African+Creative+Project

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Choose a hands-on project to complete over winter break. The projects are drawn from African art, music, and history and are not ‘primitive’ but rather, celebrate the beauty of using natural resources. You have two different themes to pursue. You could design your project to be directed towards Things Fall Apart OR connect your project to the country you are studying. Look up the artwork for your region of Africa and you will find numerous examples. =====

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One of Achebe's purposes in writing this novel was to preserve the quickly deteriorating culture of the Igbo people and in his novel, he includes a number of traditional African folk tale stories. Just as Americans are raised with stories about Little Red Riding Hood or The Three Pigs, African children are just as familiar with Anasi and the quick witted turtle. Paint a page out of one of these folk tale stories and be sure to preserve all the important symbols, colors, and meaning in your design. Be sure to include the title of the story in your picture. =====

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Things Fall Apart is one of the most famous novels in the world and no 20th century literary character is more famous than Okonkwo. Yet, Achebe's story is a mix of both purity and destruction which artists have found inspiring. Find one line from the novel to use as your inspiration and in staying with the backdrop of the African Sub-Saharan area, choose your colors appropriately. =====

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Research a popular African artifact that depicts one of the four more popular themes in hand crafted art and mimic this piece in your own clay design. For your presentation, bring in a picture of the piece that you mimicked and tell the story as to why this image is an important theme to African cultures. =====

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The musical instruments created in Africa speak volumes about the culture and celebration of sound. For this activity, you can choose to make one of the following African instruments on your own. The project requires you to follow directions and to decorate your piece with an important theme from Africa. Be sure to research the value and purpose of your instrument for your presentation and look on-line for many directions for fun and easy projects! =====

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Research a popular game that has its roots from the continent of Africa and by using strictly the most simple materials, reconstruct the game using wood. Research the rules and history of the game for your presentation and expect that people will want to play right away. =====

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For this activity, you can prepare an African dance or song (sing or play) to be performed in class. There are a lot of instructional videos out there both online and on tv, so consider trying something you haven’t done before because this may turn out to be a lot of fun. =====