These watercolor/oil pastel paintings were created by 5th grade students learning about symbolism.  They chose a character from the book Wonder by R.J.Palacio 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.

Rubric

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.

Avoiding cliché slideshow

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

Character brainstorm

Students brainstorm possible symbols for characters in the story "Wonder"

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 video is a step-by-step guide to the lesson.
This is the goose practice image lesson
We recommend Prang brand watercolor sets and Pentel oil pastels.  

Artist Statement

An example artist statement assignment created for a 5th grade class studying the book "Wonder".