Preparation:

This lesson is half of a team-taught project I developed with Amy Rapoport, art teacher at Best Middle School. See the Celebrating Diversity Figures project. We worked on this lesson for two weeks with my eighth grade social studies class of 27 students, during their normal class period of 45 minutes daily.

Before our visit to the DIA to see the Detroit Industry murals by Diego Rivera, I displayed posters of Rivera's murals in the classroom and read to students from Barbara Braun's A Weekend with Diego Rivera.

Ferndale students and Rodin's Thinker outside DIA (click the image for a larger version)

Ferndale students tour Rivera Court with museum docent. (click the image for a larger version)

After our visit to the DIA, we used the brochure A Guide to the Rivera Court Murals to guide our discussion. Click for information about these and other Rivera resources.

I also read the two page summary of World War I in Looking Backward: A Brief History of Man's Past [see Resources, below] to understand the men in gas masks in one panel. I led the class in discussion of how knowledge can be used for good or evil.
Students understood that Rivera depicted both good and evil uses of technology in his mural.

Resources:

Texts:
James West Davidson, The American Nation: Beginnings to 1877. Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 1997.

Ira Peck, Steven Jantzen, and David Rosen, A Nation Grows Book Two: Since 1877. Stech-Vaughn: Austin Texas, 1987.

Donald J. Haley, Looking Backward: A Brief History of Man's Past. Perfection Form Co. Logan, Iowa. 1974.
This publication contains summaries of major historical events; it's suitable for reading aloud to students.