The unique architecture of San Antonio is evident, even to the untrained eye.  With this lesson plan that is geared for grades 3 and 4, you will engage students to analyze and describe the effects of balance and composition in distinguished buildings like the Alamo, The Tower of the Americas, and the Milam Building.  Have students do a hands-on activity where they will create clay tiles showing San Antonio architecture, and show the clip “Creating Tiles” from the Harding Black series.

Purchase the Harding Black: An American Treasure video!

Self-taught and modest to the proverbial fault, the San Antonio master potter spent a lifetime experimenting with glazes. In 1932 when Harding Black began glaze work, there were no ceramic classes in Texas and few available texts so his expertise was gained through making thousands of tests on clay bodies and glazes.

Harding Black: An American Treasure takes you first hand into the world of this octogenarian who never wanted to do anything but what he does seven days a week, make pots.

Twice, the renowned potter Bernard Leach visited Black's studio and marveled at his successes with difficult-to-achieve glazes. His pieces have been in the Smithsonian and the National Ceramic Exhibition at the Syracuse Museum of Art. His research materials are housed in the Harding Black Library at Baylor University in Waco.

Search our collection of lesson plans, written by local art teachers. Each lesson plan corresponds with a clip from the Harding Black video.