Chinese Art
Teacher's Resource
Lesson Plan: Chinese Folktales, Poetry & Music
Lessons submitted by: Patti Burkhardt

Chinese Poetry
Grades 6-12
Sunshine State Standards: VAA131, VAA132, VAA133, VAA134, VAB141, VAB142, VAB143, VAB144

Goal:
This activity will ready Grades 6-12 students for their visit to the Naples Art Museum where the Gow Collection will be explored. There are related lessons for Grades PreK-2 and Grades 3-5. Another lesson is also provided for an on-site tour of the museum.

Background Information:

Art

The concept of qi is important in Chinese painting and in Chinese life. There are many ways of looking at it, and we shall concentrate on three; the qi in the human body, the qi in nature, and the qi in Chinese painting. The Chinese character for qi means "steam" or "air," which explains why you cannot see it or touch it. It is a sort of unseen, moving energy according to the Chinese.

Many Chinese believe that qi enters your body when you take your first breath. This qi is considered to be the life-giving channel in the body, just as much as the arteries or blood vessels. The qi is concentrated in certain nodals - parts of the body. In order to use this energy, according to the Chinese, you must focus on these parts of the body and develop their potential.

The second qi is like the first, except that instead of being restricted to the human body, it permeates the whole of nature. So, when the Chinese people go into the countryside to look at natural phenomena, they are not only admiring the scenery, but also hoping that they will absorb some of the strength of the mountain or the vitality of the waterfall.

Good paintings always have this qi. Gu kaizhi (345-406), who was one of the first to postulate theories about Chinese painting, said that "form exists in order to express spirit." Qi is partially derived from the physical act of painting, but it also is transmitted through a mental image onto the painting and thence to the viewer. There are many ways of thinking about the qi in a painting. An interesting concept is that the viewer is as much the recipient of it as the artist is the generator.
(Nan, 1997)

Poetry

Poetry is part of the composition in traditional Chinese paintings. On a Chinese painting, there is Chinese calligraphy that inscribes the name of the painting, a poem, and the artist's signature, along with a red chop. (A chop is similar to a rubber stamp that contains the artist's name or a phrase.) Poetry, which is considered to be a form of singing out loud of one's mind, is naturally entwined with the art of painting. The Chinese grouped together painting, calligraphy, and poetry as the "Three Excellences." (Chang, 2000)

There does exist a great deal of translated works of classical Chinese poetry into western languages, many of which are excellent. It should be noted, however, that the poems in their original forms can never be truly appreciated without understanding the Chinese language. Readers can gain a good sense of the immense beauty of these poems, especially from the aspect of their contents, although the more delicate poetic devices such as rhythm, rhyme, and parallelism are usually lost in the translation. (http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/
~yhe/poetry/poetry.html)

Chinese Poetic Literature is conventionally divided into four classes: poetry, ci, ge or song, and fu. Poetry proper has three forms. The first is "lu shi" or "code verse," which must contain two or more of what we call parallel couples. In addition to parallelism in content, there is also a phonemic parallelism or a parallelism of tones. The classical language of the Chinese poets is rhythmical almost to an excess, though not inherently musical.

There are two other forms of poetry perhaps even more popular than the code verse which have given birth to what is called the poetry of the Chinese people. One is the gu ti, old style, or gu shi, old poetry. Much more liberty can be taken with the tonal order within a line. Poems in this style can be in five, six, or seven syllable lines or Chan-duan-ju, i.e., long and short verses, free verse but with rhymes.

The other form, jue ju, the curtailed or frustrated verse, does not mean to tell a story but to create a mood. A jue ju has only four lines of five or seven syllables each. The patterns may be represented as follows:

The moon goes down, a raven cries, frost fills the sky.
River maples, fishing lanterns,-- facing sadness I lie.
Outside of Gu Su City is the Han Shan Temple,
At midnight a bell rings; it reaches the traveler's boat.

www.chinavista.com/culture/letters/poetry/home.html

Objective:
Students will listen to several pieces of Chinese poetry and produce a piece of art that depicts one of the poems.

Materials:
copies of Chinese poems gathered from Web resources, various art supplies depending on the media chosen

Teacher Preparation:
Make several copies of Chinese poems gathered from Web resources ahead of time. Provide traditional Chinese music for background music.

Activity Description:

1. Student listens to presentation on Chinese poetry and its relatedness in art.
2. Student researches Chinese poetry independently and chooses a poem to depict artistically.
3. Student may include the poem or pieces of the poem in the piece of artwork or read it separately during group critique.
4. Student completes project and presents to group for critique.

Suggested Resources:
Extensive links to Chinese poetry grouped by eras and dynasties:
http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~yhe/poetry/poetry.html

Chinese Cultural Studies: Selections of Chinese Poetry
http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/c-poet1.html

Assessment of Creativity / Originality:
Rubric

• A - The student explored several choices before selecting one, generated many ideas, tried unusual combinations or changes on several ideas, made connections to previous knowledge, demonstrated outstanding problem-solving skills.
• B - The student tried a few ideas before selecting one, based his or her work on someone else's idea, made decisions after referring to one source, or solved the problem in a
  predictable way.
• C - The student tried one idea and carried it out adequately, but it lacked originality; the student might have copied work or ideas from those around.
• D - The student fulfilled the assignment, but gave no evidence of trying anything unusual.
• F - The student did not complete the project.

Assessment of Effort / Perseverance
Rubric

• 4- The project was continued until it was as complete as the student could make it; the student gave effort far beyond that required; the student took pride in going well beyond the requirement.
• 3- The student worked hard and completed the project, but with a little more effort it might have been outstanding.
• 2- The student finished the project, but it could have been improved with more effort; there was adequate interpretation of the assignment, but the student neglected the finishing touches; the student chose an easy project and did it indifferently.
• 1- The project was mostly completed with a few loose ends left off; the student displayed minimum involvement and lackadaisical effort.
• 0- The student did not adequately finish major portions of the work.

(Here are related lessons for Grades PreK-2 and Grades 3-5.)