This lesson plan for intermediate students focuses on narrating stories from Russian paintings, aiming to develop their ability to speak in paragraphs and use vocabulary related to emotions and relationships. Activities include analyzing and discussing paintings in pairs, forming narratives, and incorporating emotional vocabulary. The lesson culminates in group reflections and optional homework assignments related to further exploration of Russian art.

1. Lesson plan: Narrating a Painting
Четвёртый курс
(approximate level: Intermediate Mid)
Lesson developed for STARTalk 2014
@ Middlebury College

2. Learning objectives
DO:
Students will be able to identify story elements in a painting
and link their observations into a coherent narrative. (The
goal is to move them toward "speaking in paragraphs.")
KNOW:
Vocabulary: emotions, family members and related persons
(невеста, сваха, etc.)
Culture: 19th-c. and early 20th-c. Russian realist painting;
some exposure to traditional Russian customs and religion (in
limited social contexts)

3. Formative assessment
By the end of the lesson, students will
demonstrate what they can do with what they
know by describing a painting and narrating
its story.

4. Materials needed
• Color printouts of three Russian paintings (for
pairwork): «Сватовство майора», 1848, Павел
Андреевич Федотов; «Неравный брак», 1862,
Василий Владимирович Пукирев; «Две
матери», 1905-06, Владимир Егорович
Макoвский.
• Ability to project painting(s) on a screen.
• Vocabulary sheets with questions (see:
www.columbia.edu/~rjs19/russian/emotions.pdf)

5. Opening activity
Show students side by side images of
Borovikovsky's portrait of Catherine II at
Tsarskoe Selo with her dog and Malevich's
Black Square. (See next slide.)
Ask: какую картину вы больше любите?
Почему? (2 minutes in pairs; 3 minutes all
together.)

7. Segue (5 minutes)
• Ask: What emotions would you say are
expressed in the two paintings shown?
• Brainstorm "emotions" vocabulary on the
board (2 teams, one minute).

8. Incorporating emotional vocabulary
into a narrative, 1: whole class activity
Show Repin's Ne Zhdali (see next slide). Ask
students: who is the main hero? Who are
these other people? What is their
relationship/attitude toward him? How do you
know? Where do you think he came from?
What happened next? Work on forming these
observations into a narrative about the
painting, introducing vocabulary as necessary.
(10 minutes)

9. «Не ждали», 1884-1888, Илья Ефимович Репин

10. Incorporating emotional vocabulary
into a narrative, 2: pairs activity
Divide students into pairs. Each pair is given a
handout with a famous 19th-century Russian
painting (see next three slides for examples).
On the model of the group exercise, they
collaborate (asking and answering questions) to
create an oral narrative about the painting.
(10 minutes)

14. Incorporating emotional vocabulary
into a narrative, 3: scrambled pairs
Pairs are scrambled: each student finds a partner
with a different painting. Student A narrates
his/her painting (the one s/he discussed with
his/her previous partner) to Student B, and vice
versa. Teachers circulate in the classroom,
listening to students' narration and offering
encouragement as necessary.
(10 minutes)

15. "Wind-down" activity (5 minutes)
Back in large group, ask students what title
they would give to each painting.
Reveal the paintings' real titles (see next three
slides).
Thank them for their work.

16. «Сватовство майора», 1848, Павел Андреевич Федотов

17. «Неравный брак», 1862, Василий Владимирович Пукирев

18. «Две матери», 1905-06, Владимир Егорович Макoвский

19. Homework possibilities
• Send students to the website of a famous
Russian art museum such as the Russian
Museum in St. Petersburg or the Tretyakovsky
Gallery in Moscow. Ask them to select a
painting and write a ten-sentence narrative
telling its story.
• Ask students to write and perform a dialog
between two of the characters in the
paintings they discussed.

20. Just for fun
Students may be amused (and encouraged to
think creatively and irreverently about the
scenes represented in famous paintings) by
the following slideshow, excerpted from the
“viral” blog post “Women Listening To Men In
Art History.”
(http://the-toast.net/2014/06/23/women-
listening-men-art-history/)

21. Женщины, слушающие мушчин
в истории искусства
(источник:
http://the-toast.net/2014/06/23/women-listening-men-art-history/)

22. «Сколько бы я ни пила, он не становится
более интересным»

23. «Нет, нет, я слушаю, но я только что заметила,
что эти спички чрезвычайно интересные»

24. «Разве он это сказал? Какой ужас! А потом что случилось?
Онду минуточку, моя голова сейчас очень тяжела...»

25. «Ага, понятно. А куда они поплыли после этого?»

26. «Почему вы думаете, что я не слушаю? Я разделась и
бросила корзину с фруктами потому, что это помогает
мне слушать.»

27. КОНЕЦ
The End