Assignments
Final Assignment for Global Renaissance Art History
This course introduced students to the study of Renaissance art and architecture through a global lens using Smarthistory’s Reframing Art History textbook. Throughout this intensive six-week summer course, students completed a series of in-class writing exercises based on Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs, such as minute papers, empty outlines, muddiest points, and student-generated test questions) and kept a learning journal. As a final assignment, they were asked to write their Smarthistory entry. They were asked to select 4 or 5 artworks, objects, or architectural spaces from the 15th and 16th centuries to answer the question, “What is the relationship between empire-building and art-making in the Global Renaissance?” To set students up for success, the guidelines contain a thorough description of the assignment, the intended audience, the entry format, a checklist, a rubric, and two sample annotated Smarthistory essays that could serve as a model for their answers. I scaffolded this assignment by framing in-class activities and CATs towards this exercise. The assignment and guidelines are based on Smarthistory’s guidelines for contributions, highlighting a real-world application of the course’s learning objectives.
Ekphrastic Exercise Beyond the Art History Classroom
This course introduced students to the artistic production of the Iberian Peninsula and the Americas, from cave paintings in Altamira to casta paintings in New Spain. Because the course is not intended for art history majors, we spent the first few weeks learning and practicing skills in formal and iconographic analyses, and we collectively developed a vocabulary for thinking, talking, and writing about art in Spanish. In line with the learning objectives for the course and drawing from the idea of “slow looking,” I adapted this Ekphrastic Exercise from a previous art history course I taught to encourage students to engage meaningfully with works of art available to them at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The guidelines contain detailed expectations of how they should select and engage with the artwork, a summary of what ekphrasis is and why it is important, and a list of prompts and considerations to jumpstart their looking and writing. During the exit interviews, students noted that while they were resistant to sitting or standing in front of an artwork for an extended time, they were ultimately surprised at how looking at art slowly and carefully can shed light on details that were otherwise invisible. In addition to training their eye, students developed their ability to build an argument from an artwork, rather than about it.
Infographic Essay
This course introduced students to literary study through careful readings of challenging and influential books, starting with Homer’s Iliad and culminating with Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. After introducing, practicing, and assessing close reading as a foundational skill for understanding and interpreting literature, we begin thinking comparatively and thematically. This exercise asks students to answer a question—similar in tone and content to the essay questions they will encounter in the final exam—through an infographic or an Instagram carousel. In doing so, students practice their ability to synthesize large amounts of information and build an argument about a given theme from their reading of selected works. It also challenges them to develop a new skill—visual communication. Students have expressed that this is a challenging, yet rewarding exercise, and have noted that it helps them better prepare for the final exam, as the final products are made available to the entire class.
Sample Lessons
Teaching the Florentine Codex in a Literature Class
For HUMA1002: Literature Humanities II, I developed a module on the General History of the Things of New Spain, a sixteenth-century ethnographic and historical text produced by Mexica tlacuiloqueh (painter-scribes) in collaboration with the Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún. I added this module to extend the focus of the course into colonial Mexico and to add Indigenous voices to the syllabus, as well as an opportunity to teach strategies to read against the colonial and canonical grain. Using the Getty’s Digital Florentine Codex, I selected specific passages that could be read in relation to other texts or themes encountered in class.
To prepare students, I circulated a Reading Guide, which contained helpful tips about the text, as well as a detailed list of what to read. I also developed an Instructor’s Guide for anyone interested in teaching this text as part of Literature Humanities course with some background reading and pointers to successfully prepare and teach the lesson. I compiled a more robust document with Reading Notes for the instructor that include questions to ask students and highlights important passages that connect, either thematically or stylistically, to other texts, as well as a PowerPoint presentation with high-resolution images.
All of these materials are available here.
Lesson Plan and Activity: Two Creation Stories
In HUMA1001: Literature Humanities I, I introduced students to two creation stories: the Enuma Elish and Genesis 1-3 (New Revised Standard Version). We spent some time practicing and fine-tuning our close reading skills while paying attention to some of each story’s stylistic and thematic characteristics. I introduced students to the Documentary Hypothesis and concluded the lesson with an activity that required students to interpret works of art using textual evidence, as well as think more critically about the manifold interpretations of the Genesis creation stories in the West.