Title of lesson: Welcome to the Renaissance Activity

Your Name: Meghan Asbury

Length of lesson: 90 minutes

Context of Lesson: Students have previously spent an entire unit on the Middle or
“Dark” Ages. This activity is designed to transition students out of the Dark Ages and
into the Renaissance.
Overview: Students will be asked a couple of thought-provoking questions concerning art
and how we perceive it in modern times. They will then look at examples of Medieval art
and do a See-Think-Wonder and then do the same for Renaissance art. After a short lecture
on the elements of Renaissance art, students will view a variety of images and categorize
them by those elements. Students will then do a short reading and organize what they read
onto a map.

Central problem/question: What were the Renaissance?

C3 Benchmarks:
 D2.His.2.9-12 – Analyze change and continuity in historical eras
 D2.His.4.9-12. – Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the
perspectives of people during different historical eras

Objectives:
Students will be able to:
 Distinguish the similarities and differences between Medieval and Renaissance art.
 Recognize elements of Renaissance within a variety of pieces of art.
 Organize information onto a map.

Anticipated student conceptions or challenges to understanding: The anticipated student

conceptions for this lesson are students will see the differences between Medieval and
Renaissance art. They will also begin to see how different things were being valued during
the Renaissance as opposed to the Middle Ages.

Materials/Evidence/Sources:
 Google Slides Presentation
 Activity Sheet
 Map
Instructional Sequence:
1) Class will begin by asking students to put their cellphones in the container.
2) Handout the activity sheet for the day and then ask the question: What were
some reasons that Western Europe in Medieval Times was known as the “Dark
Ages”? Students should respond with some of the following: the black plague,
war, death, etc (~3 minutes)
 3) Go to the next slide and take a couple of minutes to discuss the questions on the
slide about their current perspectives (~3 minutes)
4) Have students get their chromebooks from the cart and when they log in it will
take them directly to Backchannel Chat. As they are getting chromebooks, hand
out the examples of medieval art.
5) Instruct students to get logged into Backchannel chat and that if they’d like to
remain anonymous to put their student number where it asks for a name. Then
tell them to type into the chat what the see in the first image. (5 minutes)
6) Once it appears that every student has contributed, go through some of the
statements and ask individual students to explain their thoughts. (2 minutes)
7) Repeat this exercise for the think and the wonder portions and then handout the
renaissance examples and do the same thing (25 minutes)
8) After the initial activity, go through the slides that discuss the different elements
of Renaissance Art (3 minutes)
9) Have students go to Haiku and view the art on the World History page and
categorize the different pieces into the four elements (10 minutes).
10) Debrief the student responses (2 minutes)
11) Go through the slides on the Medici Family and watch the video (12 minutes)
12) Hand out the reading on the Spread of the Renaissance and the map and have
students organize the different events onto the map (15 minutes)
13) Debrief the maps with the students (5 minutes)
14) Close out the lesson by reiterating the four characteristics within Renaissance Art
and how while we study the Renaissance, it is important to keep in mind that the
Renaissance were largely a return to science and logic and research (5 minutes)

Assessment: There is no formal assessment for this lesson. However, there are plenty of
informal formative assessments strewn throughout the lesson.