Lesson 2: Faith Ringgold and Tar Beach
 
Overview of Lesson
 
Students will be introduced to Faith Ringgold's Tar Beach as both a book and a reproduction. Students will write and illustrate a personal story using Faith Ringgold's quilt block format after investigating and reading Faith Ringgold's Tar Beach.
 
Lesson Objectives

• The students will demonstrate an understanding of the ways corresponding artworks and books created by the same person reflect the times, places, and cultures in which they were created (art history).
  
• The students will respond to corresponding artworks and books created by the same person with beliefs about their meaning, purpose, and value, supported by persuasive reasoning (art criticism and aesthetics).
  
• The students will communicate interpretive responses to corresponding artworks and books created by the same person, supporting their interpretations with compelling reasons (art criticism).
  
• The student will express personal meaning through parallel concepts in art making and writing (art production).
   

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for Art
 
6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4      
 
TEKS for Reading and Language Arts, Grade 6
 
6.8 (C), 6.12 (H), 6.14(B), 6.15(A), 6.15 (B)
 
Materials and Resources

• Faith Ringgold. Tar Beach. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1991, book
  
• Faith Ringgold. Tar Beach: Take 5 Study Print, Urban Environments,
  Crystal Productions, Glenview, IL.
  
• Video - The Last Story Quilt , also available from Crystal Productions
  
• Handout of the 5Ws
  
• Web Site - http://www.artincontext.org
  
• Faith Ringgold's web site, http://www.faithringgold.com
  
• Television/VCR
  
• Overhead Projector and pen
  
• Transparency of 5W's
  
• White drawing paper, 12" x 12", one per student
  
• Crayons, colored pencils, or markers
  
• A piece of asphalt, if possible
   

Planning and Preparation
 
Acquire copy of the book Tar Beach. Acquire a copy of video The Last Story Quilt and preview it to see how much of it you want to use (it's fairly long). Cut drawing paper to size and secure crayons, colored pencils, or markers. Make transparency and student copies of 5W's. Become familiar with the background information on Faith Ringgold.
 
Background Information for Teachers
 
The Artist
 
Faith Ringgold is an African-American woman whose talents are wonderfully diverse. She is a painter, quilter, sculptor, performance artist, storyteller, author, and musician, who expresses herself with the concerns of a feminist, political activist, and mother. Her work is not only a colorful documentation of her own life and the people she has known or wanted to know, but a way to define and affirm her African-American experience, particularly from the female perspective.
 
Ringgold was born in Harlem, New York, in 1930. She remembers her childhood as stable, nurturing and inspiring. Ringgold formed an especially close bond with her mother, a seamstress and fashion designer, who was her role model and collaborator in art. Ringgold's childhood was also filled with the colorful, detailed stories passed between family and friends in the evenings in her home. These stories were later woven into the fabric of Ringgold's art for all to enjoy.
 
By the time she graduated from high school, Faith knew she wanted to be an artist. She attended New York City College, graduating in 1955 with a degree in art education. She taught for over eighteen years in the New York City public schools. During that time, she also earned a master's degree in art. Since 1984, Ringgold has been teaching part-time at the University of California at San Diego.
 
Source: Lauren Marks, Take 5 Art Prints-Urban Environments Crystal Productions