Curriculum | Social Studies

Taking on the role of a t-shirt designer— “Keith Haring Style”

The lesson's goal was for students to pretend that they were “reopening” the Pop Shop in NYC that closed in 2005. They were given the challenge to design and showcase new and improved t-shirts that were marketable to sell. They could use any surface application such as dyeing, bleaching, and fabric paint to accomplish the task and it had to be wearable!

This lesson introduces students to the work of Keith Haring, focusing on his semiotic messages. Students have to create their own semiotic symbols to communicate a positive message that is important in their lives.

Art activities incorporated in the process of creating a Keith Haring inspired mural that went up the walls, on the windows and over the doors. This mural expanded upon the dangers of drugs and abuse.

We loved learning about Keith Haring.

Room 8 and 9 painted the fence outside our classrooms using Keith Haring images. We wrote environmentally friendly messages inside our shapes as part of our environmental project this year. Our yearly calendars were also based around Keith Haring.

Our 2nd graders did a fabulous job as they created these amazing pictures in the style of Keith Haring. We learned how to draw basic body shapes in proportion by drawing ovals. We drew an oval for the head, a bigger oval for the body, 3 smaller ovals for each arm, and then 3 ovals for each leg. We learned that our body only bends where we have a joint... in this case where two of our ovals met. We drew people doing all kinds of fun things. Ideally, the children drew figures doing something that was important to them... something they loved. Then we cut out our figures and glued them down. We tried to overlap the figures to show depth. This was a hard concept for the children to understand, but it was really interesting to see the results. Finally, we created some visual texture by making a beautiful patterned floor for our figures to dance on. I love the energy in all of these pictures. In the 2nd picture especially, you can actually see the children playing basketball. The overlapping in this piece of artwork provides so much depth to the picture.

Using traditional portraiture methods of proportion, students explore and combine their knowledge with Haring-style, expressive, and colorful aesthetics to produce vibrant clay masks.

To download facial proportions sheet go to Visual Aids, use link on the right.

Haring's 2-sided mural on a handball court at 128th Street & 2nd Avenue in NYC overlooks the FDR drive. A public site that has brought much acknowledgement since it was painted in 1986. This lesson, organized collaboratively with The Children's Storefront gives local students the opportunity to examine and reflect on one of Haring's most influential landmarks.

Parent and student volunteers went to Greenfield Elementary School on the Martin Luther King Jr holiday to work together and paint Haring-inspired murals on the walls of the fourteen stairwell landings.

Similar to Haring, tolerance and understanding are the main themes for two schools from the Middle East that created a mural together.