The unit is introduced in the Humanities class, as students learn about the
origins of Totems in Native American folklore. Students read Totem stories and
explore the meaning and symbolism behind the myths at:
Totem Poles: An Exploration http://users.imag.net/~sry.jkramer/nativetotems/default.html
Students take turns modeling in front of the class. The teacher leads a step-by-step
demonstration of drawing a portrait of the student model using proportion and
guidelines. For homework, students draw self portraits.
The self-portraits are re-created in class digitally, using Photoshop (or any
other drawing program). The students make two photocopies of their drawn self-portrait
and transform their image into their chosen totem (for example, a hawk). In
the first copy, they make themselves half/human and half/totem. In the second
portrait, they are 75% - 100% totem.
In the computer lab, the students export their digital self portrait into Imageready
(the animation component of Photoshop). They duplicate the layer with their
self portrait, and begin transforming their portrait into the totem (adding
details that resemble the totem). The second layer (part human and part totem)
is duplicated and more details and features of the totem are added to the portrait.
The process of duplicating layers and transforming the portrait into the totem
is repeated at least three times. The transformed layers are animated using
Imageready. The animation is saved as a .gif file.
The students use Dreamweaver (or another web authoring program) to create three
connecting web pages. On the first web page they insert their animated portrait
that transforms to their totem. The second and third pages include their totem
story and poems respectively. The three pages are connected with word and image
links.
The completed projects are published on the WWW.
Created
by Meryl Meisler and Grace Raffaele for TeachNet 2004
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