Biography:

Eric Carle was born in Syracuse, New York on June 25, 1929. When he was six years old he moved back to Stuttgart, Germany with his parents. He attended the famous art school Akademie der bildenden Künste, and returned to New York in 1952 to begin a career in graphic design. He soon found a job working at the New York Times, originally in their graphic design department and later as the art director for their advertising agency. While working at the New York Times, Carle created an advertisement with a red lobster in his now famous collage style using hand painted paper, which was a launching pad for his career as a children’s illustrator. Bill Martin Jr. saw Carle’s advertisement and asked him to illustrate Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and the two have gone on to create two sequels to the text, Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? After creating Brown Bear with Bill Martin, Carle was inspired to start writing children’s books of his own, his first independent text as both the author and illustrator was 1,2,3 to the Zoo followed by The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Eric Carle has gone on to write more than twenty of his own children’s books, and has also illustrated over fifty books including his own work and the work of different authors. Carle believes that his books can be used as a tool to teach children about the world around them, and he gears them towards children in preschool and kindergarten because he wants to create a bridge across the gap between home and school for students going through that life transition, which he considers to be the second biggest trauma of childhood after birth. After The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Carle created a “Very” quartet, including The Very Busy Spider, The Very Quiet Cricket, and The Very Lonely Firefly. Carle created this quartet to teach children about hope, work, love, and belonging and each one of these books addresses one of these topics. Carle has two adult children and currently spends his time living in North Carolina and spends his winters in the Florida Keys. With the help of his wife he has created a museum of Picture Book Art, where his illustrations and the work of other illustrators is on display in its original form. This year Eric Carle celebrated his 80th birthday, and the 40th Anniversary of the first printing of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Unit Overview:

This unit is intended for 3rd grade students, but could be adapted for both younger and older grade levels. The purpose of this unit is for students to learn about the life of author and illustrator Eric Carle, and to practice the art techniques used by Carle to create his illustrations. I want my students to understand that every illustrator has a unique style, and that sometimes we can identify the illustrator of a book or piece without even needing to read the cover, because of their unique style. In the first lesson we will work as a class to read through information on Eric Carle and extract important or interesting facts to add to our class list of information about the author/illustrator. In the second lesson we will study Carle’s technique for creating his own paper, and in the third lesson we will create our own collage animals and book pages to imitate the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Prior Knowledge for Unit:
I do not expect my students to have any background knowledge about the biography of Eric Carle, but I do think that they should be familiar with at least some of his books, particularly The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? from their early childhood. I will read a few of Eric Carle’s books to the class, so if the students are not familiar with his illustration style it will not be a problem for the lesson. I also expect my students to have some familiarity with using tempera paints, and cutting paper to create shapes.

Books used illustrated by Eric Carle:
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Bill Martin Jr.
Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.
Animals, Animals by Laura Whipple

Books used written and illustrated by Eric Carle:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Very Lonely Firefly
You Can Make a Collage: A Very Simple How To Book
Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art Edited by the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.
1,2,3 to the Zoo
The Life of Eric Carle

Lesson One: Introducing the Author/Illustrator
Objectives
Students will know…
• That Eric Carle is famous author and illustrator, who has created many popular children’s picture books
• A few facts about the life of Eric Carle
Students will understand…
• That Illustrators and Artists have a unique style, which tends to be consistent among different pieces of work
Students will do…
• Read a short biography of Eric Carle with a partner
• Listen as the teacher reads aloud excerpts from the book The Life of Eric Carle
• Create a class list of “Interesting Facts about Eric Carle”

Materials:
The Life of Eric Carle by Eric Carle
http://www.eric-carle.com/bio.html
http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/carle/transcript
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3234
http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Eric-Carle/1056269/biography

Read Aloud-Whole Class (15 mins)
• The class will come together on the rug and I will read them The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? and the Very Lonely Firefly. We will have a short discussion about what these three books have in common and I will ask students to talk about what is unique about these illustrations compared to other picture books in the classroom. After this I will read them short excerpts of important information from the book The Life of Eric Carle, and show them important photographs and illustrations within the text. I will make sure to read the section that explains how Eric Carle ended up going from a New York Times graphic designer to an illustrator and eventually an author of children’s picture books, and also the paragraph that explains his view that children’s literature is a tool to help prepare children from the traumatic transition between home and school.

Reading in Groups (15 mins)
• Students will be broken up into four groups, and each group will be given a short internet biography or interview with Eric Carle to read together.
• As the students read they will be asked to write down 3 or 4 things that they didn’t already know, or found particularly interesting, about Eric Carle.

Class Share (15 mins)
• After reading in groups we will come back together as a class, and share our interesting facts. As each student shares their fact I will add it to a large sheet of butcher paper that we will keep up on our “In the Spotlight” bulletin board, so that the students can refer back to this information during the course of our unit on Eric Carle.

Assessment: Students will turn in their interesting facts and I will also assess them on their level of class participation during our discussion of Eric Carle.

Lesson Two: Imitating Eric Carle’s Illustration Style
Objectives:
Students will know…
• How Eric Carle creates his famous Illustrations
• How to make their own paper
Students will understand…
• That it is common for admirers to try and imitate an art style that they might appreciate
• That Eric Carle creates his illustrations using handmade paper
• What a collage is
Students will do…
• Create 4 or 5 pieces of their own paper
• Make a collage image of an animal of their choice

Read Aloud (15 mins):
• We will begin the lesson by reading aloud Eric Carle’s classics 1,2,3 to the Zoo and Animals, Animals. We will have a class discussion about how Carle tends to include lots of animal pictures in his books, because he is very comfortable with nature.
• I will read aloud the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and explain to the children that we will be creating our own animal collage images, similar to those seen in these three animal books, to create our own class version of Brown Bear.
• We will read the section on Eric Carle from the book Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art and talk about how Eric Carle creates his own paper, and then uses this paper to create animal collages for his book.

Creating Paper (1 hour- 1.5 hours)
• With the help of the art teacher or maybe even during art time if it is possible, the students will create their own Eric Carle Paper. This is done using tempra paints on tissue paper and different objects and tools to create textures on the paper before the paint dries. Sponges, sea shells, and pens are often used to create texture by moving paint. Different colors of paint are also used in one paper to give the piece depth.
• Each student will be encouraged to make a sketch of their animal before they start painting, and to keep their animal in mind as they create paper, so that they will have the right colors to work with.
• Before painting the teacher or art teacher will demonstrate the different texture techniques, and students will use these techniques to create their own paper.
• If possible it would be nice to purchase some of Eric Carle’s pre-made paper online (http://www.canson-us.com) to have on hand in case students do not make all of the colors they will need, or even just to use as an example.

Assessment: On exit cards I will ask students to tell me what they think style is and two ways that they think Eric Carle’s illustration style is different from Dr. Seuss (or another illustrator/author we have recently studied or they are familiar with)

Lesson Three: Creating our own Brown Bear book
Objectives:
Students will know…
• That Eric Carle creates his images by making a collage from hand painted paper
• The definition of collage (To paste diverse materials over a surface, thereby creating an artistic product)
Students will understand…
• How to create their own collage
Students will do…
• Make their own collage animal
• Combine the collage animals in a class version of Brown Bear

Read Aloud ( 15 mins)
• As a class we will read Eric Carle’s book You Can Make a Collage: A Very Simple How To Book

Demonstration (15 mins)
• With the help of the art teacher I will demonstrate to students how we can cut our paper to create a collage of an animal. I will explain that some animals can be very simple to create (for example a snake or a fish) so that students that are less comfortable with art will not feel intimidated. We will also demonstrate how paint can be added after the collage is dry to create spots, stripes, eyes, or other important features.

Creation (2-3 hours depending on available time and interest)
• Students will create collage images of their animals
• While we are waiting for the collage animals to dry we will read the books by Bill Martin Jr., Brown Bear, Panda Bear, and Polar Bear and students will fill out the first part in the sentence ________ __________ __________ ________ what do you see, imitating the format of the stories. We will type these sentences up in the computer lab in a book format, and combine the writing with the collage pictures to create a page from a book.

Compilation
• Outside of class I will combine all of the pictures into a class book, with the last page of the book saying, “I see the whole class looking at me!” and with the class picture on it. Each student will be given a copy of the book as a keepsake.



Assesment: I will evaluate each student’s book page for effort, and how well they imitate the illustration style of Eric Carle, and the writing format that Bill Martin uses in Brown Bear, Polar Bear, and Panda Bear.

Unit Conclusion: from this unit I really hope that my students understand what we mean when we describe an illustrators “style” and learn more about the life of Eric Carle

Sources:
http://www.eric-carle.com/bio.html
http://www.canson-us.com
http://www.eric-carle.com/bio.html
http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/carle/transcript
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3234
http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Eric-Carle/1056269/biography