Influential Artist Assignment
Quarter 2, English 11
This quarter, we are researching influential artists. We are answering the following
essential questions:
1—How do individual’s experiences influence their artistic expression?
2—How do artists influence culture?
Each student will pick their own artist, a painter or a writer, to research. You will need
to pick from a class list to broaden your cultural horizons. Ms. Wiley will provide a list
for you to choose from. I will assign you someone if needed. For this assignment, we
will be avoiding performance artists like musicians and actors, even though they are
technically artists.
You will be writing and submitting a quality, edited short research paper and
delivering a visual presentation to the class.
Your paper will be 3 to 5 pages, double spaced. Your paper needs to have the following
sections, which should be organized with the following headings in order:
1. *Background/ influences of the artist. Questions to answer are: where he/she
grew up, what was his/her childhood like? Where did he/she go to high school,
college and perhaps master’s/doctorate programs? How did other artists
influence your artist? Did he/she get famous while alive? When and How? How
did he/she die? How did his/her background influence his/her art?
2. *Style of Art: Tell about what type of art your artist does with detail and
descriptive writing. For painters, you can cut and paste their work into your
paper. For writers, you can include quotations and excerpts from their work.
Share at least three examples.
3. *Artist influence on Society: Tell about how your artist influenced society/culture.
Use specific examples.
4. *Artist influence on you: Tell about how the artist influenced you.
5. Bibliography: We will be using MLA style for quotations and bibliography. Your
bibliography has to have at least 5 resources listed that are reputable and not
Wikipedia. You will be taking notes to create the bibliography and adequate
notation within the paper.
Your name__________________________ Period_________Your artist_______________
Please save and submit with your work
Rubric for your paper (125 pts.)
_____ 50 pts. Integration of 5 diverse resources with proper quotations, paraphrasing,
and bibliography.
______ 25 pts. for proper syntax. 5 pt. deduction for each run on and sentence
fragment.
______ 25 pts. for proper punctuation
______ 25 pts for having complete sections (4 sentences minimum) for each
Total points: ________ / 125
Comments:
Rubric for your presentation
_____20 pts. Show the class examples (at least three) of the artist’s work, with
examples explained
_____25 pts. Create something original influenced by the artist and share it with us.
_____10 pts. Tell about the artist’s background
_____10 pts. Tell about the way the artist influenced YOU and SOCIETY
_____10 pts. Speech includes all requirements and is at least 2 minutes with good
volume, preparation, and eye contact/
Total points: ______/75
Important Dates to Remember
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Project Assigned, November 7th
Mrs. Scott note taking presentation in upper D computer lab, November 12th
Note taking and research day: November 14th (Upper G lab)
Note taking and research day: November 19th (Upper G lab)
20 notecards due: November 20th
Drafting the paper starts on November 21st (Upper G lab)
Drafting the paper continued, November 26th (Upper G lab)
First, complete draft due Monday, December 1st
Revisions and editing, December 5th (Upper G lab)
Final draft paper due: December 8th
Presentations (everyone ready to present on Dec 8th): December 8th, 9th, and 10th
Visual Artists/Painters
Claude Monet
Rene Magritte
Hieronymous Bosch
Jackson Pollock
Jan Vermeer
Rembrandt
Vincent Van Gogh
Salvador Dali
Paul Gaugin
M.C. Escher
Joan Miro
Gustav Klimt
Frida Kahlo
David Hockney
Leonardo Da Vinci
Dorothea Lange
Keith Haring
Roy Lichtenstein
Pierre-August Renoir
Michelangelo
JMW Turner
Andy Warhol
Katsushikas Hokusai
Wassily Kandinsky
Georgia O’Keefe
Edvard Munch
Mark Rothko
Henri Matisse
Willem DeKoonig
Diego Rivera
Pablo Picasso
Bansky
Paul Klee
Writers
William Shakespeare
HP Lovecraft
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Flannery O’Connor
Homer
Marcel Proust
Maya Angelou
John Steinbeck
Mark Twain
Charles Dickins
Charlotte Bronte
Samuel Beckett
Jack Kerouac
Kurt Vonnegut
TS Eliot
Jane Austen
Edgar Allen Poe
Franz Kafka
William Faulkner
Fyodor Dosteovsky
Anton Chekhov
Leo Tolstoy
Emily Dickinson
Harriet Beacher Stowe
James Joyce
DH Lawrence
Gertrude Stein
Ernest Hemingway
Harper Lee
Toni Morrison
William Keats