Make Art to Share Your Own Community’s COVID Experience

The Power of Art

Educator Sari Beth Rosenberg spoke to Tim and Charlotte Smyth about participation in the “Hindsight 20/21” and the power of art during difficult times. Hindsight 20/21 is a project hosted by PBS NewsHour EXTRA and CoBuild19.All students are invited to become contributors by making art to help express the ways the pandemic has affected individuals and their communities. Students can still send in art this summer for exhibition next fall. If interested, you can learn more here. Read the summary, watch the video and answer the discussion questions below.

Discussion Questions 

• Who are Tim and Charlotte?
• What type of art does Tim create? What about Charlotte?
• Where does Charlotte say she begins her artistic process?
• When did Charlotte write her poem?
• Why does Tim suggest teachers of many different disciplines should bring art into the classroom?

Focus Questions

1. Think about your classroom, what are some ways that you could integrate art into activities? What are some ways that you express yourself through art that cannot be done in other ways?
2. Reflect on the pandemic year: What was it like? What do you want to take forward? What has changed or will be changed forever?
3. Brainstorm ways that you might be able to represent these reflections. This can be through art, writing, photography, etc.
4. If you want, take that idea and make it a reality! Submit to our Hindsight 20-21 COVID Project.

Media Literacy: Think about how information is presented in this piece. What things draw your attention? How might different people interpret the information in this video- is there anything you would change to make it easier for you to understand?

Dig Deeper 

• Check out Charlotte’s poetry and other student work from the Hindsight 20/21 project here.
• To see how some artists have captured the pandemic, see these PBS NewsHour segments:

Republished with permission from PBS NewsHour Extra.