Close Reading of the Golden Rule

Overview:

Students closely examine Norman Rockwell's illustration, The Golden Rule, and then learn background information about it.  Students share details regarding the people, objects, composition, color, and lighting, among other visual elements. They make supported inferences about the messages conveyed by the painting and the ways in which they have been communicated.

Enduring Understandings/ Essential Questions:

1. There are virtues, including honesty, mutual respect, and cooperation, among others, which should be reflected in all of our interactions with the people we encounter in our lives.  
2. Equality, freedom, liberty, and respect for others are important principles in our world.
3. People may have different ideas about the same topic. Everyone has the right to have their ideas heard as long as they present them respectfully, and are willing to afford others that opportunity as well.
   • How should people treat others in their community?
   • Why may people have different ideas about the same thing?
   • Why should people who have ideas that are different from yours be allowed to share their ideas?

Objectives:

• Students will close read the illustration, Golden Rule, by Norman Rockwell, sharing the things that they notice about the painting.
• Students will make inferences supported by the details in the illustration.
• Students will discuss the purpose and message of this painting, including the relevance of the phrase, “Do Unto Others As You Would You Have Them Do Unto You.”
• Students will think about how people should treat each other.

Background:

Golden Rule, 1961
Cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, April 1, 1961
Oil on canvas
Norman Rockwell Museum Collection, NRACT.1973.010

Golden Rule, a gathering of men, women, and children of different races, religions, and ethnicities, was a precursor of the socially conscious subjects that Norman Rockwell would undertake in the 1960s. “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You” was a simple but universal phrase that reflected the artist’s personal philosophy. A citizen of the world, Rockwell traveled throughout his life and was welcomed wherever he went. Of the painting Rockwell said, “I had tried to depict all the peoples of the world gathered together. That is just what I wanted to express about the Golden Rule.” The painting features five mothers holding their children. In the top right, the artist’s wife Mary Barstow Rockwell holds the Rockwell’s first grandchild, Geoffrey. Unfortunately, Mary died in 1959 before Geoffrey was born, and the painting allowed Rockwell to bring them together.

Rockwell’s Golden Rule painting later served as the inspiration for a glass mosaic that was presented to the United Nations in 1985 as a Fortieth Anniversary gift on behalf of the United States by then First Lady Nancy Reagan, made possible by the Thanks-Giving Square Foundation. Rockwell’s Golden Rule painting and his United Nations drawing were exhibited at the United Nations in honor of this humanitarian organization’s Seventieth Anniversary of the United Nations, an expression of his appreciation for humanity and democratic ideals.

Things to Notice About Norman Rockwell’s Golden Rule

• Mothers of different cultures holding their children
• Mary Rockwell, Norman Rockwell’s wife and the mother of their three sons, holding their first grandchild, Geoffrey Rockwell. Mary had died before Geoffrey was born, but Rockwell brought them together in this work.
• Clothing and objects representing different cultures

Background on Norman Rockwell’s United Nations

In 1952, at the height of the Cold War and two years into the Korean War, Rockwell conceived an image of the United Nations as the world’s hope for the future. His appreciation for the organization and its mission inspired a complex work portraying members of the Security Council and many people representing the nations of the world—a study for an artwork that he originally intended to complete in painted form. Researched and developed to the final drawing stage, the artist’s United Nations never actually made it to canvas. Rockwell’s desire to reach out to a global community and emphasize the commonality of mankind found its forum on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in Golden Rule, nine years later, in 1961.

Of his work on the United Nations drawing, Rockwell said, “Like everyone else, I’m concerned with the world situation, and like everyone else, I’d like to contribute something to help. The only way I can contribute is through my pictures.”

Norman Rockwell
United Nations   1953
Study for an unfinished illustration
Pencil and charcoal on paper
Norman Rockwell Museum Collection
NRACT.1973.113 (M57)

Materials:

Classroom Supplies:

• Chart paper with T-Chart labeled “What I See”/”What I wonder” 
• Marker

Activities:

• Display Norman Rockwell’s Golden Rule.
• Ask students to look carefully at the illustration. Give them a few minutes to do this. Bring students together in a circle and ask each student to share one thing they observe about the painting. Record their observations.
• Turn and Talk: When you feel enough time has passed, have students turn to a person sitting beside them. Ask them what they wonder about the painting. As they are sharing, listen in to their conversations.
• Have partners share some of the things they noticed and wondered about in the picture. Record their responses on chart paper. Elicit observations  heard during partner talk that are not shared or share them for the students.
• Have partners share their thinking. Record responses on the T-chart. Elicit details from the picture to support their findings.  
• New observations may be contributed as they look closer; add them to the appropriate column on T-Chart.
• If you have not already done so, share the origin of the painting and its name. Have students reflect on the message that Rockwell was hoping to convey, and what the message means to them.

Optional: If students have had guided opportunities to close read other illustrations, they may work independently or with a partner to complete the included T-chart graphic organizer. They can refer to their recorded observations and inferences when everyone gathers to share and discuss the illustration.

 

Assessment:

• Did everyone participate?
• Are students basing their thinking on the details?
• Do student responses to the illustration reflect civic virtues/ principles?