MEMORIES OF AN ERA, REFLECTIONS OF OUR TIME ACTIVITIES Some of the following essay or discussion topics can be done both before and after the class’ visit to gauge any change in opinion or development of ideas. PRE-VISIT 1. Have students write or discuss how people deal with geographical distance. After the visit, consider revisiting the topic for an essay or class discussion. Did the artwork and seeing how Jeanine’s family dealt with it change their minds or add to them in any ways? 2. Establish different types of distances (geographical, cultural, generational, for example). How are some of them linked, if at all? How do people deal with or try to overcome them? DURING and POST-VISIT 3. Locate the painting “My Third Grade Class.” Both panels depict formal group shots that she and her father partook in while they were apart. What do the groups have in common? In “My Third Grade Class” and “Snapshots and Memories,” the portions of the paintings that depict her dad are much closer in size to the panels in which Jeanine and her family appear than in other paintings. Why might Jeanine have done this? Might she have felt closer to her father regarding these images? Things to consider: shared experiences while separated, major holidays. 4. During civil wars, there can be divisions among families. Villages and towns can likewise be caught between opposing sides. In the painting, “Caught in the Middle,” what, besides the two opposing sides, are the boys caught between? Think about what Jeanine explains in the label as well as what appears in the painting itself. 5. Jeanine explains that she was too young to understand where her dad was going and why in “Going Away.” Explore the links between age and time in this painting or others you see. Think about how distance and/or the passage of time affected Jeanine’s understanding of where her dad was going, what war is, and who her father is. Do you think that seeing pictures of her dad in settings so different and far away helped her get to know her father better, particularly while he was away? Why or why not? 6. In “Snapshots and Memories,” Jeanine constructs a complete family portrait that crosses distances. How has she done this? Why might she have chosen the picture of her and her sisters that her dad carried with him while away for this painting? Jeanine and her family moved often. When someone moves a lot, what does home mean? Does home mean the same thing when you’re younger vs. when you’re older? 7. “At the Beach, Vietnam and Hawaii”: In black and white, the beach in Vietnam looks different from the beach in Hawaii, painted in color—one could almost think that the beach in Vietnam is actually snow, for example. Do the beaches seem to be worlds apart in more ways than one to you? Why or why not? Word association: what words come to your mind for the different beaches and the scenes they show? How do the two sets of words you have come up with differ or what do they share? 8. Jeanine depicts and talks about both her immediate family and her extended families. What does family mean? What, besides genetics, makes a family? (Also consider that soldiers often call their fellow soldiers, “brothers,” or “brothers-in-arms.”) 9. Have students draw or paint from a picture of their family and/or friends. One way to make this easier is to have them bring in a copy of the picture. Students can utilize photographs or original drawings for their triptych. The photograph can be enlarged by overlaying a grid on the photograph. The grid size can be enlarged proportionately to a larger sized paper or canvas. The shapes within each square of the small grid will then be copied in the squares of the larger grid. This is the process used by Jeanine to produce the large format paintings. This method can also be used drawing on graphs for math—you can have the students place vertices at certain significant points on the photos and graph them, for example. 10. Discuss time differences in different regions of the world. When it is 3:00 p.m. in Chicago what time is it in Hawaii? Vietnam? How does this relate to the space time and space time continuum presented earlier?		TEACHER PACKET CONTENTS Artist's Statement Lesson Plans Activities Additional Information Works Cited