Compare and Connect: What does our body language say about our identity? (Ready to Go Resource)

Ready-to-go resources are short, flexible learning activities that center art as texts. In “Compare and Connect” students use a guiding question to compare works of art within the context of a shared theme and produce brief writing examples.

Guiding Question: What does our body language say about our identity?

Featuring Aaron Douglas’s Harriet Tubman and Hayv Kahraman’s Kawliya 1

Make your own copy! Check the slide notes for the teacher’s guide.

Total Activity Pacing: 30 minutes, across two days

Grade(s): 3-5

Activity Overview:

• In this Compare and Connect activity, students will analyze two different paintings. Through discussion and writing, students will compare how body language (such as posture and facial expressions) can give us clues to a person’s identity. The artworks will serves as inspiration in a grade level ELA writing work where students will write a narrative or poem from the perspective of the subject in the portrait.
• In Day One: Discuss, students will identify the different postures, stances, and facial expressions that are shown in the two paintings and discuss how the body language is reflective of the subject matter/artists past. Students can share in partners or small groups how they would describe the women in the paintings based on their body language. 
• In Day Two: Write, students will write a narrative or a poem about one of the women in the paintings. The narrative or poem will be written from the lens of how the student would interpret the identity of one of the women in the paintings based on her body language.