Artful Assessment

Grade 3 Social Studies and Visual Arts Lessons

For Celeste Roberge, sculpture is earth-oriented and body-oriented. Wrathful Deities was inspired by many different sources, all of which stuck in her mind and were then expressed in a unique way. A scrap of metal wires, a piece of music, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead influenced the ideas and forms of the final work. Wrathful Deities invites a variety of interpretations and in these lessons students will learn to look carefully and derive meaning from the sculpture. In the art class, students create a sculptural element inspired by a natural element (water, air/wind, fire, earth) and then combine their individual elements into a group sculpture. In the language arts class, students work in small groups to develop lists of descriptive words and ideas to express the meanings they find in Wrathful Deities. Students will write poetry that expresses the meaning of the sculpture they created in art class. Back in the art classroom, students create collages that combine elements and forms of their sculpture with words and phrases from their poems.