Schenectady City
  School District

108 Education Drive
Schenectady, NY  12303
518.370.8100
 

 
 



Threads of Meaning

Grade Level:  7 - 10

National Art Standard 1:  Understand and apply media.
National Art Standard 5:  Reflect upon and assess characteristics and merits of the work of others.
National Family and Consumer Sciences Education Standard 16.3:  Demonstrate apparel and textile design skills.
National Family and Consumer Sciences Education Standard 16.4:  Demonstrate skills needed to produce, alter, or repair textiles products and apparel.

As a result of this lesson students will be able to:

  • analyze the artistic symbols and meaning of African cloth.

  • design cloth based on proverb or story using combination of traditional African symbol and original symbol designed by student.

  • produce drawstring bag fusing original cloth.

Objectives

National Art Standard 1:  Understand and apply media.
National Art Standard 5:  Reflect upon and assess characteristics and merits of the work of others.
National Family and Consumer Sciences Education Standard 16.3:  Demonstrate apparel and textile design skills.
National Family and Consumer Sciences Education Standard 16.4:  Demonstrate skills needed to produce, alter, or repair textiles products and apparel.

Background

Teachers will introduce the concepts of meaning in African cloth using the resources from the African Voices exhibit.  Specifically students will visit the "Marketplace" (Threads of Meaning) to learn about meaning in factory made African blue and white cloth, and "Wealth in Africa" (Bamana exhibit) to find out about contemporary mud cloth design.

Students will understand that there are many diverse textile design traditions and methodologies in Africa.  They will learn about Adire resist or tie dye fabric.  They will learn that some artists working on mud cloth create the design through applying mud to 'negative space.'  They will also learn that some cloth, such as Adinkra cloth, is created by printing the design on the fabric.  They will learn that factories also produce cloth, using some of the elements of the traditional cloth.

Activity Description

Session 1: 
Teachers review the cloth on the African Voices website, discussing the symbols of the proverbs that give the cloth meaning.  Students will then examine a selection of traditional Adinkra symbols and review the traditional meaning of the symbols.  They will then brainstorm some proverbs that could be connected with the Adinkra symbols and select one or two that appeal to them.

Students will transfer the design to graph paper in order to create a stencil.  The pencil is rubbed on the back of the graph paper and it is used as a carbon transfer to put the design on a flat piece of dried sponge.  They cut the design from the sponge and use water-resistant glue to adhere it to stiff cardboard.  This becomes their traditional design stamp.

Session 2:

Teacher leads students in review of the meanings of the symbols.  Students then are asked to draft their own proverb or personal story or thought, using the stamp they made in Session 1 and a new stamp which they will create.  After drafting the proverb, they sketch a design for the symbol that will complete their work.

They follow the process used for the traditional stamp (Session 1) to create their own design stamp.

Session 3 and 4:

Students apply textile ink (or block printing ink) to their stamps and stamp their designs in multiple patterns on a two 12 inch squares of cotton cloth to tell their proverb or story.  They must leave one (1) inch clear all around the square for stitching and hemming.

When the printing is complete, the squares are hung up to dry.

Session 5:

In the Home and Careers classroom, students hem one edge of each cloth square and sew the other three edges together to make a pouch (stop stitching at the hem).  Be sure that the right sides of the cloth pieces are facing each other when the edges are sewn.  The pouch is reversed and a cotton rope threaded through the hem on each side to create a draw string bag.

Time Required:

Lesson takes five 50 minute sessions.  Assessment takes one hour.

Resources:

The following resources are needed for this lesson:

  • two 12 inch squares of cotton broadcloth or Muslim for each student
  • pencils and paper for sketching
  • graph paper to create stencil
  • access to computer lab and the Internet to view African voices website
  • textile ink and/or printing ink
  • reproducible sheets showing various adinkra symbols
  • clothesline to hang squares
  • cardboard
  • scissors
  • flat sheets of sponge

Assessment:

Assessment of student artwork for this lesson is accomplished through rubrics in the following areas:
Understand and apply media-texture design:  effective use of tools, compositions to:

  • create symbol for textile design and
  • to integrate new symbol with tradition symbol(s) in textile design

Reflect upon and assess characteristics and merits of the work of others:
clarity of analysis and understanding of:

  • traditional and contemporary symbols in African textile design, and
  • personal symbols in original symbol creation.

Demonstrate apparel and textile design skills:  effectively integrate and execute textile design and design of drawstring bag

Demonstrate skills needed to produce ... textile product:  effective use of tools to create drawstring bag.