Introduction Kindergarten Grades One and Two   Lesson One   Lesson Two   Lesson Three     Experience One     Experience Two Grades Three and Four Online Games and Activities Culminating Experience Train Glossary National Standards		Grades One and Two: Lesson Three - Experience Two Train Art >> Resources How do the visual arts convey ideas about trains and their changing connections to our communities? In this experience, students examine train poster art and advertisements from the South Shore Line. This railroad has stood the test of time and is making plans to continue serving northwest Indiana in the future. Objectives: Experience Two will enable students to: Give examples of the roles that trains play in their communities. Identify ways that ideas are expressed through art. Express ideas about trains and their communities in their art. Explain the purpose of an advertisement. You Will Need... Materials: Magazines; 11" x 17" colored construction paper; scissors; glue; Visual 19: Power to Move and Visual 20: Nation's Lifeline posters by Mitchell Markovitz. Time: Two 30-minute periods. Words: More powerful than a locomotive... Advertisement, collage, community, artist, region Focus Questions: Use these questions to help students focus on key ideas in Experience Two. What do you see taking place in these advertisements? How are trains represented in these posters? How do artists express ideas in their art? Picture a Train Indiana Academic Standards: Grade One: Visual Arts - Standard 3: Responding to Art-Criticism (1.3.2); Standard 5: Responding to Art-Aesthetics (1.5.1); Standard 7: Creating Art-Production (1.7.3); Standard 9: Creating Art-Production (1.9.3). Grade Two: Visual Arts - Standard 3: Responding to Art-Criticism (2.3.2); Standard 5: Responding to Art-Aesthetics (2.5.1); Standard 7: Creating Art-Production (2.7.3); Standard 9: Creating Art-Production (2.9.2). Social Studies - Standard 3: Geography (2.3.4). Procedures: Present students with the two South Shore Line posters Power to Move and Nation's Lifeline, and explain that these are advertisement posters. Ask students to give their ideas about the purpose of advertisements. Ask students to explain what they see taking place and the meaning they feel each poster is trying to convey. Help students understand that the images and captions in advertisement posters can provide information about a product or a service that can be provided. They can also provide information about a community and the artist that created the advertisement. Briefly discuss the history of these advertisement posters and the South Shore Line, including the artist's background, the community surrounding the railroad and how this relates to the message of the advertisements. Introduce collage as a mixed media process and demonstrate with examples. Assessment: Ask students to use the technique of collage to design a poster that advertises a train in their community or nearby communities. They can use the South Shore Line posters as a reference. What types of symbols and images would they include in their posters to inform others about their communities and themselves? They may cut out the different objects for their poster from magazines or colored construction paper and glue all the objects onto an 11" x 17" sheet of colored construction paper. Discuss the advertisements students have created, pointing out the connection between the images they have used and the messages they are trying to convey. Some students may wish to add their own captions to their ads, with the teacher's help, after the discussion. Performance Criteria: Students should be able to create a poster that expresses their knowledge of the connection between trains and the local community, while controlling the media of collage. Tips for the Teacher: In Experience Two students learn some of the ways ideas are conveyed through art and consider the connections between artists, art works and their communities. This experience is designed for classroom teachers. It also provides an opportunity for multidisciplinary work with the art teacher. The experience can be expanded to explore trains and transportation as thematic subjects in the visual arts. In addition to the South Shore Line posters presented here, European poster art of the 1920s and 1930s provide striking images. The book All Aboard: Images From the Golden Age of Rail Travel presents commercial art in the form of posters, advertisements and memorabilia along with social history and commentary on design eras. The South Shore Line: The South Shore Line has been the premiere passenger service for Northwest Indiana and Chicago for many decades, and has been a wonderful resource for that area of Indiana, encouraging industrial growth and residential development. The South Shore Line began in 1903 as a streetcar service that ran three and a half miles between East Chicago, Ind., and the Indiana harbor of Lake Michigan. Over the next few years the Line grew, stretching 70 miles from Hammond to South Bend. By the beginning of the 1920s, the Line had grown too big too fast, and fell on hard times. In 1925, Samuel Insull bought the railroad and officially renamed it the Chicago South Shore and South Bend Line. Insull set to work building the South Shore Line into a successful business. He launched a marketing effort that featured the places passengers could visit using the South Shore Line network. The campaign was based on posters showing unique Northwest Indiana scenery of beaches, shoreline, forest, dunes and industry. Insull's efforts paid off in the 1920s, but the railroad suffered during the Depression. Since then, the South Shore Line has gone through ownership changes and many ups and downs, from an insurgence of passengers from industries along the lake shore during World War II to lack of passenger interest in the 1960s and 1970s. Today, the South Shore Line travels between South Bend, Ind., and downtown Chicago at Randolph Street, making many stops throughout the two-and-a-half-hour-long journey. It carries more than 13,000 passengers daily, and is developing plans to increase service to accommodate more passengers who wish to settle in northwest Indiana. To emphasize its connection to the communities it serves, the flourishing railroad has reintroduced poster advertisements. The poster series features landmarks and scenery of modern day northwest Indiana and Chicago, while keeping with the style of the previous posters created in the 1920s. Mitchell Markovitz: Mitchell Markovitz is one of the professional artists participating in the new series of South Shore Line posters. Markovitz, a native of Chicago, is now a resident of Knox in northwest Indiana. He studied art at the American Academy of Art, the Chicago Academy of Fine Art and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is an accomplished artist and illustrator whose works are widely exhibited. He also has a dual career as a railroad man. Since he was a child, Markovitz has had a passion for trains. He often accompanied his father on assignments as a commercial illustrator from the Illinois Central Railroad. After art school, Markovitz took a summer job as a brakeman on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. He went on to become a fireman and an engineer, the youngest in the country at the time. Later, he worked for the South Shore Line as advertising director and chief illustrator, but sometimes found that his services were also needed as an engineer! Today Markovitz is a full-time artist who continues to express his love of trains. He has created several posters for the South Shore Line's new series, including those used in this lesson. He is featured in the anthology Moonlight in Duneland along with poster artists of the 1920s. In connection with this project, Markovitz has worked with the Northwest Indiana Forum as founding artist and art director for the "Just Around the Corner" series of posters focusing on life in northwest Indiana. Markovitz often works with schools in his area of the state and encourages young artists to pursue the careers that are closest to their hearts.