A Single Shard
Students in Mrs. Cerna’s 6th grade English classes have been reading the novel A Single Shard by author Linda Sue Park. Set in 12th- century Korea the story focuses on the life of an orphan, Tree-ear, who lives under a bridge with a disabled man named, Crane-man. Tree-ear has a fascination with the potters in their town and goes through great efforts to be part of this tradition.
Awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in children’s literature in 2002, Mrs. Cerna recognized the potential of the story and has developed an arts integration lesson to reinforce learning objectives for both language arts and the visual arts.
PRESENTATION
In addition to reading the novel A Single Shard, students observed a presentation that highlighted the Korean style of pottery, Celadon, as described in the book.
(A copy of the presentation is available below).
Revered for its elegant greenish-blue glaze the classes learned about the ancient and tedious process of making a single pot.
Students also observed a pottery demonstration to prepare them for a visit to the Community Creative Center in Fayetteville where each student create their own Celadon inspired vessel.
A Single Shard.website.pptxCeladon Pottery
Celadon is a type of ceramic that has been produced in the Korean peninsula since the 8th century. In the novel A Single Shard, this form of pottery is mentioned as a highly desired ware for palaces, nobles and Buddhist temples. The presentaion offers content about Korean celadon including: definition, process, types of vessels, and the iconography used by Korean craftsmen to embellish the vessels.
Presentation created by Aaron Jones, Director of Arts Integration, AAAARTS INTEGRATION PROJECT
Visit to the Community Creative Center
The 6th grade classes visited the Community Creative Center in Fayetteville to create celadon-inspired vessels as the arts integration component of the lesson. Students received instruction from teaching artists Sarah and Chrystal on how to create a Korean shaped vessel from clay using pinch and coil methods. THANK YOU CCC! https://communitycreativecenter.org/
Using the pinch method students created two pinch pots.
The two pots were joined together using the "scratch & attach" method.
Once the two halves are joined, the seam is covered smoothed.
Next, a hole for the mouth of the vessel had to be created.
The vessel is then molded into a desired shape.
Coils are added to the mouth to provide a top lip or neck to the vase.
Once the student is satisified with the shape, they will begin decoration.
Students brought sketches they created in class of traditional Korean icons.
Students painted their design on the vessel using a black underglaze.
Some students used techniques such as incising (cutting into the surface) to create additional designs.
Once dry, the pots will be fired causing the glaze to fuse to the surface.
After cooling the vessels will receive a second glaze of celadon (green-blue) and fired again.
The final creation during the visit was each student received a single shard from a clay slab in the shape of a traditional Korean vessel.
Students were allowed to embellish the pieces using any color the desired.
Once fired the pieces will be re-joined to create a brilliantly embellished vessel.
With each piece brilliantly expressing the creativness and uniqueness of its creator.
After two firings the student vessels were completed and the results were a stunning collection of celadon inspired ceramics worthy to be displayed in an emperor's palace (or at least receive an "A" for the assignment). In addition to the vessels the single shards were also fired. The uniquely decorated pieces were re-assembled for the first time as beautifully embellished slabs in the shapes of traditional Korean vessels.
