“Games and Play” are one genre of folklife that can quickly engage students in serious discussions of place, culture, identity, and community—from hopscotch to Lotería. This image features a hopscotch board drawn by Lisa Rathje, representing the design she grew up with in Ankeny, Iowa.
This curriculum guide explores the relationship arts education and teaching with primary sources that come out of ethnographic documentation and often feature folk and traditional arts.
Learning Objectives
- Access new primary source sets developed with Visual Arts and Music classrooms in mind
- Consider new ways to hear and share stories for learning
- Discover tools for accessing other primary sources that directly connect to your site or classroom
Our project engages the digitally available archival holdings of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress alongside local and regional collections, bringing them into conversation with each other to create a fuller, more complex narrative of American communities, history, and people.
Curriculum GuideTable of Contents
Below is the Table of Contents, sharing an outline of the resources that can be adapted to your classroom, museum, or other learning activities.
Art Perspectives and Teaching with Primary Sources, by Lisa Rathje, with Kuen Kuen Sprichiger
Mount St. Helens and the Art of Destruction and Creation, by Kuen Kuen Spichiger
Destruction and Creation Primary Source Sets with Graphic Organizers for Student Use
Mount St. Helens Primary Source Sets Organized by Individual
The Serious Art of Play, by Lisa Rathje
Trains: Laying New Tracks to Literacy, by Lisa Rathje
Lyrics to Primary Source Songs
Mary Sheppard Burton Narrative to Accompany Hooked Rug Primary Source
Listening Log
Listening Log Rubric
OTHER TEACHING WITH PRIMARY SOURCES LESSONS FOR VISUAL ARTS AND ARTS-INTEGRATED CLASSROOMS
Note: Is Art a Primary Source?
Learning Through Evaluating Expression
A Future from the Past