Ask students how the painting compares with Indiana winters in their own neighborhood. Challenge students to write about the value of keeping promises made to others. Show Cecil Head painting, Two Farmers Planting . Ask students what the farmers might be planting. Have students generate questions about farming and interview local farmers in Indiana.
Students then compile interviews in a class book and take a field trip to a local farm.
William Forsyth's landscape paintings would correlate with Native American legends. Ask students to write a Native American legend explaining why leaves turn color in the fall. Read and discuss Native American legends - specifically Miami and Delaware tribes of Indiana Encourage students to read some poems and stories by James Whitcomb Riley. Ask students to compare the description of Indiana by Riley with the paintings by the Hoosier artists. Using maps skills, challenge students to locate the birthplaces of William Forsyth, Cecil Head, T.C. Steele, and Gene Stratton Porter Ask students to discuss how the works of these Indiana artists reflect Indiana during the early 1900's. . .