Overview:
In this activity, students are introduced to the Migration of the Negro series, a set of sixty paintings in which the artist, Jacob Lawrence, tells about an important event in history. Eight images from the series will be highlighted here. Students work in small groups to investigate separate images in the series and report their findings to the class.
Whole class
- Show students the featured images and read the text aloud. Ask students to speculate about the story being told. Explain that these artworks are from a series of sixty paintings made by the artist, Jacob Lawrence, to tell a story about a special time in history. Tell students that for each painting, the artist provided a sentence or two of text. Summarize the important points about the Great Migration. Explain to students that in his Great Migration series, Jacob Lawrence tells a story about a whole group of people on the move. He tells about the life they left, the life they found, and the way they traveled from one place to another.
- Ask students to state, in their own words, what they already know about the Great Migration. List their facts on the board. Make sure they understand that the series is about African Americans moving from the South to the North to seek better living conditions. Have students briefly examine each of the images to try to determine what life in the South was like, what life in the North was like. What was good about life in the South? What was not so good? What was good about life in the North? What was not so good? Ask students to list the questions they have about the Great Migration not addressed by the images and text provided.
- Examine # 1 in the series in more detail. The text for this first painting in the series reads, "During the World War there was a great migration North by Southern Negroes." Use the worksheet, "Check it Out!" as a guide for discussion.
Small groups
- Assign one image to each group. Students view and discuss their selected image. Print and distribute the worksheet "Exploring the Migration Series". After the students have considered their separate images, have each group report back to the class on what the members were able to discover about the artworks. The students should explain how the artist presents the part of the migration story being told in the artwork they were assigned, and how their painting contributes to the larger story being told.
Whole class
Discuss the artworks as a series. Ask students to consider the following questions:
- How did the artist make sure that the many different paintings in the series were connected or unified by how they looked?
- How did the artist use line, color, pattern, texture and space so that all the images in the series had a similar appearance? What colors do you see repeated in the series? What kinds of shapes are repeated? How did the artist arrange the separate parts of each image-are the figures close up or far away from the viewer? What kinds of lines are repeated? Textures? Patterns?
- How did the artist add interest or variety to the series? While all the images are connected, they are also very different. How did the artist add variety with color? Shape? Line? Texture?
- How did the artist suggest certain moods and feelings?
- How did the artist show the beginning, middle, and end in the story?
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