Standards:
SS8H7 The student evaluates key political, social, and economic changes that occurred in Georgia between 1877 and 1918.
EAL8R1 The student demonstrates comprehension and shows evidence of a warranted and responsible explanation of a variety of literary and informational texts.
ELA8R2 The student understands and acquires new vocabulary and uses it correctly in reading and writing.
ELA8RC2 The student participates in discussions related to curricular learning in all subject areas.
ELA8RC3 The student acquires new vocabulary in each content area and uses it correctly.
ELA8RC4 The student establishes a context for information acquired by reading across subject areas.
ELA8W2 The student demonstrates competence in a variety of genres.
ELA8LSV1 The student participates in student-to-teacher, student-to-student and group verbal interactions.
ELA8LSV2 The student listens and views various forms of text and media in order to gather and share information, persuade others, and express and understand ideas.
VA8MC.3 The student demonstrates how artists create and communicate meaning in artworks.
VA8MC.4 The student participates in aesthetic dialogue about his or her artwork and the artwork of others.
VA8CU.1 The student investigates and discovers personal relationship to community, culture, and world through making and studying art.
VA8PR.2 The student creates artwork reflecting a range of concepts, ideas, and subjectmatter.
VA8C.1 The student applies information from other disciplines to enhance the understanding and production of artworks.
Lesson Plan
Students and teacher(s) will discuss each of the artifacts. Discussion topics can include the item’s purpose at the time of manufacture, how a typical household would use it, how and where it was made (perhaps in contrast to how and where a comparable item is made today), the cost of the item, and its use. Students should be allowed to hypothesize on each artifact’s details. Teacher(s) then illuminate(s) how and why the items are important, and then, again, asks questions as to how the students or their families might have used the artifacts, or if their families would have had them at all, based on occupation and/or geography, etc.
After the discussion, students will draw and write their own “scrapbook” or collage of the artifacts—and stories behind them. The “scrapbook” should include one drawn picture of themselves as they picture their life (at any age) during the late Victorian era. At least one item from the trunk should be pictured in the drawing. To the side of the picture, or on the opposing page, students should write what they feel like could be a typical morning or day that would take place for them during said period, or why they chose to include that particular portrait in their scrapbook. (Individual language arts assignments may be incorporated here.) Each of the two responses should have at least one artifact pictured/mentioned in it.
When finished with their scrapbook construction, the students should be able to present their work in front of a group or in front of their class, showing examples of how they utilized the information and new terminology or knowledge of the Victorian era as presented in the traveling trunk.
