Rebecca Stevenson Big Ideas and 21st Century Approaches 1

Unit Paper 1

What is our place in contemporary society? This essential question relates to a broad

concept called identity, which allows students to think about their individuality and their relation

to the world. In other words, the broad concept or the big idea is a topic that relates to other

people and it can be assessed from many different resources. Big ideas can engage students in

deeper levels of thinking (Walker, pg. 1). Identity, or the big idea, is how someone perceives

themselves. In this way, people can learn more about themselves through meaning-making.

Meaning-making is a process by which people understand situations, events, objects, or self with

previous information and occurrences they have had in the past. Identity is an example of

meaning-making, so the more life experiences a student has the more he/she can have a better

understanding of their own life and who they are as a person.

In order for my students to understand and visualize the content in unit 1, I would first

start out by defining what a big idea is. I would then branch into meaning-making and identity by

describing how life experiences can influence who they think they are as a human being, and

express that everyone is unique. Id ask them to respond to a series of essential questions about

identity. For example, how do you define identity? Who are you? How do others influence your

identity? My lesson objectives would include the students being able to write down a description

of themselves and draw a self-portrait. I want my students to be able to make connections

between the activities and the curriculum. Kelley, a preservice teacher said I now envision

integrating art in many different ways; to generate thoughtful discussions; as opportunities for

students to write about what they think; [and to] draw pictures to support their ideas, especially if

they have a difficult time putting their thoughts into words (Franco, Ward, Unrath, pg. 47). This

statement is a perfect explanation as to why art built into curriculum is important for learning.
Rebecca Stevenson Big Ideas and 21st Century Approaches 2

References

Franco, M. J., Ward, A., & Unrath, K. (2015). Artmaking as meaning-making: A new model for

preservice elementary generalists. Art Education, 68(5), 28-33.

Walker, S. (2001). Teaching meaning in artmaking. Worchester, MA: Davis.