Grades: 	Lower elementary (K–2)
Subjects: 	Visual Arts, Language Arts
Time Required:	Three to five class periods 
Author: 	Janis Bucknor, Teacher
	52nd Street Elementary, Los Angeles Unified School District

Lesson Overview 
Students practice writing letters of the alphabet and explore how decorated letters can be used to convey stories or symbolic ideas. They create an “illuminated” alphabet in which each letter conveys concepts of home and family. 

Learning Objectives
Students should be able to:
- write letters of the alphabet. 
- “illuminate” or decorate their letters to convey concepts about home and family.
- share their concepts about home and family orally through stories.
 
Featured Getty Artwork 
Various manuscripts in the Getty Museum’s collection featured on the Getty Web site (some suggestions below).
Mira calligraphiae monumenta (Model Book of Calligraphy) by Joris Hoefnagel 
http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o2704.html
Inhabited Initial H  by an anonymous artist
http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o110555.html
Decorated Initial E by Master of the Ingeborg Psalter
http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o136156.html
Decorated Initial S by Antonio da Monza
http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o110065.html
Decorated Initial V by Antonio da Monza
http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/o110064.html

Materials 
- Art supplies: paper, drawing pencils, crayons or paint (including metallic colors).
- Marguerite Makes a Book, by Bruce Robertson. Available at the Getty bookstore online. (http://www.getty.edu/bookstore/titles/marg.html)
- (optional) Prints of illuminated letters are available at the Getty Museum Bookstore at the Getty Center. A book about illuminated letters, An Abecedarium: Illuminated Alphabets from the Court of Emperor Rudolf II, is also available at the bookstore at the Getty Center and online. (http://www.getty.edu/bookstore/titles/abedar.html)

Steps
1.   Display and discuss examples of illuminated letters from the Getty Museum’s collection. You can find more images on the Getty Web site by searching for the terms “decorated,” “initial,” and “inhabited.”
2.   Introduce students to art vocabulary (elements of art and principles of design such as line, color, shape, pattern, etc.).
3.   Ask students questions that guide them to look at visual elements in the images of illuminated letters.**
- Look at the colors in this work of art. Which one did you see first?  Was color the first thing that you noticed?  What else caught your eye?
- Take turns describing the lines and shapes that you see in this work of art. (For example, “I see a thin curving line.”)
- Do you see movement in this work of art or does it seem still?  Do the colors, lines, and shapes make it seem that way?  How?
- Is there a story in this work of art? How do the colors help to tell this story?
- If you see a story, who or what do you think is the most important figure, shape, or object? What makes you think so?
- Does anything you see happening in this work of art remind you of your life story, or of another story you know?	
4.  	Show students some of the more stylized decorated letters in which the letter is hard to distinguish from the decoration around it. Students can try to find and name the alphabetic letters in the pictures as an “I Spy” activity.
5. 	Read Marguerite Makes a Book to explain the process of bookmaking during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
6.	Students tell personal stories to the class and draw pictures illustrating these stories.
7. 	Students identify the most important part of their story and select a letter of the alphabet to represent that part.
8. 	Students draw their decorated letter in pencil, then illustrate, or “illuminate,” it with crayons or paint, using images and motifs related to that part of their story.
9. 	Students write or dictate two to three short sentences about the part of the story they illustrated with their letter. 

**These questions are taken from Jessica Davis’s, The Muse Book (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Graduate School of Education, President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1996).

Standards Addressed

Common Core Standards for English Language Arts

Grades K–2

READING
Literature
K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
K.2 With prompting and support, retell familiar stories, including key details.
1.2 Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their central message or lesson.
2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
2.2 Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral.

Informational Text
K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.
K.2 With prompting and support, identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
K.10 Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.
1.2 Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.
1.10 With prompting and support, read informational texts appropriately complex for grade 1.
2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
2.2 Identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text.
2.10 By the end of year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 2–3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

SPEAKING AND LISTENING
K.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and text with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
K.4 Describe familiar people places, things, and events, with prompting and support, provide additional detail.
1.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 1 topics and text with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
1.3 Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to gather additional information or clarify something that is not understood.
2.3 Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to clarify comprehension, gather information, or deepen understanding of a topic or issue. 
2.4 Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audible in coherent sentences.

Visual Arts Standards for California Public Schools

Kindergarten
Aesthetic Valuing
4.0	Students analyze, assess, and derive meaning from works of art, including their own, according to the elements of art, the principles of design, and aesthetic qualities.
Creative Expression
2.4 	Paint pictures expressing their ideas about family and neighborhood.

Language Arts Standards for California Public Schools

Kindergarten
Listening and Speaking 
1.2	Share information and ideas, speaking audibly in complete, coherent sentences.
2.3	Relate an experience or creative story in a logical sequence.
Reading
1.6	Recognize and name all uppercase and lowercase letters of the alphabet.

What I Learned 
“The unit worked incredibly well for my English Language Learners by providing opportunities for vocabulary development as they discussed what they saw in the illuminated letters. The connections students were allowed to make with home and family were an invaluable springboard for making artwork relevant to their experiences and validating the diversity of my classroom.” 
—Janis Bucknor