In this unit, students will develop character by observing characters in a painting and creating a story for the painting, by becoming a character from a painting and imagining what that character might be thinking, and by creating a character and developing backstory through a character interview with their peers.

This unit includes two asynchronous lessons and one synchronous lesson. All lessons are distributed on Google Slides so can be easily made into copies for your own class and adapted as needed!

Part 1: In the Art Museum Challenge students will choose one painting from the options and recreate the painting using objects around their house. Students will learn by watching a video about the "masterpiece challenge" that took storm over social media during quarantine, and join the art challenge. They will also consider the scenario this character may be in, and add a thought bubble with a line the character might think or say in this moment.

Part 2: In "Paintings Come to Life" students will choose one painting from the options and create a story by considering the mood characters, scenery, and props in the image. Students will create a story with a beginning, middle, and end and consider the following questions as inspiration.

• Where are these people located? 
• What brings them to this location?
• How do they feel about being here?
• What does the character’s body language tell you about how they feel?
• What are the relationships between the people? 
• How do these people feel about each other? 
• What do these people want?
• What will they do to get what they want?

Part 3: In the live lesson, students will find 3 objects from their house that could be props or costume pieces for any character they can imagine from a superhero movie. In breakout rooms, students will interview each other as their characters, considering their language, body language, and emotion while developing backstories for their character.

The Google Slides doc includes a visual component for the students to preview and follow along with each section of the lesson, as well as notes with framing and instructions for the teacher. On the last two pages it also includes a student classwork component that ensures audience participation and the character interview questions they will be asking, a student visual anchor that can be sent to students while they are in breakout rooms so they know what to do while they are working in small groups, and a full write up of the timing and framing for the lesson.