MYP unit planner
Unit title
Society and Culture.
Culture?
How Does Society Affect
Teacher(s)
Ruth Wilson
Subject and grade level
9th Grade Art Drawing & Painting I
Time frame and duration
3 weeks
Stage 1: Integrate significant concept, area of
interaction and unit question
Area of interaction focus
Significant concept(s)
Which area of interaction will be our focus?
Why have we chosen this?
What are the big ideas? What do we want our
students to retain for years into the future?
Health and Social education. One of the
purposes of art is to communicate the social
values of a culture and their symbolism.
How can the symbolism of our culture find
connections to that of the Masaii culture?
How does body art affect the health of
community members?
Art is visual communication.
What is the significance of symbolism in
the Masaii culture compared and
contrasted to that of the American culture?
MYP unit question
Are Tattoos Taboo?
Assessment
What task(s) will allow students the opportunity to respond to the unit question?
What will constitute acceptable evidence of understanding? How will students show what they have understood?
1. A research paper on what the Masaii culture uses to create symbolism in the form of body art to define
social status and purpose in their society.
Students will research the topic with online sources, books and by interviewing and recording notes from a
guest speaker from the Masaii culture.
Students will be guided through the research with an online constructive style WebQuest.
Guiding questions include:
• What are the different forms of body art that the Masaii people use?
• What purpose do they have? What are the health effects?
• What do the symbolisms and colors represent?
• How does the body art represent the social status or role of the person in the society?
• Are the markings permanent?
• Who determines what the markings are?
• Who makes the markings?
• Is there social mobility or change allowed in social status?
• Create a tribal style self portrait art work inspired by their research including innovative symbolism of the
American culture.
2. Students will make connections to our culture and body art in the form of tattoos.
• What is the history of tattoos in our society?
• What is the purpose of tattoos over time?
• What are the types of symbolism and color psychology?
• How do tattoos effect health issues?
3. Presentation of final art work
• Students will create and show their tribal portrait
• Students will base their portrait on what they have learned about body art in our culture and the Masaii.
• Students will include symbolism and colors that communicate their role and interests in our society.
• Students will show their cultural background in their design.
Evaluate the process of researching the topic
• Students will be following a WebQuest along with traditional classroom instruction. They will be writing a
journal of reflections and notes to archive their research.
• They will be provided with an article from the Smithsonian magazine: Looking at the World's Tattoos by
Abigail Tucker which they will be using for writing notes in their journal along with leading questions that
they have.
• They will record their discoveries in their journal from interviewing and listening to the Masaii Warrior
speaker.
Evaluate the process of making the artwork
• Students will practice contour drawing to be able to draw their self portrait.
• Students will ink their portrait and then learn how to work with watercolors.
• Students will design the symbolism and colors which communicate their meaning in their tribal portrait.
• Students will transfer their knowledge and skills to complete their tribal portrait.
Which specific MYP objectives will be addressed during this unit?
• A) Knowledge and Understanding
• B) Application and Reasoning
• C) Evaluation and Reflection
• D) Personal Engagement
Which MYP assessment criteria will be used?
A. Knowledge and Understanding will allow students to introduce students to the history and background
information of the purpose and concepts of body art and its place in society and culture.
B, C and D Evidence of learning and application of skills with techniques evaluated by peer and instructor
critique.
Stage 2: Backward planning: from the assessment to
the learning activities through inquiry
Content
What knowledge and/or skills (from the course overview) are going to be used to enable the student to respond to the unit
question?
What (if any) state, provincial, district, or local standards/skills are to be addressed? How can they be unpacked to develop the
significant concept(s) for stage 1?
Key Learnings
Line, Contour, Proportion, Craftsmanship, Creativity, Critique, Contour,
Observational Drawing, Language of Art, visual communication and color theory.
Colorado Visual Art Standards
1. Observe and Learn to Comprehend
2. Envision and Critique to Reflect
3. Invent and Discover to Create
4. Relate and Connect to Transfer:
Approaches to learning
How will this unit contribute to the overall development of subject-specific and general approaches to learning skills?
• Skills to investigate and explore in depth the arts use as visual communication.
• To understand the role of the visual arts in society and culture.
• Skills to develop leading questions and develop sensitivity to other cultures values.
• Develop skills and techniques to create a unique work of art that is personalized.
• Recording the process of creating a work of art over time.
• Analyzing feedback from others through critique and incorporating this into their work.
• Self directed learning.
Learning experiences
How will students know what is expected of them? Will
they see examples, rubrics, templates?
Teaching strategies
How will we use formative assessment to give students feedback
during the unit?
How will students acquire the knowledge and practise
the skills required? How will they practise applying
these?
Do the students have enough prior knowledge? How will
we know?
Week 1
• Discuss what culture and society mean.
Introduce WebQuest and have students use the
resources in it to begin journaling about the
Masaii society and culture.
• Presentation and discussion by and with our
Masaii Warrior speaker.
• Brainstorm how our society compares and
contrasts to the Masaii society and culture.
Week 2
• Continue journaling guided by the WebQuest
while recording notes about the history of body
art in our culture.
• Investigate the health effects on the people
using body art.
• In small groups discuss how they will design a
tribal portrait of their own.
What different teaching methodologies will we employ?
How are we differentiating teaching and learning for all? How have
we made provision for those learning in a language other than their
mother tongue? How have we considered those with special
educational needs?
• I will facilitate discussions and conversations around
the topic.
• I will place students into small groups to create diverse
points of view.
• I will conduct peer and instructor critiques as students
progress.
• I will post bell warmers that pose leading questions
and possible assumptions students may have.
• My instructions on the WebQuest will be available in
multiple languages.
• Special educational needs students will be paired with
peer helpers and give them more time to process.
• I will post many visuals from other cultures to show
how art is visual communication.
• Practice techniques and skills to the
production.
Week 3
• Students will create their art work.
• Students will present their final product for
peer and instructor critique.
• Students will write and share what they have
learned and the questions they still have about
the unit.
Resources
What resources are available to us?
How will our classroom environment, local environment and/or the community be used to facilitate students’ experiences during
the unit?
• I will post many visual aids for students throughout this unit highlighting different world societies and
cultures.
• I will have a guiding WebQuest on my classroom website and a Pathfinder with numerous Internet
sources for research.
• I will have our guest speaker, a Masaii warrior come and speak to our students about his society, culture
and the purpose of their body art.
Ongoing reflections and evaluation
In keeping an ongoing record, consider the following questions.
There are further stimulus questions at the end of the “Planning for
teaching and learning” section of MYP: From principles into
practice.
Students and teachers
What did we find compelling? Were our disciplinary knowledge/skills challenged in any way?
What inquiries arose during the learning? What, if any, extension activities arose?
How did we reflect—both on the unit and on our own learning?
Which attributes of the learner profile were encouraged through this unit? What opportunities were there for student-initiated
action?
Possible connections
How successful was the collaboration with other teachers within my subject group and from other subject groups?
What interdisciplinary understandings were or could be forged through collaboration with other subjects?
Assessment
Were students able to demonstrate their learning?
How did the assessment tasks allow students to demonstrate the learning objectives identified for this unit? How did I make
sure students were invited to achieve at all levels of the criteria descriptors?
Are we prepared for the next stage?
Data collection
How did we decide on the data to collect? Was it useful?
Figure 12
MYP unit planner