REQUEST: This lesson plan was presented at a teacher's conference. If you know who presented this lesson plan, please contact Abbe Barnett at abbeg@moapa.igate.com so that credit may be given to that person for this excellent plan.
Grade Levels: 1st through 8th
Description:
Students will create their own Rock Art pictograph using Native American images to communicate messages.
Objectives:
1. Students will gain an understanding of what rock art is and why people made rock art.
2. Students will gain knowledge of where rock art can be found.
3. Students will be able to distinguish between petroglyphs and pictographs.
4. Students will learn about the careless treatment of rock art sites and to preserve the remains of these ancient civilizations.
5. Students will translate their images in a creative writing that will be attached to their artwork and then a class book will be made.
Motivation/Methods:
Read the following text to students and ask them to imagine. . .
You have been walking the back country of Red Rock Canyon or Valley of Fire. Along the way, you stop to pick up a rock that has caught your interest. You look at its color, feel its texture, then all of a sudden you drop the rock, because you have just gotten a glimpse of some tiny lavender flowers that have bloomed on top of a low growing cactus; the kind you wouldn't normally notice except for their added springtime color. As you continue on your hike, you decide to move closer to the sheer cut wall of striped colors and the small group of trees growing nearby. Once you reach the wall and push away some of the overgrown branches, it is revealed廓igures of men behind shields and symbols of sheep with men riding them.
Questions begin to flood your mind学ho painted this学hen was it painted学hy was it painted学hat does it mean学hat was used to paint it?
Throughout the Southwest, many hikers have discovered similar rock art images, with the most common being pictographs or painted images, and petroglyphs or images that are carved into rock surfaces.1 The Navajo Indian Tribe and the Anasazi, ancient ancestors of the Hopi, created most of the petroglyphs and pictographs found in the Four Corners region. In the Las Vegas area, rock art images found in the Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire were painted by the Paiute Indians.
Many of these rock art images are over 800 years old and noticeably arranged in a cluster method.2 It seems that reading the images was not as important as just recording the information at hand. There are many reasons for making rock art: to convey important messages, to gain power in hunting, to provide calenders that marked important days, to protect the tribe, to use in religious ceremonies, to record events, and to educate the young.3 However, no matter the reason, rock art seems to have been used to communicate messages, the most prominent image being the hand print.
The Anasazi would place their hand against the rock wall and blow paint through a hollow reed to make a dark area around the hand. Their hand print may have been used to distinguish who they were--similar to us signing our signature. Besides hollow reeds or bone, Indians painted with brushes made of chewed twigs, yucca leaves, or animal hair. For paints, they ground minerals-red ochre for red, manganese for brown, charcoal for black, and clay ochre for yellow-and mixed them with animal fat, honey, blood, or the whites of eggs.
Painted pictographs are always in serious danger of being destroyed due to their delicate nature. Animals as well as people have rubbed against the rocks removing part of its surface. Vandalism also plays a large role in the damage of pictographs and petroglyphs. And, while it is important for people to visit rock art, they should follow the rule, "Leave only footprints and take only photographs."4
Footnotes
1Bush, B. Jane. If Rocks Could Talk, (United States of America: Dale Seymour, 1993) page 31.
2Martineau, LaVan. The Rocks Begin to Speak, (Las Vegas: K. C. Publications, 1987) page 42.
3Bush, B. Jane, page 34.
4Bush, B. Jane, page 36.
Print the following pictograh images as samples for student reference.
Method of Creating
Day 1
1 Using the brown paper, crumple, then smooth it out.
2 Paint the brown paper with a thick mixture of instant coffee, let dry overnight.
Day 2
1 Place hand on brown paper, using crushed charcoal or chalk, sprinkle around hand. Run slightly into paper around the hand. NOTE: To keep from smudging, lightly spray with a fixative in an open outside area and allow to dry thoroughly.
2 Using the resource handout, paint your rock art images using black paint and a stick. Remember to cluster your images.
3 Now translate your rock art images into a written form.
4 Mat the rock art and the creative writing on a piece of 12 X 18 inch white paper. The finished product can now be displayed or bound into book form to create a class book.
Materials needed:
coffee-stained brown paper bags
sticks
students' own hands
black tempera paint
crushed chalk (white, burnt sienna)
Final product:
The students pictograph.
Evaluation:
Compare the students' work with the photographs of the early petroglyphs of the Southwest Indians. Have the students used simple shapes? Does their Rock Art tell a story?
Resources:
Cave paintings, Lascaux, France
Petroglyph and pictograph photographs from Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico
Video, If Rocks Could Talk
Relate to Curriculum and any cross-disciplinary implications:
English (creative writing)
Create a cinquain to interpret student's rock art.
Name two adjectives, three verbs, a simile (like, as), synonym for the first line.
Science
A field trip to Red Rock Canyon or Valley of Fire.
Collect yucca leaves to make a paint brush.
Collect different color limestones and clays that could be crushed and mixed with vegetable oil to make paint.
A lesson in plant dyes.
Social Studies
Research different Indian tribes, their history, religion, and daily lives.
Create an Interest Center
Here students could touch pot shards or turquoise or taste fry bread or pinion nuts. Have various books on Native American stories available for the students to read and look through.
Related Art Activities:
Clay storytellers
God's Eyes
Weaving
Sand paintings
Native American Masks
Class totem poles
Bibliography:
Bush, B. Jane. If Rocks Could Talk. United States of America: Dale Seymour, 1993.
Discover Nevada, Channel 8. Pictographs and Petroglyphs of the Red Rock Canyon Area. February 10, 1997.
Grant, Campbell. Rock Art of the American Indian. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1967.
Martineau, LaVan. The Rocks Begin to Speak. 3rd ed., Las Vegas: K. C. Publications, 1987.
Scholastic Art Magazine. "American Tribal Art". Volume 26, Number 2, National Gallery of Art, November 1995.
Villani, John. Puzzle of the petroglyphs灰o rock art symbols bear a message for modern man? New Mexico Magazine, August 1993.
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