These lessons are designed for adult ESL students at the intermediate and advanced levels. Students learn new vocabulary, and practice using it by looking at and describing portraits, landscapes, and narrative works of art.

For the Classroom


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Tips for Teaching about Portraits
Tips for Teaching about Landscapes
Tips for Teaching about Narrative Art

Lessons 1–10 of 10

Looking at Portraits Lesson 1: What Do Portraits Communicate?
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will make connections between their personal experiences and a work of art and use visual analysis to describe a portrait.

Princess Leonilla / Winterhalter

Looking at Portraits Lesson 2: How Do Portraits Communicate?
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will "read" a visual image very much like they would read words in a story.

Bonapart Sisters / David

Looking at Portraits Lesson 3: The Interview
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will spend more time looking at details and write an imagined interview with a sitter.

Marquesa de Santiago / Goya y Lucientes

Looking at Portraits Lesson 4: Commission Statement
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will apply what they have learned about portraits in a formal writing exercise.

Looking at Landscapes Lesson 1: Finding Yourself in a Landscape
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will make connections between their personal experiences and landscapes.

Landscape / Koninck

Looking at Landscapes Lesson 2: Verbal Descriptions
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will practice their speaking skills while describing a landscape scene for a partner to draw.

Wheatstacks / Monet

Looking at Landscapes Lesson 3: Postcards
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will write a postcard about their favorite landscape.

Grand Canal / Bellotto

Looking at Narrative Art Lesson 1: What Are Stories and How Do We Learn Them?
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students discover how visual artists represent a story by depicting a single moment from it.

Venus and Adonis / Titian

Looking at Narrative Art Lesson 2: What's the End of the Story?
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will create a story based on an image.

The Ransom / Millais

Looking at Narrative Art Lesson 3: Creating Your Own Story
Grades/Level: Adult Learners
Subjects: Visual Arts, English—Language Arts, ESL
Lesson Overview: Students will think about a dramatic moment in their lives and imagine how to translate it into a work of art.

Lessons 1–10 of 10