Wall of Honor - Lesson Plan

Teacher: Christopher Mazeika
Grade Level: 4 - 6
Title: Wall of Honor (inspired by Maya Lin’s Viet Nam Memorial)

Brief History and Background:
Born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio, Maya Lin catapulted into the public eye when, as a senior at Yale University, she submitted the winning design in a national competition for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in Washington, D.C. Maya Lin received her Master of Architecture from Yale University in 1986, and has maintained a professional studio in New York City since then. She was trained as an artist and architect, and her sculptures, parks, monuments, and architectural projects are linked by her ideal of making a place for individuals within the landscape. Lin, a Chinese-American, came from a cultivated and artistic home. Her father was the dean of fine arts at Ohio University; her mother is a professor of literature at Ohio University. She serves on the Board of Trustees of the Natural Resources Defense Council and is a former member of the Yale Corporation and the Energy Foundation. She is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Presidential Design Award, a National Endowment for the Arts artist' award, the William A. Bernoudy Resident in Architecture fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, the Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an AIA Honor Award, the Finn Juhl Prize, and honorary doctorates from Yale, Harvard, Williams, and Smith College among others.

Standards: PA
9.1.8. Production and Exhibition of Visual Arts
9.2.8. Historical and Cultural Contexts
9.3.8. Critical Response
9.4.8. Aesthetic Response

Goal: Students will design a brick honoring someone in their family, living or deceased, showcasing both the chosen individual’s written name and symbolic representations of them.

Requirements: Students will choose the name of a family member or someone they hold special whom they wish to honor. The person’s name will be the predominate image on the brick, accompanied by at least three drawn symbolic representations of the chosen individual.

Resource Materials / Visual Aides:
· Power Point on Maya Lin
· Various images of Maya Lin’s work with emphasis on the Viet Nam Memorial
· Teaching exemplar

Supplies / Materials:
· Pencils
· Rulers
· Colored pencils
· Paper

Teacher Preparation: The teacher will:
· Familiarize him or her self with Maya Lin and her work, especially the Viet Nam Memorial
· Create a brick template
· Familiarize himself or herself with the vocabulary and subject of the lesson
· Create an exemplar/s
· Prepare a handout for students that may include any or all of the following: brief history, vocabulary, images of Aztec symbols and their names
· Create a short worksheet to test students’ retention of vocabulary and lesson taught

Teaching
Introduction: Show the students the work of Maya Lin with particular emphasis on the Viet Nam Memorial. Create a discussion around the difficulties she faced during its creation. Create a discussion around the importance of honoring someone living or deceased.

Directions:
1. Pass out the necessary materials.
2. Students will draw a half-inch border around their brick.
3. Students will need to choose a person they wish to honor. Place emphasis on honoring a deceased member of their family. If that is not a valid option, inform them they may honor a living person whom they would be most upset about losing.
4. Explain that the person’s name should take up the majority of the space on the brick.
5. Students will sketch at least three symbols that will represent that person.
6. Students will draw the chosen symbols on the actual brick.
7. Students will color the brick using colored pencils.

Closure: Have a student collect the work and one or two others collect and sort materials. Inform them work will be displayed at a later date. Remind students to think about the person they honored during the rest of their day and in their daily lives. Encourage them to discuss what they’ve learned today with their peers in other classes.

Critique / Evaluation / Assessment:
· In Class Critique
· Rubric

Time Budget: 2 Classes - 45 min. each

Vocabulary:
Symbol – something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial; emblem, token, or sign.
Memorial – something designed to preserve the memory of a person, event, etc., as a monument or a holiday.
Honor – high respect, as for worth, merit, or rank.

Safety Concerns: None

Bibliography/References:
http://www.mayalin.com/
http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/lin/index.html