Activity 19: The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (5th Grade)

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Grant Wood, 1931,

Oil on Masonite

Here, Grant Wood depicts the legendary story of the American patriot Paul Revere, as learned from an 1863 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. From a bird’s-eye view, the painting shows Revere on horseback racing through a colonial town square in Massachusetts. Despite the work’s historical subject matter, Wood did not attempt to depict the scene with factual accuracy. The houses are overly bright, as if lit by electric light, and the dramatic moonlight casts unrealistic shadows. The stylized houses, geometric greenery, and high perspective give the painting an otherworldly or dreamlike dimension.

Socratic Seminar:

Opening (Identify the Main Ideas from the Text):

What is the most interesting detail in this painting? (round-robin response)
What is so interesting about that detail? (spontaneous discussion)

Core (Analyze Textual Details):

Why do you think the foreground of this painting is lit up and the background is dark?
How are the houses on the right side of the painting different from the houses on the left? Why?
According to the title, this painting is set at midnight: what does it teach us about "night"?
Why do you think the church spire is so prominent in the painting?
From what perspective are we (the viewers) watching the events in the painting? Why do you think the painter chose this perspective for us?

Closing (Personalize and Apply the Ideas):

These events (Paul Revere warning his neighbors) happened over 200 years ago. Why do you think we are still writing poems and painting pictures about those events? Do you think that poets and artists will be using our own time for subject matter in the future? Why or why not?

Post-Seminar Process:

What did you like most about the discussion?

Transition to Writing:

Brainstorm everything you have said, heard, or thought during the seminar that you could use to design a night drawing.

Drawing as Writing:

After examining and discussing Grant Woods’ “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” create a drawing that shows something interesting happening in history, your house and neighborhood, or a scene from your imagination. BUT the drawing has to be set at night, and you have to be looking down on the events from the sky. Think about what sorts of things would make an interesting picture.

Then create their own nighttime masterpieces! Your family may want to draw one as well! Take a photo of your work to share with your teacher or with me!

Bring your drawing to our meeting to share next week!

I enjoyed talking about art with you this morning! I'll see you tomorrow for "Real Talk"!

More history about the poem "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear,
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere …

So begins one of the most stirring poems in American literature. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “Paul Revere’s Ride” in 1861, nearly 100 years after the actual midnight ride that began on April 18, in 1775. The poem creates a suspenseful story as American colonist Paul Revere decides with his friend Robert Newman and others to avert a British attack on Concord, Massachusetts. The British had come from Boston in search of the colonists’ arms supply. What Revere and his friends didn’t know was whether the Redcoats would come by land (around the mouth of the Charles River) or by sea (across the river). Newman spotted the British “by sea” and signaled from the Old North Church tower to Revere, who was:

Ready to ride and spread the alarm,
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.

And, by morning, the country folk were ready, indeed:

Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again,
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

This battle, the first of the American Revolution, drove the British back to Boston.

Here is rap version of Wordworth's poem. It has many famous images from art and history.