Picturing America Curriculum

FAIN: BA-50021-09

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA 90036-4504)
Jane Burrell (Project Director: January 2009 to January 2010)

The applicant requested a Chairman's grant of $20,955 to run a one-day teacher training workshop that focuses on the images and themes of Picturing America (PA), together with the PA Teachers Resource Book. The workshop, to take place in Summer 2009, will serve approximately 100 teachers from Los Angeles Unified School District and the Burbank School District, both of which have adopted PA system-wide. The teachers will be drawn from arts, humanities, and social studies fields, with the goal of advancing instruction in American history, civics, government, literature, and culture. The distinguished American collection of the Los Angeles County Museum will receive attention for its relevance to the PA portfolio; however, the primary emphasis and the majority of time will be spent on actual PA reproductions and the Teachers Resource Book. The workshop presenters, who are well-established humanities educators from UC Santa Barbara and Stanford University, will impart rich humanities content and background knowledge to participants. Training in basic visual analysis of art objects will be included. The themes of Picturing America-Leadership, Freedom and Equality, Democracy, Courage, Landscape, Creativity and Ingenuity-will inform presentations and discussions; and the workshop will devote approximately equal attention to works from the several centuries. The NEH Chairman's Grant of $20,955 will cover the total budget for running this workshop, including modest teacher stipends and working lunches, speakers' honoraria and travel, and museum staff and facilities.

LACMA will present a one-day workshop for teachers in the Los Angeles Unified and Burbank school districts that have adopted "Picturing America" curriculum. Presented by two art historians, the workshop will explore objects that relate to art from Colonial period to 1950. Themes will focus on Leadership, Freedom & Equality, Democracy, Courage, Landscapes, or Creativity and Ingenuity. Two gallery sessions with museum educators using works in LACMA's American Art Collection will round out the workshop by facilitating discussions and explorations of the themes.