Lesson Plan: His Art Does the Talking

Essential Questions

• What actions can we take to make difficult times easier?
• How does art help people connect with each other?

Literature Connection

• Novel: Silence by Deborah Lytton
• Novel: Paperboy by Vince Vawter

Make a Connection (5 minutes)

Ask students how they deal with feelings of anger, frustration, or disappointment. Do they meditate? Exercise? Talk with a friend? After students share their strategies, tell them they’re going to read about a teen who expresses his feelings through painting. Then show our video “Beyond the Story: See Tyler Paint!” 

Preview Text Features (15 minutes)

Guide students to locate the article. Then preview the text features by asking the following questions:

• Read the article’s title and subtitle. What does the title “His Art Does the Talking” mean? Explain it in your own words. Answers will vary. Sample answer: The title means that Tyler uses his art to communicate. The subtitle states that he has a stutter that can make it difficult for him to talk, so instead of relying only on his voice, he uses art to express himself.
• Look at the photos of Tyler that are included in the article and read their captions. What do they tell you about him? From the photos and captions, we can tell that Tyler enjoys painting portraits, that he’s been on TODAY, and that he has painted many paintings. 
  

Preview Vocabulary (10 minutes)

• Point out the vocabulary box. Read the terms (portrait, speech disorder, dreaded, express, gallery) aloud and discuss the definitions.
• Play the Vocabulary Slideshow. 

Make a Plan for Reading

Before students start to read, walk them through a reading plan:

• Set a purpose for reading: Tell students that after reading, they’ll identify cause-and-effect relationships in the story. Point out the activity at the end of the story. 
• Encourage students to pause at the end of each section so they can monitor their comprehension. Prompt them to take note of sentences they think tell them important ideas in each section, as well as any words or sentences they don’t understand.

Guide students to read the article. Once they understand it well, discuss the following close-reading and critical-thinking questions..

Close-Reading Questions (15 minutes)

• What are some challenges Tyler has faced? (key details) Tyler was born deaf and had surgery at age 6. When he began to talk, he talked with a stutter. He was bullied in elementary and middle school for his stutter. At 13, he broke both of his legs and was in a wheelchair for a year and a half.
• How does painting help Tyler deal with difficult feelings? (problem and solution) Tyler says that painting lets him express feelings that he can’t always express with his voice. It helped him especially when he was being bullied in school. 
• When he describes the experience of seeing his paintings in a New York City gallery, Tyler says, “I felt like a real artist.” What do you think “a real artist” means in this sentence? (interpreting text) Obviously, Tyler was a talented artist before the show in New York. But many people are talented. When he says “a real artist,” Tyler is referring to a greater level of success. You can infer that an artist whose work is displayed in a fancy gallery is more likely to become well-known and have a long career. Tyler is saying that the show in New York felt like an important moment in his life as an artist. 

Critical-Thinking Questions (10 minutes)

• Why do you think the article begins by describing the phone call Tyler had with Vice President Kamala Harris? (author’s craft) Sample answer: The article begins with this call to draw the reader into the story. It’s not common to have the vice president of the United States call you to praise your art, so the reader immediately becomes curious about Tyler and his art.
• What lesson can we learn from Tyler’s story? (central idea) Tyler dealt with the frustration of being bullied by turning to art. He developed his skills, posted his art publicly, and eventually got the attention of the celebrities he painted. Not everyone who is bullied will take the same path, but Tyler’s story shows us that it’s possible to turn a negative experience (being bullied) into something positive (painting, inspiring others). The lesson learned might be something like, “Even when life is really difficult, there are things you can do to make it better.”

• Assign students to work in small groups to complete the Spotlight Skill Workout: Cause and Effect activity.
• Go further: Use our Sequence of Events Skill Builder, available in higher and lower level versions.  (Click here to view all your Skill Builders.)
• Writing prompt: Imagine that you work for the gallery in which Tyler’s paintings were displayed. Write the “About the Artist” text that visitors see when they visit the gallery. In two or three paragraphs, write about who Tyler is, what his art shows, and why his work is important.