Surrealism Mad Libs–Seventh Grade

When introducing Surrealism, I always open with this picture and ask my students: how does this make you feel?

As the photo flashes onto the screen, the classroom is filled with loud cries of disgust and horror, usually followed by “Why would anybody make that?”

Surrealism is tough. It’s very fun to teach, but very tough to inspire kids to make their own surrealist art. Some kids delight in the weirdness, while others (most students) find it hard to see why anyone would want to make art that doesn’t make sense.

After our brief discussion about the furry teacup, we define Surrealism and learn a bit about Salvador Dali. To learn more about Dali and the reasons behind the art movement, I have my students watch this video in class and take notes:

The next day, we start with–of all things–an English review. While many students don’t need it, I still think it’s a necessary refresher for those who maybe don’t pay the most attention in class.

I had to do some real brainstorming to come up with a way to get kids engaged with this lesson. Not only that, but they had to come up with something good: you can’t just give kids a blank piece of paper and say “draw something random!” Even though you are giving them creative freedom, the idea “endless possibility” can still be daunting. Knowing this, I wrote a Surrealism Mad Libs to get them started, which you can find here. After completing the exercise, I choose a few volunteers to read their story to the class, which they always find fun. From here, I usually have the students practice sketching the scene they wrote. For some students, this sketch will be what they base their finished project on. For others, the Mad Libs will be a jumping-off point to help generate their own ideas. I’ve taught this in both seventh and eighth grade, and this seems to be the best way to go about things.

Next in our presentation (which can be found here), we go over five devices of Surrealism (3 are described above) and then go through examples of different Surrealist works.

Finally…the students finish their projects! I’ve taught this lesson with acrylics once and oil pastels twice. I might change mediums if I were to teach this again. Regardless, the students tend to have fun with this project, and at the end we do a group critique. Lesson plan, standards, and grading rubric can be found here, my presentation here, and student work found below. Thanks for reading!