UNIT: Your Life, Your Narrative
Unit Overview
Unit Title: Your Life, Your Narrative
During this Unit Students will explore the concept of narrative as it connects to their lives (past, present, future). Students will keep a digital sketchbook through tumblr.com posting each lesson activity. In addition to posting each activity students are encouraged to find interesting and meaningful examples pertaining to each lesson (such as gifs, podcasts, vlogs, etc) and post them to their tumblrs to share with the class
Enduring Idea:
Narrative is s any account of connected events, presented to a reader or listener in a sequence. Evidence strongly suggests that humans in all cultures come to cast their own identity in some sort of narrative form. We are inveterate storytellers. Stories are an important aspect of culture. Many works of art and most works of literature tell stories; indeed, most of the humanities involve stories. Psychologically personal narrative process is involved in a person's sense of personal or cultural identity, and in the creation and construction of memories; it is thought by some to be the fundamental nature of the self.
Rationale:
Narrative is closely linked to psychological processes of self-identity, memory and meaning making, especially in art. How we understand our personal narrative IS how we understand ourselves. By understanding the concept and implications of narrative in art making and by contemplating events past, present, and future, students can work through experiences and make deep meaningful connections.
Key Concepts about the Enduring Idea:
*Essential idea of narrative structure, with identifiable beginnings, middles and ends (exposition-development-climax-denouement)
*Important inciting incidents/ normally constructed into coherent plot lines- What happened and why is it important?
*Character and characterization- What is important that we know about characters? What is the point of view?
*Visual narrative representation linked to emotion- mood, color, shapes, line quality, volume, pitch
Key Concepts about Art/Visual Culture:
*Artworks can be about a personal narrative (intentional or unintentional)
* Storytelling/story representation as art
* Qualities of Visual narrative (metaphor, setting, mood, symbolic images)
* Visual Narrative in many modern sources.
Essential Questions:
*What is personal narrative?
*How can personal narrative be show in art?
*What role do you play in your personal narrative? What about others?
* How do you tell a story?
* How do you begin a story?
*What is important in a story?
*How do you how mood in a artwork?
*How do you show setting?
Unit Objectives:
*The student will learn definitions of narrative and personal storytelling
*The student will learn techniques for storyboarding and visual narrative
*The student will identify important places, people, events and subjects in their world that add to their personal narrative
*The student will demonstrate exploration and understanding or narrative using digital media
Please view the following slide show by Daniela Molnar on visual storytelling: