Art

Illustration of a home set within its surrounding landscape

Mapping exploration

Learners rotate through mapping stations, starting to define their understanding of space and place through different modalities including geography and art literacies.

Includes

Lesson slides, Heart-map handout, My Map Book, Sarah Fanelli

Connecting to Special Places

Learners brainstorm special places and think about what makes it special. Learners use inspiration from various artists to bring their chosen places alive.

Includes

Special places handout, Mentor texts and artists

Sound maps

Learners explore representations of different sounds as they create sound maps.

Includes

You Draw My Hum lesson plan, Nia Fekri, Sonic hunt handout, Lesson slides

Home in Place

Learners collaboratively build a story map of their school or surrounding area.

Includes

Mapping activity sheets, Home in place slides

A panel of tatreez — traditional Palestinian embroidery

We Went Looking for Home

Learners begin to understand the idea of home is hard to contain. Learners brainstorm all the feelings, sensations, images, and memories that come up when they think of home.

Includes

We Went Looking for Home but We Found… (Al-Bustan camp multimedia book)

Home is a Foreign Place

Learners take inspiration from Zarina Hashimi’s Home is a Foreign Place and create block print symbols of home.

Includes

Zarina Hashimi slides, MoMA audio: Zarina Hashimi’s Home is a Foreign Place (English)

Illustration questioning whether maps always tell the truth

Are Maps Always Truthful?

Learners understand that maps can be inaccurate and explore artists who work to capture the true spirit of a place when maps fail us.

Includes

Lesson slides

Dream Maps

Learners create multimedia maps of their dream places and worlds inspired by decolonial mapping.

Includes

Dream maps handout

Community Maps

Learners understand that people make home and create their own community maps of the people they hold near.

Includes

Winti Hon (وانتِ هون), Ruba Shamshoum and Amy Chiniara — animation, Community map example

Final Project

Learners work to memorialize some of their favorite places through collaborative art.