Advice from Students in Ms. Ott's Third Grade Class at Erickson Elementary

ADVENTURING THROUGH

the Art Museum

Advice from Students in Ms. Ott’s Third Grade Class at Erickson Elementary

A D VENTURI N G THRO U HG the art museum

Ms. Ott’s Class

Advice from Students in Ms. Ott’s Third Grade Class at Erickson Elementary

826

National’s Commitment to Inclusion

As an organization committed to encouraging youth in their creative expression, personal growth, and academic success, 826 National and its chapters recognize the importance of diversity at all levels and in all aspects of our work. In order to build and maintain the safe, supportive 826 environment in which great leaps of learning occur, we commit to inclusion: We will not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, nationality, marital status, English fluency, parental status, immigration status, military service, or disability.

826michigan Staff

Megan Shuchman Executive Director

Catherine Calabro Cavin Education Director

Megan Gilson Program Manager

Denise Ervin Program Manager

Caitlin Koska Volunteer Manager

Kinyel Friday Operations Manager

Ola Faleti Institutional Giving Strategist

Kayla Chenault Interim Program & Volunteer Coordinator

Paige Bennett Teaching Artist

Eli Sparkman Teaching Artist

The U-M Museum of Art puts art and ideas at the center of campus and public life. We create experiences that enrich our understanding of one another, foster joy, and build a more just future. Through exhibitions, programs, research, and community partnerships we are redefining what a campus museum can be.

Copyright © 2023 by 826michigan and Blotch Books.

All rights reserved by 826michigan, the many whims of Dr. Thaddeus Blotch, the illustrators, and the authors.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to any people or events, real or imaginary, is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced without express written permission from the publisher, except for small excerpts for the purposes of review or scholarly study.

Many thanks to the University of Michigan Museum of Art and our volunteers for their participation in this field trip.

By purchasing this book, you are helping 826michigan continue to offer free student programs. For more information, please visit: 826michigan.org

What would happen if you could jump inside a work of art?

This isn’t an ordinary trip to the museum! During this field trip program, students imagined that they were shrinking down to the size of a paper clip and then jumping inside of different art pieces at the University of Michigan Museum of Art. They worked with volunteers and museum educators to write creative survival guides, giving advice for how readers might survive inside of these different art worlds. Students’ writing was then published in a book–the one you are now holding. Students toured the museum and saw the art that they wrote about in real life, reading their newly-written survival guides in front of the art.

This field trip is offered each year to every third grade class in the Ypsilanti Community Schools district. The program is a partnership between 826michigan, a local youth writing organization, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art to highlight the connections between art and writing.

We hope you enjoy reading these guides to survival in some very unusual settings!

How to Survive Alice

Florencia Pita

Alice, 2007

Polymer foam, PETG, urethane

Gift of the artist

Ms. Ott’s Class

First, you should put on some grippy shoes so you don’t fall. It looks slippery! You should have a partner with you!

Then, you should talk through your next steps with your partner. Send your partner to look for food. There are a bunch of red foods like apples, strawberries, and pomegranates. Use your helper robot to see if they are poisonous. You smell Sour Patch Kids and strawberryflavored donuts in this world. You should take a bite to see if it tastes like that. Hold a cup under one of the flowers to collect water for drinking. Have your helper robot test the water to make sure there are no viruses in it.

Next, you should use an axe to cut wood from behind the art for a fire. Use a knife to carve out a shelter in one of the biggest shapes. It should be six inches with walls. You should set up a blanket and pillows for a bed with the blanket down first and another blanket on top.

Last, you should exercise by running on the shapes and use a rope to hold on to the shapes to walk across. To get out of the art, you can slide off along the left side of the art and down to the floor.

How to Survive Future Cache

Andrea Carlson

Future Cache, 2022

Gouache on paper

Courtesy of the artist

Group 1

First, you need to go to the trees and get wood to build shelter. You will need an ax and a knife to cut and carve the wood. While you get wood for shelter you would also get wood to use for fires to cook fish. You can only drink water on the island if you use your hands or a wooden cup. Then, to defend yourself from the land and water animals you will make a wooden sword. On the beach there are killer whales, tiger sharks, eagles, crabs, jellyfish, seagulls, poison ivy, poison dart frogs, fish, hermit crabs, and venomous snakes. Your shelter will be able to defend you from the land animals, but you need to keep extra fish to give to the sharks to keep them from eating you.

Next, it is about 75 degrees by the beach but the mountain is icy. The beach can get windy and have 2 feet waves! Because of this, you will need to be in shelter whenever the winds are really bad.

Last, you can enjoy the beach, the water, and the mountains once you learn the lands, but be careful of lightning strikes that could burn the trees down!

Group 2

First, get some fish from the water. You can use electricity to do this! You then find wood from the trees and make a fire for light. You also can use the wood from the trees to make a weapon like a spear to protect yourself. You can also look for food in the forest, like berries and fruits.

Then, you should use the wood you found to make a boat and tie up the clothes to make a bed. You can also use sand and leaves to make the bed. You can also use these materials to make a pillow. If you want to, you can make hammocks instead of your beds. You can also use the wood to make a fence for protection. Use the surrounding black and white patterns to help you build your shelter like a tent. Build houses there!

Next, use your electricity again to get rid of the sharks and the crocodiles that might be in the water.

Last, you can enjoy the new shelter and home you made for yourself. You can play hopscotch, tag, and draw in the sand. You can play and swim in the water. You can make hospitals so the people can be healthy.

How to Survive Lion Dance and Monkey Dance

Unrecorded, Japanese

Top: Lion Dance Under Red Plum Blossoms, 1730-1740

Bottom: Monkey Dance Under White Plum Blossoms, 1730-1740

One of a pair of 6-fold screens ink, color, and gold pigment on paper

Museum purchase made possible by the Margaret Watson Parker Art Collection Fund

Group 1

First, look for food and find somewhere to hide. You need to find water and pomegranates for your health. You have to not get hurt when they come to find you. If they come to find you, you could play dead to trick them. You can hide behind the tree and use bark to blend in. Keep some leaves on it. You will need something sticky to make the leaves stick. If you get cold, have the guy with a blue dress coat help you find a coat to keep you warm.

Then, drink from the river and eat a meal. You could cook. You will need to find some oil. Take the wood off the tree to create the fire and keep you warm. To cook, throw the food in the fire. After you throw it in the fire, pour some water on it. Use the knife that is made from metal in the tree to cut a piece of the food for everyone to have a piece. When you run out of food, hunt for some more in the forest.

Next, you walk to the river and wash yourself. You need to get soap. The flowers and waters will create the soap and make them smell nice. You then can build a small house in the woods. You can build it with bricks or wood. You will get the bricks from really old houses and wash them off in the river. The wood will come from the trees!

Last, you can do your hair and use your fingers to brush your hair. You use the river water to wash and you use the soap that you made earlier from flowers and water. You make electronics from the lightning. Use wood and metal to create a phone.

Group 2

First, you need to go inside the house. There are lots of demons in this world. Bring your food and water and snacks, like candy and popcorn, inside the house and lock yourself in the closet and keep a shoelace to open it.

Then, in case you need to fight the demons, bring a sword. The sword stays on the side of your backpack with your other supplies. Your sword can be any color, such as pink. The sword is medium to long size, and when you pull it out, it gets even longer.

Next, the boy will get help. He just broke out of jail, and his name is Jeffrey. He has black hair and a blue shirt. He looks like a bodyguard, but he’s actually a nice person. He goes to get the police as backup to fight the demons.

Last, use your sword and your fire and ice powers to defeat the demon. Use your hands and sword to make the powers happen. By the time Jeffrey and the police show up, you have already defeated the demon. The police will let you and Jeffrey stay out of jail for being a hero.

How to Survive Nevelson Dark

Presence III

Dark Presence III, 1971

Painted wood

Gift of Bobby Kotick

Louise Nevelson

Group 1

It’s very dark and there aren’t many lights. The house might be made of old robots! There’s a monster living in the house, who destroyed the robot and made it into a house. You’re scared!

First, you need to get water, but the faucet isn’t working! Then you should go to the fridge and find a salad, or apples or oranges. If you’re going to survive you might need some water bottles. You need supplies, like a backpack. Outside, it’s not too hot, not too cold, and a little rainy.

Then, you need to find a way out. You need to go into the basement, grab a gas tank for a car, and escape the monster so you can leave. The monster is tall, big, and it has big teeth. You have to be careful and quiet.

Later, you need to solve math problems and reading problems to get the key so you can leave. If you fail even one math problem or one reading problem, you can’t get the key until the next day. There’s a bookshelf, where you need to say the math problem for it to open.

Next, you find the two-door car, put the gas in the car and drive away in time!

Last, you should go to a grocery store and get some food.

How to Survive Ngoromera

Masimba Hwati

Ngoromera, 2020

Brass, iron, copper, carbon steel, and plastic

Museum purchase made possible by the University of Michigan Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Director’s Acquisition Committee, 2020

Group 1

First, you enter through the tunnel and go all the way around until you find the entrance. And then you go looking for giant lollipops, chicken spaghetti, and green beans because you need food to survive.

Then, you go to the red jewel at the end of the world that makes you fly, and you go find your base in the mouth of the trumpet to go to bed, and slide all the way down to the tunnel to the lollipop forest so you can gather more food! You should go to the bathroom in the little hole because you have been holding it all day so you should run into the door. You might fall on your face and your knees. You decide to call it the tootoo.

Next, you need to find some supplies in the black tube. In a backpack, you find some toilet paper, crayons, colored pencils, paper, and clay so you can make art like you see in a museum. You might almost fall off, but an eagle person will swoop you into the trumpet hole and you’ll be safe.

Last, you slide all the way to the end of the tube. You might almost fall off again. Use your flying power to go all the way to the magic tube and poof yourself back into the big world. You should bring your infinite bowl of popcorn and you will still have your powers. And you’ll be flying all over town and can eat your infinite lollipops.

Group 2

First, you turn on your flashlight to see inside the tubes. You have to get the hanging cups on the side, so put on your sticky climbing gloves so you can climb over to it. These cups can be used to get some fresh water. The water comes up the clear tubes and is stored in the black pots. There’s fish in the water too.

Then, you find steampunk cats and cheetahs and lions in the tubes. The cats are scary and chase you to the narrow sharp spiky end of the sculpture. You give the cats the fish you found and they start purring and become nice. To escape, you have to find a way off of the spikes.

Next, you find a bodysuit and spiky gloves. You can put these on and they can help you climb up the structure. You want to escape, and there’s a thin wire attached at the top. Using the shiny copper coil and your bodysuit, you can shimmy up the wire.

Last, you go through the vents in the ceiling and escape to the outdoors!

WRITE YOUR OWN SURVIVAL GUIDE!

Author Name:

How to Survive:

First, Then,

About the Author

WRITING IS

A way to figure things out by ourselves

A way to help us connect to our world

We create a safe place to be ourselves and try new things

We support the ways that writers work (like thinking, sketching, talking)

We study the writing we want to do so we can try it

We learn how to change our writing for genre, audience, and purpose

We work with a group of writers who help and support each other

www.826michigan.org

A way to help us learn who we are and who we will become

A way for us to use our power to make changes and build a better world

826 National was inspired to take a stand on issues of inclusion and diversity in light of the many events that spotlighted social and racial injustices throughout the country. We as educators, volunteers, and caring adults need to be aware of the wide range of issues our students face on a day-to-day basis. We need to support these young people as they navigate through and try to make sense of the world and their own identities.

We need the support and the feedback from our community to ensure 826 is living up to these standards. Through our inclusion statement, our internal diversity and inclusion group, cultural competency resources provided to staff and volunteers, and partnerships with other organizations, we are always working towards being a more inclusive and supportive organization.

We at 826 have the privilege of working with the next generation of scholars, teachers, doctors, artists, lawyers, and writers. It's our job to make sure they are able to take their own stands.

As an organization committed to encouraging youth in their creative expression, personal growth, and academic success, 826 National and its chapters recognize the importance of diversity at all levels and in all aspects of our work. In order to build and maintain the safe, supportive 826 environment in which great leaps in learning happen, we commit ourselves to inclusion: we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, nationality, marital status, English fluency, parental status, military service, or disability.

The 826 National network is committed to encouraging youth to express themselves and to use the written word to effectively do so. We encourage our students to write, take chances, make decisions, and finish what they start. And 826 strives to do this in an environment free from discrimination and exclusion.

by Gerald Richards, CEO