Expressive Selfie Emojis

A 7th Grade Art Lesson 

Central Focus (Big Idea): Identity

Students will create a self-portrait and an emoji that each convey the same emotion. Students will explore art and design as forms of visual communication. The lesson will include exploration of how art and artists communicate emotions in different ways and the history of visual communication. Students will interpret and create works of art that represent their identity and connect with their larger visual culture through design.

Concepts of the Lesson:

The concept in this lesson deals with discovery of identity through exploration of emotions and visual communication, and how self portraiture and emoji design can be used to explore self through symbolic representation. Students will reflect on their personal experiences to connect with their emotions and environment to come up with an expressive portrait that uses color and shape symbolically, and is reflected through a simplified emoji design.

Essential Questions:

• What is identity?

• What would these portraits look like if each one were recreated as an emoji?

• What details are needed to accurately capture the emotion portrayed?

• How can we create images that are symbolic?

• How can we use symbolism to represent our emotions?

• How does artwork tell a story and communicate to others?