Magic
Words, Magic Brush: The Art of William Butler and Jack Yeats
Introduction
OVERVIEW:
This curriculum unit, designed for grades 7-12, fully integrates various artistic
disciplines with geography, history, social studies, media and technology.
The unit is designed for use either in its completeness or in such a way that
individual lessons can be accessed.
This unit on William
Butler Yeats, the writer, and Jack Yeats, the painter, is dedicated to immersing
students in a study of the brothers as voices of Ireland, and as two of the
most renowned artists of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is
dedicated also to evoking students to see how the outlook of an age controls
cultural expression, and how this expression is articulated in similar ways
throughout genres of art. To help effect these major goals, focus is placed
on: the impact of geography, place, and family on both William Butler Yeats
and Jack Yeats; the influence of personalities of the time period on the two
artists; also, the ways both Yeats align, in philosophical construct and creative
expression, with the dynamic changes that occurred in the last part of the
nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries.
EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS:
-
Maps/ scenes/ paintings of Ireland, particularly of places significant to
William Butler and Jack Yeats' background;
- A collection of Irish
folk tales, myths, and legends; for instance, Yeat's Mythologies, and Lady
Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men
- Sources that give background
on: Celtic domination of Europe; Ireland as the refuge of learning and culture
during the barbaric invasions of Europe; the Druids; Celtic art and language;
and ancient Celtic myths and legends. T. W. Rolleston's, Celtic, is a rich
source for the latter. Seamus Heaney's new translation of Beowulf would be
a good companion source.
- An anthology of Yeats'
poetry; also, excerpts from his autobiography
- Prints of Jack Yeats'
artwork
- Prints of art work of
artists who were experimenting in new genres of art expression in the late
19th and early 20th centuries (Whistler, Sargant; the Art Nouveau movement;
Ash Can School; Cubists as examples)
- Biographies of Jack
Yeats (Arnold -JackYeats); Rosenthal- The Art of Jack Yeats
- An anthology of English
and American literature
- Selected poems of Stephane
Mallarme
- Time and the Dancing
Image - Deborah Jowitt
- Tapes and/ or CD's of
a wide variety of traditional music of Ireland
- Video of Riverdance;
video tapes of other dancers covered in the lessons that follow
- Computer access
Instructional
Objectives
STANDARDS:
National
Arts Standards:
Dance
Content Standards: 7-8, 9-12
Music Content Standards: 7-8, 9-12
Theatre Content Standards: 7-8, 9-12
CONTENT
ACQUISITION:
Students
will:
- become familiar with
the landscape of Ireland, identifying diverse aspects of the geographical
contours.
- broaden and deepen
their knowledge of early European history, through study of the Celts and
Celtic influence
- be introduced (or reintroduced)
to the term "syncretic" as it relates to the history of Ireland
and the development of Irish culture
- become knowledgeable
about specific areas of Ireland that influenced W. B. Yeats' work (Sligo;
Lady Gregory's estate, Coole; Isle of Innisfree; Dublin; etc.) and the impact
of Yeats family as an influence on his work.
- become knowledgeable
about specific places and experiences that influences Jack Yeats' work
- acquaint themselves
with Irish legends, and myths, particularly those that resonate in the works
of W. B.and Jack Yeats'
- be evoked to consider
recurring narrative patterns throughout myths of many culture
- expand their knowledge
of how modern poets build on ancient myths and legends.
- recognize dominant
voices of influence in the reconfiguring of the philosophical outlook and
the psychological temperament of the culture of the late nineteenth and twentieth
century, and in realigning themes and forms of artistic expression in this
time period.
- increase their awareness
of how events of the age, WWI, WWII, growth in technology, etc. and the shift
in social and cultural climate contributed to this dramatic change.
- initiate or add to
their experience in assessing levels of objectivity and subjectivity in art
expression
- expand their experience
in the genres of autobiography and biography, abstracting evidences of subjectivity
in the author's presentation
- initiate or deepen
their experience with dominant art and literary movements of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, such as Impressionism, Expressionism, Art Nouveau,
Cubism, Ash Can School; also, the Realists, Imagists, Symbolists
- gain awareness of how
prevailing elements of artistic expression in a given time period can be identified
in several genres of the fine and performing arts, i.e., common denominators
in styles of a period can be found in painting, dance, music, literature
- recognize diverse forms
of dance expression emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
- familiarize themselves
with the political upheaval in Ireland, specifically the growth of Irish national
aspirations, and will explore the current political climate of Ireland.
- strengthen their understanding
of the differentiation in the philosophical outlook and artistic expression
of three areas of intellectual/western literary history: Romanticism; Victorianism;
and Modernism and how Yeats is positioned in this cycle of change.
- expand their understanding
of theories of the creative process and of conceptual ideas of Beauty by examining
their own and writer's definitions of these abstractions and explicating the
two Yeats' work in relation to the examined theories and ideas.
- gain new understanding
of and enhanced appreciation for the rich contributions of Ireland and the
Anglo-Irish to the universal, and especially, American cultural development
PROCESS
SKILLS:
Students will:
- improve their map-reading
skills through close study of the landscape of Ireland
- develop more clarity,
poise, and persuasion in oral skills through expectations of performance in
oral presentation
- strengthen skills and
vocabulary of critical analysis of literature through close textual study
of themes and forms of Yeats' poetry
- sharpen comparative
skills of analysis by mining the various influences on W. B. and Jack Yeats
and making connections between and among other genres of art expression
- grow in skills of the
writing process through follow-through in a variety of creative and expository
writing assignments
- exercise collaborative
skills through working on small group problem-solving projects
- gain added maturity
in skills of problem-solving, hypothesizing, and synthesizing
- increase skills in
computer technology through Internet research and the development of Web page
design
- develop discernment
in visual literacy through analyzing film and constructing illustrated video
"essays"
- gain new skills in
and appreciation for the value of expanding research to several areas of media
Strategies
Students will engage in
a variety of assignments and activities, developed with attention to developmental
and age level appropriateness:
- map study
- Internet and print
media research
- Web design
- video script development
- personal interviews
- collaborative problem-solving
activities
- formal explication
of themes and forms of selected poems
- performance—research
presentation; oral reading of poems; Irish music, dance; dramatizations; dance
improvisations of selected Yeats' poems; drawings related to poems
- class discussion, with
an aim to synthesize background material and inculcate
- explication of texts
- impromptu "conversations"
- seminar study and presentation
- essays of critical
analysis
- creative and expository
writing assignments
Author
Jayne Karsten
English, Grades 9-12
The Key School
Virtual
Exhibits ||
Storytelling ||
Lesson Plans ||
Music Exchange ||
Online
Resources
The
Irish Festival Online
a special
project of
