West Virginia Coal - In Coal Country

Grade Level - 5th grade, Thomas Paine
Teacher of Lesson - Beth Anderson
Approximate Time - 45 minutes

Objectives:

1. Students will learn what it would be like to live in a coal town. This will include images we come across while reading In Coal Country.
2. The class will learn how to use charcoal as an art form.
3. The class will get an idea of what it is like to have coal dust everywhere.

Materials:

• 8-1/2 x 14 sheets of white construction paper.
• Charcoal for the students to draw with.
• In Coal Country by Judith Hendershot. Procedures:
  1. I will begin the class by directing the students to clear off their desks and focus their attention up front for a story. I will also encourage the students to bring their chairs closer if they would like to see the pictures.
  2. After the class is situated, I will read In Coal Country. While reading the book, I will answer any questions that may come up with terminology and situations presented in the book.
  3. When I am done reading the book, I will ask the students if they noticed anything about the artwork in the book. Hopefully one student will eventually note that it looks like it was done in charcoal. I will read the part of the book where the illustrator talks about why the artwork was done in that style.
  4. I will ask the students to return to their desks and clear them off. While they are cleaning up, I will ask them to think of someplace that is very special to them. I will explain that we will be drawing those places with charcoal and then hanging up our pictures. I will show mine as an example of someplace that is important to me- my parent's house.
  5. When the students are ready, I will give each of them a sheet of white paper to draw on. I will then pass out the boxes of charcoals so they can begin drawing. If some student asks to help pass out charcoal, I will let them.
  6. The class will then draw pictures of someplace they go often or someplace that is important to them. They will use the charcoal sticks. Hopefully the students will notice two things- how hard it is to work with and how messy it is. After they are done drawing their pictures, we will hang them up on our coal bulletin board.
  7. The last part of the lesson will be discussing how messy the charcoal is. I will ask questions such as: "What if you were covered with this dust all the time?" and "What if you had to breathe that every day?" Hopefully this will give them something to think about before the next lesson when we would discuss black lung disease.

Evaluation:

At the end of the lesson, we will add to our "What we learned" chart. This will help us remember what we have just learned, as well as making sure that they have learned what I had hoped they would learn. If there were other things that happened during the lesson that they didn't mention, I will try and emphasize those. I will also informally listen to their discussions while they are drawing to see if they understand how messy coal dust is.

Changes and revisions I would make:

The classroom set-up is not very conducive to reading books where the pictures are important to what you are teaching. I would make sure the atmosphere was more like storytime, where we would later return to our desks. This also takes away the distractions at their desks.

I did not originally schedule enough time for this lesson, so many of the studentÕs drawings were rushed and were not as good as they could have been had they been given more time. Not all of the children drew pictures of places, which although showing creativity, is also a sign of not following directions. After they were done with their first picture, it was all right to continue to experiment with the charcoal on other drawings. However, the purpose of this lesson was to get the students to model after the book and picture their home covered in charcoal dust.