Students create a nameplate and an original fairy tale book using an illuminated manuscript format.

Students will learn how French artists used lacquer panels in their furniture. They will then explore Asian lacquer panels and create their own Asian-inspired lacquer panel design. Students will then trade their designs and incorporate their classmates' designs into a new furniture design.

After reading "The Mysterious Giant of Barletta" by Tomie DePaola, about an ancient Roman statue that comes to life, students create a paper sculpture based on ancient Greek and Roman statues in the Getty Museum. They then write a narrative story told from the viewpoint of their sculpture.

Students will understand the use of personification as a way of expressing ideals. Students will transfer this understanding to the present by creating an allegorical depiction of a contemporary ideal or value inspired by precedents in classical Greece and the Neoclassical period.

Students examine primary resources, photographs by Dorothea Lange, and a U.S. map to understand the migrant experience during the Great Depression.

Students will work in groups to visually analyze a work of art and then research what was happening in the time period when the work was made. Students will then discuss what impact their research had on their original perceptions. Students will finally be given background information about the work of art and will discuss how their ideas are different or similar to what they read.

Students will focus on the life and times of the artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. They will also discuss the historical narrative that Turner depicted in his painting "Van Tromp, Going About to Please His Masters." Students then explore how the Romantic Movement influenced both literature and painting in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Students will observe a watercolor painting that depicts a view of a landmark in a dramatic setting -- "Longships Lighthouse, Lands End" by artist Joseph Mallord William Turner. Then they will experiment with a variety of techniques to create a dramatic setting, such as the scene depicted in Turner's historical narrative watercolor painting. Students will then create their own watercolor of an accident at a landmark using various watercolor techniques.

Students will form two groups, and each group will analyze a still life. Then each student will write a three-paragraph essay describing how to draw the work of art they are studying. Each student will exchange his or her essay with someone in the other group who will draw the still life based on the essay's description. Depending on the accuracy of their peers' drawings, students will add more details to their essays.

Students will analyze "Man with a Hoe" by Jean-Francois Millet, and learn how the artist's use of shape and space creates emphasis. Students will discuss their interpretations of the painting and provide visual evidence to back up their ideas. They will create a persona poem that demonstrates their interpretation of how the man in the painting feels. Students will then illustrate their understanding of how shape and space creates emphasis by drawing a person in their family who works hard.

Students discuss how the environment influences animal characteristics by looking at Hans Hoffmann's painting "A Hare In the Forest". After the discussion, students research an animal that uses camouflage, paint that animal within its environment, and write a sentence describing its habitat. Students use this as a basis on which to write a sequential narrative about their animal and its relationship to its environment. This lesson is an extension to the "Open Court Reader" second grade unit on animal camouflage called "Look Again."

Note: This lesson was designed for students with autism. The students will review a few elements of art, specifically colors, shapes, and different types of lines. They will identify these elements in Vincent van Gogh's painting Irises. The students will then practice drawing different types of lines and shapes in different colors, and will use these elements of art to produce an original crayon-resist piece inspired by Irises.

Students will gain insight into the influence of the Enlightenment on American society and government by comparing Neoclassical objects from the Getty collection to American civic architecture of the time.

Students will observe emotions depicted in an 18th-century bust and two 19th-century paintings. They will learn about and create similes based on paintings that depict people waiting and receiving a court verdict, respectively. They will write their own narratives about a time they had to wait, and they will use similes to describe characters' emotions. Students will then create two original works of art that illustrate their narratives.

Students define metaphor and discuss its use in writing and visually. Students develop a personal metaphor and use it to write about their own experience.

Students study how Dorothea Lange tells stories related to children. They practice telling their own written and visual stories in response to Lange's images.

Students will create a drawing from a written description and examine and discuss how European artists from the past created images of China that combined imagination with written descriptions and limited visual imagery.

Students will examine two paintings by Claude Monet, "Still Life with Flowers and Fruit" and "Sunrise." They will apply their understanding of prepositions by writing poetry using prepositional phrases inspired by both paintings.

Students will consider the challenges of life as an adolescent working in Paris in the late 1800s by analyzing a series of works of art. They will compare the vocations depicted in the artworks with those they might encounter in 21st-century Los Angeles.

Students compare and contrast a photograph and a photo-collage depicting the same highway and write a descriptive composition of both images. They identify one-point perspective in works of art then draw a desert landscape using one-point perspective.