Pre-Visit Activities

Prepare for Your Visit

Review with your class the logistics of their visit. (Where are they going? What is the purpose of their visit? What will they be seeing? How long will the visit last? When will they have a restroom break? Will they go to the gift shop?) Research has shown that students learn more if they have this basic information before their visit. Review basic museum etiquette:

Consider having the students bring sketchbooks and pencils (pencils only, please; for conservation reasons we cannot allow pens or markers) to record their impressions and thoughts.

Define Types of Artworks

Explain that they will be seeing many kinds of art. What kinds of art are you familiar with? (Ex.: paintings, prints, photographs, sculpture.) Review the Vocabulary words, especially abstract art and installation. You might further explain that installation art is similar to a theater stage set.

Telling A Story

Invite students to write or discuss:

What are the ways in which you can tell a story? What methods can be used to describe an event? (writings: poetry, short stories, books, documents or other primary source materials; visual art: paintings, prints, photographs, sculpture; performing arts: plays, music, dance, mine)

Which method are you most familiar with?

Have students experience several methods, (poetry, a short story, and a primary source are included in this packet. Optional: for this activity the teacher may add a piece of Holocaustrelated music and a copy of a Holocaustrelated piece of art (slides of the Witness and Legacy exhibit can be borrowed from DeCordova Museum).

Which methods were most informative to you? Increased your understanding of the Holocaust? Were most powerful?

Which would you prefer to use when you are conveying information or telling a story and why?

Creating an Image

You will have the opportunity to view images of the Holocaust  created by several artists when you visit the Witness and Legacy exhibit.  If you were creating a visual reflection of the Holocaust what feelings would you want to communicate? How would you represent those feelings visually? See if you can come up with a list of ten feelings and images then share your list with a classmate. Compareyour lists for similarities and differences. What feelings or visual representations did you share? As you walk through the exhibit look for the feelings and images you listed.

Witness and Legacy

What do you think the title of this exhibit represents? Write about a time when you were a witness to an event. What does the word legacy mean and how does it apply to your life?

Look Closely

Using the Witness and Legacy slides available from the DeCordova   Museum, provide students with the opportunity to interpret the art before going to the museum. Start by asking the students to simply identify what they see on the slides, no interpretations yet. After thoroughly identifying what they see in the work, students may now add their interpretations. What do they think the artist is trying to say? What do they see that leads to that interpretation?