Students were introduced to two paintings in the Crystal Bridges collection, Charles Wilson Peale's George Washington and Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter.  Using the Elements of Art and Principles of design the classes were able to identify  objects within each painting and interpret a story based on the artist's use and compositional arrangement as well as the student's understanding of Literary Elements learned in Language Arts.  With the addition of historical context was added from their Social Studies class, the students had an accurate understanding and intention of the painting as a visual narrative (History painting). 

Using the example of John Trumble's history painting Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, students were able to recognize that the painting depicted a battle scene from the Revolutionary War.  Next, a variation of Trumble's painting created by Royce Eddington was then introduced.  How is Eddington's version different?  What elements were added  and/ or changed?  Does this change  a viewer's interpretation of the story or history being depicted?  The slight modification of muskets substituted by light sabers changes the history painting from fact to fantasy. An exercise of using the Literary Elements, students composed a ficticous story using historic figures.