Preparation:

This lesson resulted from a project that allowed each sixth grade student from the five middle and K-8 schools in the Dearborn system to visit the Detroit Institute of Arts to see the Rivera murals. Their tour of Rivera Court was followed by a cooperative learning exercise in the museum's Art Studio. Click to see the Collaborative Clay "Machines" lesson plans. After they returned to the classroom, Bryant Middle School students participated in a social studies project, Many Cultures Name Pennants, also based on the Rivera murals.

Mosaic Mural: How We Chose This Project
I explained to the students in the first section of sixth grade art class that I taught in the fall that they would be working on a large group project followed by all the other sixth grade sections and that the finished art would be installed in the sixth grade hallway of our school. We chose to create a mosaic for two reasons: the students really loved a couple of wonderful art works they saw at the DIA, "Quilting Time," a mosaic by Romare Bearden, and a large painting, "Noah's Ark" by Charles McGee; and because the work could be divided among five successive groups of sixth graders that I work with in a year. Each of the groups would have a different function from planning to creating and glazing tiles, to the final assembly. They would learn to accept artistic input from other students and be willing to see their ideas or art developed by others.

Learning about Rivera
Introduce the artist to the students in the classroom before they study the murals. I read aloud from these resources, as most sixth graders still love to be read to:
The book Diego Rivera included in the series "Getting to Know Famous Artists" by Mike Venezia is a great short intro to Diego Rivera's life. It's funny and illustrated with clever drawings and photos of Rivera and his work.
Diego by Jeanette Winter is much simpler, has wonderful illustrations (though not Diego's), and has the text in Spanish as well which my students liked since they study Spanish in sixth grade (even though they recognized only a word here or there). [see Rivera Resources]
I like to introduce Diego's wife Frida Kahlo as well since her own life and amazing paintings fascinate students. I use a print of the painting "Diego and Me" by Frida Kahlo which shows a little Diego (with three eyes) growing out of Frida's head. Students generally dislike the painting for a lot of sixth grade reasons, but it certainly generates great discussion. [see Resources, below]

Learning about the Murals
Allow the students to explore the murals in a logical progression by directing their attention to various areas in the order suggested. The teacher really should have sufficient background information about the content, thematic relationships, and symbols BUT should allow the students to discover as much as possible on their own. I began with the east wall, the baby in the bulb with roots into the earth. Next, we discussed the north and south panels. My goal was to help students find the symbolism and the thematic connections between panels. It was this underlying structure more than the content of factory production that inspired our mural project.

Resources:

Books:
Mary O'Neill. Hailstones and Halibut Bones. New York: Doubleday, 1961.
This book is fortunately still in print and is a delightful supplement for upper elementary classes when thinking about color and its associative moods and effects.

Janice Lovoos and Felice Paramore. Modern Mosaic Techniques. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1967.
Although this book is 30 years old, it clearly presents techniques.

Art Print:
Diego and Me
by Frida Kahlo
Davis Publications
50 Portland Street
Worcester, MA 01608
(800) 533-2847