Objective:

Students will

• apply what they learned about the ability of portraiture to display social status and identity by constructing their self-portraits out of images and words.
• observe the power of these visual clues as social signifiers by participating in and observing other students identifying people through their self-portraits.

Lesson times:

If you attend the About Face exhibit in the Memorial Art Gallery , this lesson is suggested as a post-visit activity.

Vocabulary:

identity - the characteristics and qualities of a person, considered collectively and regarded as essential to that person's self-awareness.

portrait - a work of art that represents a specific person.

self-portrait - a work of art depicting oneself, created by oneself.

sign - an object, character, or gesture that represents something else that is not visible or tangible.

symbol - something that stands for, represents, or suggests another thing.

Prior Knowledge:

Students should have visited the About Face exhibit at the Memorial Art Gallery.

Materials:

1. Magazines from which students can cut out words and images that describe them (optional)
2. Scissors
3. Tape, glue, or rubber cement
4. Large pieces of paper
5. Markers, crayons, colored pencils
6. Self-portraits and fashioning your own identity worksheet (html or Word)

Lesson:

1. Get the students thinking about what clues were given in Nathaniel Hurd's portraits that help us understand his occupation, social status, culture, and time period. For example, in the Memorial Art Gallery, Hurd is shown with a bald head, wearing a turban. This helps us understand something about his culture. During this time in America, men sometimes shaved their heads because they wore wigs. His hat and clothes also tell us about Nathaniel Hurd's social status. The way we see him here, with his turban on, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, and his collar unbuttoned, all indicate this man is not dressed up. And, once we know a little more about clothing, social status, and portraiture in colonial America, then we can tell that this portrait is unusual in its deliberate casualness. Most people who had their portrait painted wanted to look very wealthy and important. They did this by having their portrait painted while wearing very stylish, expensive clothes, or sitting in a sumptuous room. Hurd's portrait clues us in on his social status and occupation. It may also clue us in to his personality, his contemplative gaze hints at a man that has a lot on his mind.
2. Ask the students to think about what kind of clues they would give about themselves in a self-portrait.

• What attributes symbolize you?
• What colors, words, emotions, attributes would best express your identity?

3. Students will construct a self-portrait considering their age, family, hobbies, education, responsibilities, social life, culture, etc. This activity can be done in the classroom, or at home. Doing this activity at home may be beneficial in order to maintain each student's anonymity. This will make the students' task of identifying their classmates' self-portraits later a true exercise in observation and detective work.
4. Depending on the available materials students can:

   a.) Create a self-portrait by first creating a written self-portrait. They will write about their age, family, hobbies, education, responsibilities, social life, culture, etc., and then choose one image, object, or symbol that best embodies each of these categories. Using markers, crayons, or pencils draw each of these attributes on paper to create a composite self-portrait. For example, students can draw family members, favorite music groups, hobbies such as swimming or painting, feelings through facial expressions, etc.
   b.) Create a self-portrait by cutting images and words from magazines and making a collage of the images to represent their age, family, hobbies, education, responsibilities, social life, culture, etc. This could include students cutting out a smile to represent happiness, or cutting out a baseball glove for students who like to play or watch baseball, etc.

5. After the portraits are complete, the students can hang their self-portraits. Make sure each portrait has a clearly marked number, so when the other students are trying to identify the maker of each portrait, they can indicate what numbered portrait they are discussing.

6. Give each student a copy of the worksheet. First, the students will walk around and view the self-portraits without writing anything. Try to discourage too much discussion during this time. After each student has gotten a feeling for the group of portraits as a whole, they can begin filling out their worksheets in order to identify every self-portrait in their class.

7. In the 'Observations' column students are to write down as many distinguishing characteristics as they see in each of these portraits. For example, "This girl is wearing a baseball glove. She has glasses and blonde hair." In the 'Interpretation' column the students will begin to interpret the things they have observed in the self-portraits. For example, "This may be a portrait of someone who likes to play baseball, or someone who likes to watch baseball. Jane plays on a little league team and has blonde hair and glasses." And finally, in the 'Identities' column, the students will put together what they have found in the 'Observations' and 'Interpretations' column in order to identify the person whose self-portrait they are looking at. "I think this is Jane!"

8. Go over the worksheets with the entire class. Make sure the students are clear when they explain why they chose to identify portraits with certain people. Everyone in the class can share one of their identifications with the class. First, they discuss their observations of the self-portrait, then their interpretations, and finally their identification. If they do a sufficient job, move on to the next student. If you have the time allow other students to share their findings, the more points of view the students are exposed to, the better.

Follow-up:

After all of the identities have been discovered, be sure to relate this experience to the way portraiture was used by the people in colonial Boston. Follow up by asking students:

• If you could hold only one thing in your portrait, like the books in the Cleveland portrait of Nathaniel Hurd, what would it be?
• What does that attribute say about you? What does it not say about you?"

Think about it:

If a young person were to find your self-portrait in an attic 100 years from now, what would be the best way for them find out about you? What kind of questions should they ask? Where would they go to do research?

Evaluation:

Students will be assessed on their ability to construct their personality, traits, interests, and background into a coherent 'identity' to be expressed through visual symbols and attributes. Students should also be evaluated on their participation in 'reading' the clues in their classmates' portraits. Look for the richness of detail in the students' Observations column, their ability to put these observations to meaningful use in the Interpretations column, and their final synthesis of the material in their identification of the person.

Summary:

Constructing their own self-image will provide students with a personal example of the power of images to fashion an identity. This experience will contribute to students analytically approaching visual and textual documents in the future. Participating in interpreting the self-portraits of other students and watching their own self-portrait get identified will illustrate to the students the power of visual signs to help us interpret images and understand history.