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A visual arts lesson plan that allows students to explore their connection to their local community. For very young students to begin to foster a sense of community engagement and social justice, an important first step is recognizing one’s connection and relationship with the immediate community around them.

Using collage artist Bryan Collier’s book Uptown as a starting point, students will study the way that Collier integrates painting, photographic images, and other mixed media into collages that emphasize and celebrate the local cultural heritage of the neighborhood of Harlem. In similar process, students will choose a personally meaningful image from a wide selection of photos of places of interest from around their own local community, create a collage, and write a memory about their community. The exhibit will provide an explanation of the lesson, student work, and guidelines for how educators in other disciplines could use a similar process in their classroom.

Curriculum Writer: Annie S.
Level: Early Elementary
Area: Visual Art

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