Introduction Kindergarten   Lesson One   Lesson Two   Lesson Three     Experience One     Experience Two Grades One and Two Grades Three and Four Online Games and Activities Culminating Experience Train Glossary National Standards		Kindergarten: 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: 11" x 17" white construction paper; colored construction paper pre-cut in varying shapes, sizes and colors; glue; Visual 19: Power To Move poster by Mitchell Markovitz. Time: Two 30-minute periods. Words: More powerful than a locomotive... Power, powerful, South Shore Line Focus Questions: Use these questions to help students focus on key ideas in Experience Two. What things do you see in this picture? What colors and shapes do you see? What does this picture tell you about trains? The Power of Trains Indiana Academic Standards: Visual Arts - Standard 1: Responding to Art-History (K.1.3); Standard 3: Responding to Art-Criticism (K.3.2); Standard 5: Responding to Art-Aesthetics (K.5.1); Standard 7: Creating Art-Production (K.7.2). Procedures: Before beginning this experience, cut construction paper into a variety of geometric shapes, including squares, rectangles, rhomboids, triangles and circles, so that there are enough for students to have a selection of shapes, sizes and colors. Present students with the South Shore Line poster, Power To Move, and ask them to tell what they see in the picture. Read the caption "Power to Move" to students and ask them what power means. Ask them: Does this train look powerful? What makes the train look powerful to us? Explain that the South Shore Line is a railroad that carries people and things. The trains on this railroad need to be powerful to do this job, just like "The Little Engine That Could." Assessment: Ask students to create their own train picture by gluing the pre-cut shapes to a piece of 11" x 17" white construction paper. Ask students to create a picture of a "powerful" train, based on their personal ideas and feelings, using the shapes provided. Have them reflect back to the South Shore Line poster. Remind students of the caption, "Power to Move." Performance Criteria: Students should be able to create a picture that expresses their ideas of the power of trains. Train of Thought Journal: Label one page of the Big Book of Trains with the word Powerful. Have students contribute to the book by drawing pictures of things that they think of as being powerful. 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.