains associated resources for the learning experience, typically in the form of articles and videos. There is a teacher Pack (with only teacher information) and a student Pack (which contains only student information). As a teacher, you can toggle between both to see everything.
Here are the teacher pack items for The Arts and Nature:
Overview In this experience, students analyze a portrait of a Choctaw chief and think about how the artist viewed the chief. Then, they examine paintings from the Hudson River School and consider how the art shows feelings about the United States and its landscape. Next, they examine artwork from Audubon’s The Birds of America and consider how art reflected the national spirit of the early 1800s. Finally, they listen to an early recording of “Home! Sweet Home!” and compare the feelings in the song with those shown in the visual art of the period. If you have access to leveled readers about artists of the Hudson River School or John James Audubon, assign them to students in parallel with this experience. Estimated duration: 40–50 minutes Vocabulary words: Objectives
There are many ways to learn about people from other cultures or historical periods. You can read about them in history books or in storybooks. You can watch movies about them. You can visit museums, or you can even travel to other places to meet people from other cultures. In this experience, you will learn about 19th-century culture in the United States by looking at art and listening to music.
Objectives
Mó-sho-la-túb-bee, Chief of the Choctaw Tribe, by George Catlin, 1834
Describe the painting shown above. Based on what you see, how do you think the artist felt about the Indigenous chief in the portrait?
Discuss student responses, emphasizing that the answer is subjective. George Catlin was born in Pennsylvania in 1796. He studied art and became known for his portraits. He traveled throughout the United States and painted portraits of Indigenous people and scenes from different Indigenous groups. Catlin wanted his paintings to record the people and cultures he saw. Remind students that his paintings show Indigenous people through Catlin’s point of view and should not be treated as complete records of their lives or cultures.
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