KWL Chart 
: A KWL chart is a great way to get your students to help you tailor a lesson to their needs and to encourage them to retain information. Discover your students’ baseline knowledge by asking them to tell you what they know about the 1930s at the start. You can let them actively participate in developing the lesson by finding out what they want to know; this is also an opportunity for you to tell them what you want them to learn about. When you have gone through the material, help them record what they have learned for future reference.
Bolling’s Art: Take a close look at Bolling’s work and see what he can teach us about Richmond in the 1930s. What do a woman employed as a domestic servant, a fish vendor, and the First Lady of the United States have in common? Why did Bolling choose to carve these figures? What do they have to do with the Harlem Renaissance? The Great Depression? Segregation and civil rights?
You can use these images to help fill in your KWL chart or use the sculptures as the basis of a creative writing assignment to describe a day in the life of any of the subjects.
Folk vs. Fine: Use these Venn Diagrams and examples found on the suggested websites to judge for yourself whether Bolling was a folk artist or a fine artist. To see what Bolling had to say about his own work see Spirit and Action.
| Folk Art: | Fine Art: |
|---|---|
| American Folk Art Museum | Virginia Museum of Fine Art |
| Smithsonian American Art Museum | The Chrysler Museum of Art |