Lesson Overview
This lesson brings Nebraska Reading, Writing, Social Studies, and National Visual Arts Standards together. Students will collect information from Beauty of the Harvest and by learning about the artist to examine Native American culture and determine what women accomplished in their daily lives.  After organizing and thoughtfully considering this information, students are encouraged to create their own interpretation of a woman in a different everyday activity.  From this, a narrative story will be written to bring together the culture, human condition, and literature aspects of writing.

Art Exemplar
Title: Beauty of
the Harvest
Artist: Martha Pettigrew
(b. 1950)
Medium: bronze
Date: 1995

Objectives
• Students will summarize what the Native American woman accomplished in her daily life by using content in an art piece and writing a narrative to describe it.
Procedure


1. Background: Beauty of the Harvest is created from clay and bronze. It was made in 1995. Pettigrew graduated from UNL with a degree in printmaking and painting. After she graduated, Martha worked in the Nebraska Art Museum as a scientific illustrator for research papers.  She wanted to be more creative with her artistic talent.  Martha decided to become a sculptor.  Through her anthropology classes in college, she found an interest in Native American cultures.  She wanted to display that women in Native American culture are bearers’ of society.  Her sculptures are usually Native Americans who are holding cultural items with their eyes closed for meditation.  Her abstract forms seem peaceful and transcendent.

2. Ask questions about the sculpture.
   • What can you tell about this woman from her appearance?
   • How is the sculpture an effective way to portray Native American life?
   • Martha Pettigrew wanted her artwork to give the impression of human dignity.  What part of the sculpture displays this?
3. Make a web with the words; “Native American Woman” in the middle and  shoot-offs will be what she is doing, wearing, holding, etc.,.
Activities
1. Using the “Native American Woman” web, have students create an art piece visualizing a woman in a different everyday activity. (Draw, sculpt, paint.)
2. Create a narrative story about the Native American woman’s life.
Conclusion
1. Display the art piece and narrative together.
2. Compare and discuss the web, images created, and narratives for correlation of information.
Related Activities
1. Social studies
   1. The students will depict what a modern woman would be doing, wearing, and holding.  They will model by bringing items to school and describing their importance.
   2. More connections to Nebraska history.