Destination Dalí: Lesson Plans from the Dalí Museum

The Dalí Museum has assembled a number of interdisciplinary lesson plans as a starting point for you and your students. These lesson plans provide a variety of approaches to Dalí and can make a study of his life and work - and perhaps a visit to the museum - a rewarding and multi-faceted learning experience. You will find that reading, writing, and critical thinking skills are central to each activity, regardless of that lesson's particular focus.

Since approaches to teaching Dalí change from classroom to classroom and school to school, we encourage you to change, revise, or otherwise tailor these plans to your individual classroom or grade level needs. These activities fully incorporate the goals of Florida's Sunshine State Standards and Grade Level Expectations, but we hope that students and teachers outside of Florida find them rewarding as well.

To better serve your individual needs, we've also provided links to a number of other lesson plans that are related to Dalí and Surrealism and that were designed by some of the best museums in the U.S. As always, if there is anything we can do, please let us know.

Descriptions and Download Links

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Welcome to Destination Dalí: The Teacher's Lounge

"The Teacher's Lounge" is designed to introduce educators to Salvador Dalí and the Dalí Museum. Featuring an in-depth examination of the six paintings that form the basis of the museum's "core" lesson plans, this introduction also includes a short biography of the artist, a brief discussion of the challenges and rewards of teaching Dalí's work, and a short history of the museum.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 52KB

Lesson Plan 1a: Imagination Station: An Inquiry-Based Intro to Dalí

After watching the museum's Get Surreal with Salvador Dalí video, students express their own reactions to several of Dalí's paintings, they ask questions of the works at hand, and they compare their responses to other responses in class. For homework, students create a piece of writing or artwork that responds in some way with one of the paintings they've encountered.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 16KB

Lesson Plan 1b: Spain & Catalonia: A Thematic Intro to Dalí

After watching the museum's Get Surreal with Salvador Dalí video, students use maps to begin placing the artist in very specific historical and cultural contexts. They read an essay on Catalonia and Spanish cultures and then, for homework, are asked to identify similarities between their own cultures and the cultures they encountered in class.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 20KB

Lesson Plan 2: The Surreal Deal

Students are introduced to some art-historical terms and identify examples of Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Classicism in Dalí's art. Then, focusing on Surrealism, students learn about Surrealist techniques by experimenting with games like Exquisite Corpse, automatic writing or automatic drawing. For homework, they are asked to assess Surrealism and to write about why it might be important.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 25KB

Lesson Plan Three: Collage College

By examining Dalí's work and by making their own pieces of art, students become familiar with and then discuss the Surrealist technique of collage.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 16KB

Lesson Plan Four: Different Brush Strokes for Different Folks

Students have a chance to reflect on their museum visit and begin exploring their own personal art aesthetic. They read an essay which uses Dalí's work to discuss what people might value in art and are then asked to write about their own favorite piece from the museum's collection.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 19KB

Lesson Plan Five: A Creature of Culture

Students explore the impact of culture on artistic production by trying to locate where culture "happens" and by learning about aspects of Dalí's Catalan and Spanish cultures. They return to the collages they made in Lesson Three and speculate about how their own cultures are visible in the works they produced.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 26KB

The Exquisite Sea Corpse

In this unique collaboration between the Salvador Dalí Museum and The Pier Aquarium, Inc., students plan a version of the Surrealist art game "The Exquisite Corpse" in order to create "Exquisite Sea Creatures." Then, using their creatures as "specimens," students practice scientific observation, gain and understanding of how marine creatures adapt to their environments, and learn how to write a natural history.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 46KB

Federico Garcia Lorca's "Ode to Salvador Dalí"

In this lesson plan for 3rd or 4th year Spanish classes, students work in small groups to translate Federico García Lorca's poem "Ode to Salvador Dalí." Then they explore the poem and discuss the issues they faced when translating.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 23KB

Un Poco de Dalí: Cuatro Clasitas

Using Dalí and Velázquez, bullfighting, and the Dalí Mueum gift shop as occasions to learn and practice specific Spanish language skills, these little lessons for Spanish language students of all levels will leave you wanting uno mas.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 17KB

Clocking In with Salvador Dalí

Ever since The Persistence of Memory hit American shores in 1931, the soft or "melting" watch has been nearly synonymous with Salvador Dalí's name. The following materials offer a thorough overview of the painting -- as well as suggestions for classroom activities -- to help satisfy your curiosity as well as your classroom needs.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 67KB

George Orwell, Salvador Dalí & Censorship

Orwell's essay about Dalí's obscenities was itself suppressed on charges of obscenity in 1944. Students read and respond to "Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dalí," discuss issues of censorship, and examine controversial figures in pop culture in light of Orwell's ideas.

Download this lesson as a PDF - 15KB

*You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader
in order to view .PDF files.