Building Background All About Shoes
The
purpose of this activity is to help students brainstorm
ideas about shoe design.
1. Tell the students that they are
going to create a graphic organizer on the topic of shoes.
Teacher Note: A graphic organizer is a
visual/spatial representation of information.
Visit the
following website to construct your graphic organizer at
https://interactives. mped. org/view_interactive.
aspx?id=127& title=.
2. As a class, visit the website
at https://www. shoeinfonet. com/ to learn about the
history and variety of shoes. You can read the information
on this website aloud with your class. After you complete
the article, ask your students to add further examples of
shoe types to the graphic organizer.
3. Ask students to
bring in varied pictures of shoes or further examples of
different shoe types as a homework assignment. You may also
provide them with a variety of magazines to complete this
assignment. Add students' examples to the class graphic
organizer.
Steps for Learning The Shoe Story
The purpose of this activity is to help students
understand the concept that objects have history and
meaning in daily life experiences.
1. Tell the students
that everyday objects have a story to tell. Share the
picture of Vincent Van Gogh's painting of a pair of boots
with your class:
Source: https://www. metmuseum.
org/Works_Of_Art/viewOne. asp?dep=11& viewmode=1&
item=1992. 374
Ask them to imagine who might have owned
the boots Van Gogh painted. Encourage students' creative
responses.
2. Share the following Van Gogh quotations with
the students:
-
I want to touch people with my art. I
want them to say 'he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.
'
-
The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work
without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.
Source:
https://www. artquotes. net/masters/vangogh/
Ask the
students what they imagine Van Gogh might have been feeling
as he painted this picture.
3. Visit the following website
which contains poems that students have written about Van
Gogh's painting at
https://www. poetryzone. ndirect. co.
uk/challenge5. htm#boots
Read the poems aloud and
discuss students' responses.
4. Divide the class into small
groups and tell the students that they are going to work in
small groups to write an imaginary story about a pair of
shoes. Give the students the option of writing about the
boots in Van Gogh's picture, or selecting any kind of shoes
they would like.
5. Give each group a copy of "The Shoe
Story" handout.
6. Tell the groups that after they have
finished a first draft of their story, they must share it
with another group to receive feedback.
Have the groups use
the following questions as they share their drafts:
- Was
our story meaning clear?
- Does our story make sense?
- Do you
understand the plot sequence?
- Describe our main character.
Did the words we chose match our ideas about the main
character?
- Is our story interesting? What could we do to
make it more interesting?
- Is our story creative?
- What do
you suggest we change or add to our story?
- Do our
illustrations enhance our story?
7. Have each group
incorporate the feedback they received to revise their
story.
8. After each group has finished, stage an oral
reading of all the stories in sequence.
9. Create a class
book of the individual shoe stories. Share the book with
students in a younger grade by hosting a book reading.