Skip to Main Content
Home>Learn>Teachers>Lessons and Activities>Teacher Resource: Afro-Atlantic Histories>Afro Atlantic Histories Teaching Tips

Teaching Tips

Jacob Lawrence, Toussaint at Ennery, 1989, color screenprint on wove paper, Gift of Alexander M. and Judith W. Laughlin, 1993.30.2

Tips for Discussing Art in Your Classroom

  • Give students ample time to observe the work of art before discussing it. Encourage them to look first at what is actually visible in the work of art, then move on to potential questions or interpretations.
  • For practical reasons, you may want to make the art images available in large, hard-copy format or projected at a large scale. This will give students the flexibility to get up and move as they observe various details and viewpoints.
  •  Art is not simply a product—it reflects a process and an intention on the part of the artist. Help students consider the perspective and choices of the artist, and what their context (whether personal or historical) might have been. 
  • Students may be eager to hear a definitive "meaning" applied to the work. Very often, however, artists do not intend for viewers to gain one specific meaning. Encourage students to appreciate the complexity that comes with differing perspectives on a work of art.
  • Through modeling and repeated discussions, encourage students to ground their interpretations or arguments on a work of art in visual evidence: What do you see that makes you say that?
  • It may be helpful to review some basic vocabulary related to the making of art: medium, background, foreground, print, lithograph, etc.
The spruce-green silhouette of a broad-shouldered man standing among palm fronds looks up at a faint red star against a field of green circles radiating out from the horizon in this abstracted vertical painting. The scene is made with mostly flat areas of color to create silhouettes in shades of slate and indigo blue, lemon-lime and pea green, plum purple, and brick red. To our right of center, the man faces our left in profile. His eye is a slit and he has tight curly hair. The position of his feet, standing on a coffin-shaped, brick-red box, indicate his back is to us. He stands with legs apart and his arms by his sides. Terracotta-orange shackles around his wrists are linked with a black chain. A woman to our left, perhaps kneeling, holds her similarly shackled hands up overhead. A line of shackled people with their heads bowed move away from this pair, toward wavy lines indicating water in the distance. The water is pine green near the shore and lightens, in distinct bands, to asparagus green on the horizon. On our left, two, tall pea-green ships sail close to each other at the horizon, both titled at an angle to our right. Concentric circles radiate out from the horizon next to the ships to span the entire painting, subtly altering the color of the silhouettes it encounters. To our left, a buttercup-yellow beam shines from the red star in the sky across the canvas, overlapping the man’s face. Spruce-blue palm trees grow to our right while plum-purple palm fronds and leaves in smoke gray and blood red frame the painting along the left corners and edge. The artist signed the painting in the lower right, in black, “AARON DOUGLAS.”

Aaron Douglas, Into Bondage, 1936, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase and partial gift from Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr., The Evans-Tibbs Collection), 2014.79.17

Tips for Discussing Difficult Subjects in Your Classroom

  • Be explicit about the content to be seen, and express that students are welcome, either in class or one-on-one, to share the feelings that the content might raise for them. Acknowledge that everyone brings different experiences to the classroom, and that will mean a wide range of reactions or feelings about sensitive subject matter.
  • Be clear about why the subject matter is being discussed—e.g., it is important to understand the realities of life for those who were enslaved in order to properly assess the continued impacts of slavery today.
  • When possible, include first-person accounts or stories to personalize a difficult subject. Always help students to consider the perspective of the author or artist in relationship to the subject matter.
  • Build in individual reflection time to allow students to process their thoughts and feelings independent of the group conversation.
  • Explore further guidance from Learning for Justice on Facilitating Critical Conversations with Students.