Comparing and Contrasting

Literary and Visual ArtEnglish

Grade 9

Mrs. Marinelli

Lesson ObjectivesAnalyze how a visual art, a painting can

be transformed into literary art, a poem and then into a visual and literary art, a music video.

state an original interpretation of a painting and a poem, explaining how individual elements in both types of art, work together to support the interpretation.

The Artists and their works

Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night

Anne Sexton’s “Starry Night”

Don McLean's Vincent

How can one art be transformed into another?

Step One: Analyze the Poemhttp://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171273

Small groups respond to question prompts Group Members: ______________________ Date:______________

Question Prompts for Analyzing Poetry

1. What poetic language is used in the poem ( simile, metaphor, rhyme, alliteration, personification) ?2. What is the mood of this poem?3. How is this mood created?  What specific words or phrases are used?4. What story does the poem tell?5. Who do you think is the point of view character in the poem?6. Can you relate anything in your life, or the world you live in to the poem?

by Anne Sexton The town does not exist except where one black-haired tree slips up like a drowned woman into the hot sky. The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars. Oh starry starry night! It moves. They are all alive. Even the moon bulges in its orange irons The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. Oh starry starry night!

Step two: Analyze the Painting

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/starry-night/

Small groups respond to question prompts

Group Members: ______________________ Date:______________

Questions for Analyzing Art

1. What is happening in the painting?  What story does it tell?

2. What feeling or mood does the painting evoke?  How does it evoke these feelings (colors, shapes, images)?

3.  If there are people in the painting, who do you think they are?  How would you describe them to someone else?

4.  Does the painting remind you of anything in your own life, or the present world?

5.  Apply some poetic language to describe the painting: metaphors, similes, onomatopoeia, alliteration, or rhyme.

6. Use all five senses to describe the painting.

Step 3: Analyze the Music Videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM

Anne Sexton Vincent Van Gogh Don McLean

Software Used in Lesson

• PowerPoint

• Microsoft Word

• Internet Explorer Links

• Pictures from Internet

• Real Player