Curriculum Connections

Language Arts/English
Elementary School – Architecture
How are houses and quilts similar? Brainstorm some ideas together as a class. (For example, both houses and quilts protect people from the cold, contain memories, and include geometric shapes.) How else are they similar?

Social Studies
Middle and High School – Slavery’s Legacy in Gee’s Bend
Loretta Pettway and Loretta P. Bennett are both descendants of Dinah Miller, who was brought to Alabama from Africa as a slave. Have students investigate slavery in Gee’s Bend by listening to interviews from 1941 with former enslaved people on the Library of Congress website: memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/voices/index.html; type “Gee’s Bend” in the search box. Discuss the interviews as primary source documents. What can we learn from them? What issues might have affected what the interviewees did or did not say?

Math/Art
Elementary School – Symmetry
The Bricklayer pattern has reflective symmetry (also called bilateral or mirror symmetry), which means that the size, shape, and arrangement of parts of the left and right sides, or the top and bottom of a composition or object are the same in relation to an imaginary center dividing line. Discuss reflective symmetry and find other objects that have reflective symmetry (such as a butterfly).

Middle and High School – Architecture
Many quiltmakers get pattern ideas from the buildings that they see in their everyday lives. The names of some of the quilt patterns also refer to buildings, such as Log Cabin, Bricklayer, and Housetop. What are the different ways that we can represent buildings in a 2-D format? Have each student draw the plan of the school building (the floor plan or footprint), the elevation of the building (what it looks like from the front), and a section of the building (imagine you made a vertical slice into one side and expose the inside). How do the drawings differ? What information do you get from each?

Have students choose a building in the community (their house, the school, or another neighborhood building) and create a geometric design based on its plan, elevation, or section. Alternatively, make a visual map of the neighborhood or town. For more information on introducing architecture to students, see the Architecture in Education website: aiaphila.org/aie.