Chelsea Rail
Secondary Methods
3/7/11
1.) Title of Lesson: Monster Personalities
Lesson plan #3
Class title and ages: 8th Grade Exploratory
Number of days to teach lesson: 5 Days
2.) Purpose: The students will make creating their own monsters based on their
own physical and personality characteristics. They will be introduced to Clive
Barker’s book Abarat and use his book for inspiration for their monsters. The
students will be using oil pastels in their monster drawings and they will write a
short descriptive paragraph about their monsters.
3.) National Art Standards and Objectives:
#1: Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes
#2: Using knowledge of structures and functions
#3: Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas
#4: Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures
#5: Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and
the work of others
#6: Making connections between visual arts and other disciplines
Objectives:
*Students will be asked to discuss their idea of monsters. (What are they? What
makes a monster?). (NS 3, 6)
*Students will be introduced to Clive Barker’s Abarat paintings and the project they
will be doing. (NS 6)
*Students will list 3 characteristics about themselves that they will use to create
their monsters. (NS 2, 3)(21st century skills- creativity and innovation)
*Students will draw their monsters in pencil using the list of characteristics they
made. (NS 1, 2, 3)
*Students will add color to their monsters using oil pastels. (NS 1, 2)
*Students will write a short descriptive paragraph of their monsters
*Students will match the characteristics of other students to the monsters to see
how well they have been depicted. (NS 5)
4.) Prerequisites:
Students will need to know all the basic skills of drawing and color mixture for using
the oil pastels.
5.) Students with special needs:
Some of the adaptations that can be made are using simpler mediums such as
colored pencil, crayon, or markers. Their paper can also be taped down to make it
easier for the student to work on their monster.
6.) Materials:
White Budget Drawing Paper 12” x18” (4100479HV) 500 sheets for $15.95 at
enasco.com
Pentel Oil Pastels 16 Color set (9707916) 12 sets for $23.40 at enasco.com
Pencils
7.) Safety hazards:
Students will need to be careful with using oil pastels because they can stain. When
students are cleaning up they will also need to use soap and water on work surfaces
if they get some of the pastel on the tables.
8.) Interdisciplinary connections:
An interdisciplinary connection that can be made is to illustrators, stories, and
movies.
9.) Artists/ imagery:
Clive Barker
Barker was born in 1952 in Liverpool, England. He was educated at Dovedale
Primary School and Quarry Bank High School, he studied English and Philosophy at
Liverpool University and his picture now hangs in the entrance hallway to the
Philosophy Department. Barker is an author, film director, and visual artist and he
is especially known for his work in fantasy and horror fiction. Some of his work
includes the young adult series Abarat (for which he also painted all the illustrations
which spans 300 oil paintings), The Hellbound Heart (Which was adapted into the
1987 movie Hellraiser), and the Books of Blood series. He lives in Los Angeles with
his partner and is currently working on the next two books of Abarat.
10.) Resources:
 Powerpoint
 Images used in power point: Monsters Inc., Pirates of the Carribean: Dead
Man’s Chest, Replica of the Monster Book of Monsters from Harry Potter,
Monsters vs. Aliens, Godzilla, Caravaggio’s Medusa, Princess Mononoke, Clive
Barker’s work.
 Rubric for which students will be graded
 Abarat by Clive Barker
 www.clivebarker.info
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Barker
11.) Reading across the curriculum:
The students will be required to write out their characteristics and then read each
others to figure out how to match them up. I am also using illustrations from a
young adult book for a lot of the examples which could pique their curiosity and
encourage them to read the story.
12.) Lesson procedure:
Day one essentials
1.) Announce learning objectives and explain why it is being taught.
2.) Tell students what they will be learning and making.
3.) Explain how they will achieve the goals and objectives you have outlined.
4.) Activate prior knowledge of learning objective
5.) Check for understanding
Day 1
 Intro: Powerpoint with introduction to project
 Studio: Making a list of characteristics to base their monsters off of and
have the students start drawing.
 Closure: Clean up
Day2
 Intro: Explain what they will be working on which will be to continue
drawing their monsters
 Studio: Continue drawing monsters in pencil
 Closure: Clean up
Day 3
 Intro: What they will be doing and go over use of oil pastels if needed
 Demo: Possible brief tutorial on oil pastels and show poster on pastels.
 Studio: Students will finish drawing and start adding color to their
monsters.
 Closure: Clean up
Day 4
 Intro: Explain what they will do today
 Studio: work on adding color to monsters
 Closure: Clean up
Day 5
 Intro: Read excerpt from Abarat and have students write their short
descriptive paragraphs. Collect all students’ monsters and paragraphs.
Arrange monsters and descriptions on tables. Explain to students what
they will so.
 Studio: Students will match which monsters go with what list of
characteristics based on what the monsters look like.
 Closure: Discuss activity and clean up.
13.) Assessment/Evaluation
Students will be assessed based on a rubric
Rubric for Monster Personalities
Name: ____________________________
1-Poor
How well does their
monster correspond
with their
characteristics
How well does their
paragraph describe
their monster
Creativity with the
drawing and color of
their monster
Craftsmanship
/Quality/
Completeness of
project
2-Ok
3-Good
4-Great
5-Awesome