These watercolor/oil pastel paintings were created by students learning about symbolism.  They chose a character and chose a symbol to represent that character.  For example, a goose might represent a protective character or a gift for a generous character.  The background text comes from the book and is presented as evidence for the character's attribute.  

Lesson Plan

This is the full lesson plan for the unit with connections to VAPA and ELA standards.

Project Evaluation

This is a checklist for pairs to complete
This is one possible rubric for evaluating the project.

General slide show

These are the slides that were used daily to progress the project

Symbolism slide show

This has students think about what 10 images might symbolize.

Creating Personal Symbols

This introduces students to the concept of "cliché" and how to avoid it.

Character brainstorm

Students brainstorm possible symbols for characters

Journal prompts

We have found students need to reflect on daily reading to best prepare for this project.  If they have a journal of ideas, they are more ready to cite evidence and make symbolic representations of characters.

Videos

Here is a video about this project made for teachers by students.  The video was made using Adobe Spark.
This is the goose practice image lesson
More videos below

Artist Statement

An example artist statement frame and example
A guide to creating watercolor backgrounds with the "vignette" effect.
​Also available here (not on YouTube)
A guide to adding color with oil pastels to the transparency.
​​​Also available here (not on YouTube)
A guide to tracing the image onto transparency.
​​Also available here (not on YouTube)
Two ways to add text to your image
​​Also available here (not on YouTube)