Facilitate authentic visual storytelling, incorporate evidence of culture and communities, frame art-making as a kind of storytelling.

Objectives:

Student will…

• Carefully study a mosaic, making a visual inventory.
• Discuss and explore student cultural identities. 
• Optional: illustrate or write about an important cultural event for students.

 Grade level: This plan is written for grades 3-8, but should be scalable for any K-12 educator, if interested.

Duration: 30–60 minutes depending on age group and educator interest.

 Materials:

• Students should view a large print or projection of Touchstone by Shahzia Sikander.

For the first activity, teachers also need: 

• Cultural bubble worksheet (included below) 
• Colored pencils 

For extensions, teachers may wish to have: 

• Skin-color colored pencils 
• Colored pencils
• Drawing and writing paper
• Writing utensils

Activity 

Show students the image of Touchstone and share that today they will be: 

• Making a visual inventory of this mosaic. 
  • A visual inventory means looking and then discussing what we see. 
  • A mosaic means a picture or a pattern made by setting small pieces of glass, ceramic or stone onto a surface. 
• Visual inventories have no right or wrong answers, but students should be able to explain ideas with evidence from the mosaic. 
• The inventory will be “exhaustive,” students will talk until we feel confident everything has been seen and said. When the group feels tired at the end of our discussion, they will know they have done good work! 

Facilitate the visual inventory: 

• Students should name everything they see in the mosaic. 
  • Describe the colors in the mosaic. 
  • Describe what the figure is doing. 
  • Describe the expression on her face. 
  • Describe her posture. 
  • What is the main figure holding in her hands? 
  • What other objects do you see? 
  • How many flowers are there?
• Tell the students that the name of the mosaic is Touchstone. 
  • What might this word / idea mean? 
  • Do they see anything more when they know the title? 
• Now students are ready to say how this makes them feel and make connections to their own experiences. 
  • How does this mosaic make you feel? 
  • How do you think the woman feels? Why? 
  • Have you ever been in a place that looks like this mosaic? How was it different and how was it similar? 
  • What do you think about the images from nature? Could they be symbols of something important or part of a story? 
  • Does the life cycle of plants and flowers give us a hint about the meaning of this mosaic? 

Next, lead a discussion with more background on the artist and mosaic: 

• The artist, Shahzia Sikander (SHAH-zee-uh, sik-ahn-dahr) is from Pakistan. The figure in Touchstone is based on a goddess named Radha who is holding a chalawa (chha-lah-wuh) or a shape-shifting ghost in Punjabi culture. 
• Sikander explained “the chalawa is somebody who is so swift and transient, you can’t pin down who they are. I am identifying with the chalawa, resisting…categories.” 
• The artist once wrote that people always want to know if she’s Muslim, Pakistani, an artist, a painter, Asian, Asian-American, “or what”? She is encouraging us to think about who we are and how that compares with how others might view us. 

Now, lead a discussion about culture: 

• What does the word culture mean? It is a shared system of meanings, beliefs, values, and behaviors through which we interpret our experiences? It is collective, or shared? Culture is learned and changes over time. 
• Culture is generally understood to be, “what we know that everyone like us knows.” 
• Define the school culture. What behaviors are appropriate or inappropriate when you are in the halls? What are things you do every day in the classroom? Does a kindergarten classroom have a different culture than a fourth grade classroom? Does this school have a different culture than a nearby elementary school? What about middle school? 
• Culture can be seen in ceremonies, traditions, foods, dress, music, holidays, festivals, rules for behavior, values, and stories. 
• Culture can change over time and we can belong to multiple cultures and have many cultural identities, like the artist describes when making her mosaic and saying she feels like a shape-shifter. 
  • While this is explored more later on, you can ask students if there is something they want to share from their culture(s). The teacher may also wish to share as a transition.

Students will use the worksheet below to represent the many cultural identities they have. Prompts to consider: 

• Think about “kid culture.” What things do you do or talk about that grown-ups in your life don’t know as much about? 
• Think about places you go and use specialized equipment – sports, dance and art studios, video game rooms, libraries…these are all places with a culture where people understand similar things. 
• Think about your family. Do you have important celebrations or know specific dances? Do you speak another language? Do you ever attend a class to learn more about your culture? Are there places you go and understand the activities in a way that someone else might not?

Teachers may wish to conclude after the visual inventory and worksheet, but you can extend this activity by illustrating and/or writing an authentic story. An authentic story means a story that really happened: instead of telling about a quinceañera, an authentic story would be about a specific quinceañera students really attended. 

To illustrate an authentic story ask students to: 

• Think about an activity or event that is important to you and your family. Remember family can mean who lives in a house, but people can think about family in other ways.
• Students should draw and color this event, including people who were there. 
  • What details do people need to understand the story? 
    • Who is there?
    • What are they doing?
    • How does it feel to be there?
    • Where does it take place? 

When telling an authentic story, students will want to think about how to represent themselves. For example, if they have glasses, a picture of them will have glasses. If they have freckles or a birth mark, so should a picture of them!. Students can use scratch paper to practice layering colored pencils to find the skin tone that matches your skin and others in your story. 

For teachers trying to enhance student writing, you can try writing about the illustrations you’ve made, or write about the event instead of drawing. 

When writing about an authentic story, you can remind students to consider: 

• What did the event look or smell like? Was there any food to taste? What other sensory details would be important to include? 
• How would you describe a person’s physical appearance and how would you describe their personality traits? 
• Was there any dialogue at the event to include?

Methods for Assessment 

Teachers will know a student was successful when: 

• They contributed positively to the verbal inventory by offering feedback and/ or listening and responding to peers. 
• They produced a worksheet with symbols and words representing their cultural identities. 
• They produced a drawing or a written account of an event important to them. 
• You can use a gallery stroll to further assess and understand student contributions. 

Teachers will know a student is approaching a successful lesson when: 

• They strived to participate either by speaking or listening 
• They produced some of the worksheet and attempted to draw their event. 
• Teachers will know a student was not successful if they were not able to participate in a majority of the lesson.

Additional Resources

1. More on the benefits on academic talk and group discussion: https://www.edutopia.org/video/supporting-academic-talk-among-students/
2. ELA Standards: K-8.SL.1-3 
3. Visual Arts core standards: K-6.V.R.1-3, K-6.V.CO.1-2 
4. Social Studies Standards: K.3.1, 3.2.3 

Artwork Spotlight: 

Shahzia Sikander (Pakistani American, born 1969), Touchstone, 2021, glass mosaic with patinated brass frame. Purchased with funds from the Phyllis Cannon Wattis Endowment Fund, UMFA2023.11.1