Lesson Title: The Poetic Image

Overview: The poetic image uses metaphors to give insight and add complexity, it has interpretive power. W. B. Yeats described poetry as "Blood, imagination and intellect running together." Students will create poetic images by fusing two images together in order to produce a third image with poetic resonance.

Frameworks: View how this lesson ties into the Creating and Performing Strand: Learning Standard 1. Creating and Performing Strand: Learning Standard 2. Thinking and Responding Strand: Learning Standard 3. Thinking and Responding Strand: Learning Standard 4. Connecting and Contributing Strand: Learning Standard 6. Connecting and Contributing Strand: Learning Standard 7.

Grade Level: Grades 9-12

Objectives: My objective is to build a thoughtfull approach to making art by placing significance on questioning, embeleshing and reflection. Socrates "The unexamined life is not worth living." from Plato's Apology Students will learn how to scan images on a computer and how to enlarge or shrink an image.They will also learn how to manipulate multiple layers of images in order to create a new image. They will have to consider selecting, combining, shaping, lighting, isolating and superimposing in the creation of their image.

Time: This project takes two one and a half hour lessons.

Motivation: Presentation/Discussion/Problem solving: Students will be shown art work by contemporary artists-Merit Oppenheim, Jana Sterbeck, Alice Maher, Celeste Roget. The class will discuss images that could be considered archetypes( an original form from which other things are patterned.) for example house, head, cup, dress,window. The class will work as a group to build a list of images that could be considered archetypes. A second list of objects that have loaded connotations will also be created by students in a brainstorming session.(i.e. meat, thorns, matches, bandaids etc.) From these two lists students will be asked to choose two objects which they will either draw or find a photographic resource for. We will then scan the images on the computer. The students will develop the third poetic image from these two images.

Materials: 9" x 12" sheets of white paper, newsprint for sketches, drawing pencils, colored pencils, erasers, photographs, computer, scanner.

Procedures: We will draw parallels between poetry and the visual image. Brainstorming will be used as a method of germinating many ideas from which students will choose one to develop further. Once students have drawn or chosen their image it will be scanned on the computer. Students will be given a demonstration of photoshop and some of the possibilities for manipulating images. Students will work independantly on computers.

Reflections: Students could experiment with other poetic principles. They could create a sense of rhythm in their image, write their own poem, or illustrate a work by a poet that inspires them.>

Resources: Links, images, artists and poets. Poetry A Modern Guide To Its Understanding and Enjoyment, by Elizabeth Drew.

Modifications: This lesson can be adapted to single or multi computer classrooms. Students can work in pairs or on their own.

Author: Tara Law Campbell