Rationale
This is a combined English and Art Assignment. The students will re-tell Edgar Allan Poe's Tell Tale Heart as a Manga. The English teaching points will be to correctly summarize the story and to correctly use comic strip conventions of narrative blocks and voice, thought and sound effects bubbles. Since the students will be spending a considerable number of periods drawing, we will use this as an opportunity to teach principals of composition. Specifically we will focus on balance, proportion and scan paths. We will also teach the basics of manga style.
The students will produce for assessment a rough draft of their layout along with an artistic log describing the decisions they have made plotting their balance and the layout of their scan lines. They will also produce rough character sketches of the two people in the story and an artistic log explaining their choices of features for each.
Expectations
Overall Expectations
- Produce two- and three-dimensional works of art that communicates a variety of ideas for specific purposes and to specific audiences, using a variety of art forms.
- define the principles of design and use them in was appropriate for this grade when producing and responding to works of art.
Specific Expectations
- describe how elements of design are used to create formal (symmetrical) and informal (asymmetrical) balance in compositions
- organize their art works to create a specific effect, using at least two of the principles of design specified for this grade.
- describe, in their plan for a work of art, the main idea they wish to communicate and the artistic decisions they have made to support that message
Settings
Students
The students will have covered one and two point linear perspective already in the year. They will also have covered drawing a basic human form with proper proportions. They will also, in the English portion of this lesson, discussed the story in detail and chosen 8 - 12 key scenes or story points to translate into panels for the manga.
Teacher
The teacher will have practiced drawing manga characters sufficiently to be able to demonstrate the basics for the students.
Classroom
The student will have the choice of materials for producing their final work. The classroom should be equipped with sinks and drying racks for those students who wish to use watercolors rather than pencils. The classroom should also have a data projector and internet access, or a smart board.
The classroom will also have sampples on manga available for the students to reference
Community
Waterloo region has the Cambridge Galleries and the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery. Either of these can be used to explore elements of composition. Realistically, printed exemplars will be used in class to demonstrate these elements.
Lesson Overview
- symmetric and asymmetric balance, scan lines
- applying balance to panel composition
- create a rough draft of their layout and an artistic log explaining their choices.
- Manga proportions - face shapes, basic eyes,
- expressions and creation of character sketches and an artistic log explaining how they will show the characteristics of their protagonists
- project completion - 5 lessons
Assessment
Students will be required to demonstrate at least 3 different types of balance and at least 3 different scan paths. One of these types of balance should be asymmetrical and one symmetrical. This will be done through submission of the rough layout and an accompanying artistic log, a character sketch and artistic log, and an evaluation of the final manga. The final mark will be based on an equal weighting of these assessments. This will heavily weight the mark in favour of understanding the concepts and how they should be applied, and away from their ability to produce excellent work.
After my assessment, a followup lesson will be used to display and discuss a selection of works, preferably with a different class than the one which produced it.
Accommodations
Gifted students will be expected to show balance lines and scan paths between panels as well as within panels, and expected to use different shapes and sizes of panels and explain why. They should also be encouraged to use shading and provide more detail when executing the final project.
A number of pre-made manga character outlines will be made available for challenged students to cut out and paste on their finished work for those who face difficulties drawing the characters. They will still be expected to place them within the panels according to the principals of composition demonstrated in class.