At PS 17, the fifth grade students have been learning about portraiture, silhouette and ekphrastic poetry in their CWP residency. Teaching Artists, Maria Schirmer and Alex Velozo, have been teaching them about portraiture, both written and visual.
The students first created written self-portraits and then created silhouette portraits of themselves. The students paid extra attention to line and shadow to highlight detail and individuality in creating their silhouettes.
After they created the two portraits, the students learned about ekphrastic poetry and wrote lines using their own portraits as source material.
The students all did a wonderful job with the lessons. Their attention to detail (hand placement, hair shape) insured that their silhouettes were really unique to them. They all worked very hard and took care to creatively place their writing within the portrait, especially Karen. We are all very proud of the work the students have done at PS 17.
