My Guernica Unit Lesson Plan: Part 1

A Little Background First

I’m teaching Spanish IV Honors (our pre-AP class) for the first time and had to pick a book. It’s a pre-AP class, made up of mostly juniors. I selected Vista’s Perspectivas, even though I'm using it sparingly. (There are too many other resources and routines I want to use for me to teach exclusively from a book). I picked Perspectivas because of the authentic materials included -- they’re good! Lesson 7 on Visual Art had an article about Picasso's "Guernica," one of my favorite paintings of all time. I saw it and instantly knew I wanted to create a unit that revolved around this iconic work of art. I’m halfway through my Guernica unit now and am excited about how it's going!

For the final assessment, my students are picking a societal issue that is of personal importance to them and creating a cubist watercolor painting about it. Then, since this is Spanish class and not an Art class, they’re going to write an artist statement in Spanish to accompany it. 

They’ll know in advance that they have to:

• Explain what Guernica is
• Talk about cubism
• Talk about their issue
• Describe the symbols in their drawing and how they are similar to or different from the ones in Guernica

Assessment day is when they’ll find out specifically that they need to write an artist statement. In actuality, their work will go on a website, ideally my school’s website (still working that out with our Communications Director) and/or here. Writing will be done on paper with no computer access. Eventually, we'll clean everything up for the website. Maybe they'll make an audio recording of their statement too? Or give a mini presentation to the class? I'm still working this part out. I know, not ideal. I'm definitely building the plane while flying it. Backward design is preferable to forward design. But here's how I've presented things so far...I'm liking how it's going!

My Guernica Lesson Plan So Far

(1) Presentation of some* unit vocab: Did "Creative communication" exercise where they got a list of art terms (watercolor, brush, canvas, etc.) and Guernica-specific terms (bombing, soldier, border, etc.) in English. They had to make their partners guess the terms with descriptions in Spanish ("Es algo que un pintor usa" could work for "canvas"). 3 minute timer. Kids alternate. Change partners 3 X. Kids are used to this activity. Gave Spanish equivalent of words in a Quizlet set. Vocab practice has continued throughout the unit.*

*Am realizing now halfway through that there's more vocab that needs to be taught before they get to assessment day!

(2) Memorization drawing: Projected hi res image of Guernica on board and said we were going to admire "Guernica" in silence for 5 minutes. Told them to memorize as much of the painting as they could because they needed to try to recreate it from memory afterwards. Handed out blank paper and they drew what they remembered! Wow! Seeing what (and how much!) kids noticed and remembered was fascinating. They told me what to draw on the board (I allowed for "Spanglish" here). A few came up to the board to draw what they remembered themselves. Finally, I turned on the projector again and projected the real "Guernica." We saw how our memorization drawing compared to the real thing (with our drawing resting on top of the real "Guernica.")

(3) Kristy Placido’s Guernica packet: I bought Kristy’s amazing Guernica packet on Teachers Pay Teachers ($8.00). Had students read the beginning pages about the history of Guernica. Next day they read the same pages again aloud in pairs, giving them a second read-through as well as pronunciation practice. Asked comprehension questions so everyone understood the history.

(4) Guernica 3D: Watched Guernica en 3D thanks to Kristy’s packet. Ended up assigning this vid for homework, but I wish I had done it in class because it’s so moving.

(5) Cubism video: Showed them El cubismo en tres simples pasos vid and did it as a cloze activity -- I made up a transcript to go along with the vid. Not sure if this was the right place for the video in terms of the overall lesson arc, but the kids liked the information and activity.

(6) Bosquejos: Had students practice replicating Picasso's studies of Guernica as a brain break in the middle of class. Gave them 15 minutes to copy a few “bosquejos” I had printed out -- images below.

(7) Playlist de Picasso: Found this article called "Picasso's playlist" and made a Spotify list so students could listen to the music that Picasso himself listened to while they worked.

​(8) More Kristy Placido packet and vocab practice. Gave a quiz on the vocab and the content they had read and watched so far.
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(9) VHL Perspectivas: Read “¿Por qué nos fascina Guernica?” in our textbook and had them do did Activity 1 (comprehension questions). Was nervous it would be too hard, but thanks to everything we had already done on "Guernica," they said the reading went okay. When we went over Activity 1 in class, it was clear they had understood! Yay!  Assigned Activity 3 the following night as part of HW.

(10) Ron English: Introduced them to the Guernica-inspired art of Ron English, again based on Kristy Placido’s recommendation in her wonderful packet. Had them watch (beginning around minute 8:45) 3 minutes of the English-language video that's on his gallery's website. Here he talks about why "Guernica" is his muse. 

(11) Library Trip: Took kids to the library for 30 minutes. I decided I wanted students to pick a global issue that matters to them, to make some art about it, and to root it in actual journalism. Picasso was inspired to paint "Guernica" based on an article in L'Humanité. My school's librarians were incredible and made me a web page with research links to several databases, including "Gale in Context." That particular database is easy to navigate, informative and comprehensive. The library trip was a reminder to me that not all research needs to (or should) happen on Google.
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(12) Make Art -- We’re just getting to this part! Kids brought in their sketches on Friday (and wrote a little paragraph about the issue they wanted to "concienciar.") So far there are going to be projects on animal testing, fast fashion, war in Ukraine, climate change, gun violence in schools, over-tourism, and so many important issues. I love the diversity of topics they have chosen.

Art Making Instructions So Far

(1) Pick a global issue that breaks your heart. Search out information about it using our research databases.

(2) Based on your research, determine approximately 5 symbols that can represent this issue visually.

(3) Come in with a sketch (or sketches) that will be the rough draft for the cubist drawing/painting you will complete as part of this unit. You can approach the overall design in two ways:

• Create a Guernica-type drawing like Ron English (Refer to Youtube minutos 8:45- 11:15) and see how your symbols might relate to the layout of Guernica.
• Or, choose just one symbol from Guernica to be your focal point (let’s say the “bombilla”) and draw everything in relation to that symbol.

(4) Next, draw about 10-15 criss-crossing lines w/ a ruler across your picture, giving it a broken glass effect.

(5) Experiment with rotating or changing the vantage point of several symbols each time you come across a new “broken” fragment. (The first two green and red paintings in these sample student works* do this well -- they don’t just draw certain symbols, they adjust the perspective from fragment to fragment. Play around with this a bit -- it takes time to get used to. Spend 30 minutes (or more) bosquejando.

*I got my inspiration from Steve Hamann's 2016 blog post (you can see his student's awesome artwork there), but there's one important caveat: the website he directed his students to in order to do research has horrifyingly graphic pictures related to war (and other global crises). Yes, it's reality and students should understand the realities of our world, but the images were too upsetting and graphic for me to direct them to this site as it is today.

Tidbits during art-making: Talked (and showed a video clip) about the Guernica tapestry at the UN getting covered up by a blue curtain during Colin Powell's announcement of the Iraq war. Shared a video from the Prado's website about Francisco de Goya's "El 3 de Mayo," which was an inspiration for Guernica.

Supply List (So Far)

• Water color palettes (borrowed from our art room)
• Thick and thin Sharpies (borrowed from our art room)
• Rulers (borrowed from our art room)
• Paper plates for paint mixing (from my house)
• Paper towel roll for drying off brushes (from my house)
• Plastic cups (from my house) -- luckily my classroom is five steps from the women's bathroom so filling them up will be easy. Maybe 2 cups per kid?
• 11 X 15 watercolor paper pads (purchased from Michael's)
• Assorted brush packs (not entirely sure what sizes they're gonna gravitate to, but I'll get more from Michael's if need be)
• Total $ I spent on 36 kids: $120

After talking with some artist friends, I think I still need:

• poster board and painters tape so that they can tape down their papers so they don't wrinkle -- maybe I can get some art boards to tape things down to from my art teacher?
• a dry rack of some kind to put student work on (or I guess we'll just lean them around the perimeter of the room?)
• A gray-scale handout as a reference?

What's coming next?

My students are going to begin drawing on water color paper tomorrow! Ahhh! I think I'm going to start off class (after our usual opening routine) with this acuarelas tutorial and then give them some scraps of paper and supplies so they can play around with the medium. Once they're relatively comfortable, they'll draw their final draft in pencil, then they'll add gray scale paint, then a pop of color, and lastly Sharpie. Questions to be answered:

• How will this work in my classroom where the student desks are basically chairs with a small writing surface attached? I tried to get a different space, but this is what I've got. Can they work successfully on the floor?
• How much class time out of the 65 minutes should I give them to draw/paint? How many days in a row should I do that? I've only got three 65 minute classes left before Thanksgiving break!
• Where do they leave their art work to dry? Can Emma give me one of the dry racks she mentioned?

Art-making update

The water color practice day went okay. Most students sat on the floor. I didn't do the best job of explaining how to mix watercolor or do a gray scale, but I don't think that mattered that much -- this is a pretty basic painting project and I think it was fun for them to play around and relax. The next day I gave them their 11 X 15 official watercolor paper and they did their sketches (looking off their "bosquejos") with pencil for most of the class. Most are going to need another class period, but two will be ready to go tomorrow and will paint -- we'll see how that goes. I put on the "Playlist de Picasso" I made earlier (linked above). It was a beautiful moment for me to see my students engaged in art-making while the sounds of music that Picasso once listened to filled the room. Quick video below: