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Framework Guiding Principles
Guiding
Principle I
An effective arts curriculum provides a sequential program of
instruction in dance, music, theatre, and visual arts for all students
beginning in preschool and continuing through high school.
Use what talent you possess: the woods
would be very silent if no birds sang, except those that sang best.
Henry Van
Dyke
Every student can benefit from a sequential PreK–12 education in
the arts. Every student deserves to learn about our common artistic heritage,
and each has the capacity to add dances, stories, songs, plays, and images to
the world. A sequential program of instruction in the arts provides experiences
in creating, performing, and responding to students each year they are in
school. Centered in the practice and history of the arts disciplines, a sequential
program of arts instruction takes into account students’ evolving needs and
interests, builds on their prior experiences, provides a valuable means of
creative expression and enjoyment, and enables insightful connections to be
made with ideas from other disciplines.
The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 defined the arts as
a component of the core curriculum, along with English language arts, foreign
languages, history and social science, mathematics, and science and
technology/engineering. However, the goal of establishing equitable access to
sequential arts education has yet to be achieved. Issues that require visionary
leadership include the provision of qualified staff; district wide sequential
curriculum, instruction, and assessment; well-equipped facilities designed to
meet program needs; and adequate instructional time and materials.
The writers of this Framework recommend that preschools and
elementary schools provide all students basic education in the four arts
disciplines: dance, music, theatre, and visual arts;
Guiding
Principle II
An effective arts curriculum emphasizes development of students’
skills and understanding of creating, performing, and responding.
We need a more generous conception of the sources of human understanding.
The poet, the painter, the composer, the playwright, as well as the chemist,
the botanist, the astronomer have something to teach
us. Paying adequate attention to such forms of understanding in schools is the
best way to make them a meaningful part of students’ intellectual lives.
Elliott Eisner, “What Really Counts
in Schools,” 1991
Well-rounded
education in the arts consists of experiences in three interrelated kinds of
artistic activity: creating, performing, and responding. Students involved in
these ways of learning gain knowledge about the arts, refine their perceptual
and expressive skills, and exercise their powers of analysis in order to make
and justify judgments about works of art. Students who are given such
opportunities in school are better prepared to continue active engagement with
the arts as adults.
Creating
refers to generating original art. Students learn to use the symbolic
languages, structures, and techniques of each discipline. With these skills
they may express and communicate their own ideas and feelings when they draw,
paint, or sculpt visual images, write dramatic works, or compose original
pieces of music or dance. Students need opportunities in and out of school in
which they can discover who they are as individuals, express their reactions to
the world around them, tell their own stories, and show their own vision.
Performing
refers to interpreting an artwork that already exists (such as a play, a song,
or a music score) or improvising a new work. Here students apply skills in
singing, reading music, playing instruments, directing, acting, or dancing.
Performing before an audience adds a public dimension to dance, music, and
theatre education; in the visual arts, exhibiting artwork outside the classroom
plays a similar function.
Responding refers to analyzing and evaluating artistic expression.
Students demonstrate their ability to respond with understanding when they
describe, analyze, interpret, and evaluate their own artwork and the artwork of
others. Critical response is an important dimension of studio and rehearsal
discussion because it can lead to thoughtful revision and refinement.
Guiding
Principle III
An effective arts curriculum promotes knowledge and understanding
of the historical and cultural contexts of the arts.
The search for roots and beginnings is really the quest for
continuations. For how can human beings know where they are going unless they
know where they have been?
William
Fleming, Arts and Ideas, 1980
This Framework
emphasizes inquiry into the role played by the arts in history. Students need
to learn about exemplary works of dance, music, theatre, the visual arts, and
architecture from world cultures and discover why certain of them are
considered “great.” They also need to go beyond these individual examples to
explore how and why art forms develop in specific cultural, historical,
political, and environmental contexts, and to examine the dynamics of tradition
and innovation in the histories of the arts.
Throughout
their schooling, students should have opportunities to discuss criteria for
making value judgments about works of art. At the middle and high school level,
they can be introduced to examples of arts criticism as well as to aesthetic
theories. Contemporary artists who shape our future cultural legacy are
influenced by elements of the world around them, including the media, politics,
economics, and popular culture. Similarly, students integrate their daily
experiences and influences from their environment into their artwork. Educators
can encourage students to respond to the world and develop their ideas by
providing examples of how artists in other times and places have expressed
their understandings of their surroundings and the human condition.
Appendix A,
beginning on page 92, presents a reference list of significant works of art,
styles, and artists from world and
Guiding
Principle IV
An effective arts curriculum uses a variety of assessment methods
to evaluate what students know and are able to do.
Assessment is not so much a test as an episode of learning. ...(A) major, perhaps the primary reason for assessment is
to teach students how to be rigorous critics of their own work.
Dennie Palmer Wolf, Taking Full Measure: Rethinking Assessment
through the Arts, 1991
The
Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Framework presents Learning Standards that define
what students should know and be able to do in the arts. Each school district
in the Commonwealth is encouraged to establish reliable, valid, and useful
assessment practices in order to determine the extent to which their students
achieve these standards.
A balanced
approach to assessment is encouraged. Evidence relating to a student’s
achievement of standards should be gathered through use of a variety of formal
and informal assessments including observations, traditional tests and quizzes,
portfolios, projects, and student self-assessments. Since learning in the arts
occurs over time, assessment should be thought of as a collection of evidence
over time instead of a single event that happens only at the end of
instruction.
Performance
and portfolio assessments, which have recently been adopted by other
disciplines, have traditionally been used in the arts. Merely completing a performance
task such as a recital or assembling a portfolio, however, does not constitute
an assessment of learning. Assessments must also employ the use of criteria
based on the Learning Standards as well as valid and reliable scoring
procedures. When scoring criteria are made explicit, assessment is more likely
to result in the improvement of student learning.
Appendix B,
beginning on page 111, presents further information on assessment in the arts.
The examples accompanying each strand also highlight how the Standards may be
used as assessment criteria.
Guiding
Principle V
An effective arts curriculum provides opportunities for students
to make connections among the arts, with other disciplines within the core curriculum,
and with arts resources in the community.
Science will...produce the data..., but never the full meaning.
For perceiving real significance, we shall need...most of all the brains of
poets (and) also those of artists, musicians, philosophers, historians, writers
in general.
Lewis
Thomas, Scientist
An important aspect of education reform is the search for ways to
help students synthesize knowledge from multiple disciplines. Interdisciplinary
teaching that includes the arts requires students and teachers to use their
intellects and senses to explore relationships among ideas. This approach
invites educators from a variety of disciplines to consider an integrated role
for the arts in their classrooms and a collaborative role for arts educators in
the overall design of curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
The role
the arts can play in schools is further enhanced when schools cultivate
partnerships with cultural resources within the community, such as museums,
performing arts organizations, arts departments of colleges and universities,
local artists, arts councils, and local businesses. Such collaborations can
extend students’ appreciation of the possibilities available to them for
learning, recreation, and potential careers.
Visual Arts Strands and Standards
The following Strands describe the overall content of teaching, learning,
and assessment in the arts.
There are
ten Standards. They define what students should be able to know and be able to
do as a result of their study of the arts. The Standards are further
articulated into Learning Standards that describe what students should know and
be able to do by the end of various stages of their arts study.
PreK–4
Learning Standards describe what students should know and be able to do in the
four arts disciplines by the end of grade 4. These first school years should
encourage students’ curiosity; allow them to explore the visual arts, and to
express their ideas and feelings through the arts. Students should also be
introduced to reading and writing about the arts and artists as part of their
arts, history and social science, and English language arts curricula.
Using This
Curriculum Framework to Design District Grade-by-Grade Curricula
Teachers of
each arts discipline are responsible for incorporating ten standards into their
curriculum. Standards 1–5 are discipline-specific, while standards 6–10 apply
to all the arts disciplines. Used together, they represent opportunities for
self-expression in creating and performing, and opportunities for critical
response, reflection, and learning about cultural heritage. To allow for local
decision-making, these standards are written for groups of grades. PreK–12
teachers and administrators in each district must decide which concepts will be
introduced or refined at each grade level, and what materials, equipment, and
resources will be used.
The Arts Disciplines
This strand sets the expectation that students will acquire basic knowledge
of how to perform and create in all of the arts, and will become proficient in
at least one of the arts disciplines.
Learning by Doing
Students
learn about the arts from the artist’s perspective by active participation —
they learn by doing. They come to understand the specific ways in which
dancers, composers, musicians, visual artists, or actors think, solve problems,
and make aesthetic choices.
Learning
in, about, and through the arts can lead to a profound sense of understanding,
joy, and accomplishment. It is important that students learn to express and
understand ideas that are communicated in sounds, images, and movements, as
well as in written or spoken words. Sequential education in any of the arts
disciplines emphasizes imaginative and reflective thought, and provides an
introduction to the ways that human beings express insights in cultures
throughout the world.
The PreKindergarten and Early Elementary
Years: Exploring the Arts
The goal of
arts education from PreKindergarten to grade 4 is to
develop and sustain the natural curiosity, expressiveness, and creativity that
very young children often display. Arts education begins with a foundation that
emphasizes exploration, experimentation, engagement of the senses, and
discussion as paths to understanding.
Young
children use the arts to explore sensation and recreate their memory of real
and imagined events. They are trying to find out all they can about the
expressive qualities inherent in different forms of communication. Through what
they choose to dramatize, sing, or paint, children let others know what is
important, trivial, appealing, or frightening in their lives. Because arts
experiences allow children to play with ideas and concepts, students often
express freely in their artwork ideas and understandings that do not emerge in
other classroom work. Versatile teachers encourage many forms of expression and
learn how to appreciate the messages children transmit through their artworks.
As they
observe and document children’s artistic responses, teachers become attuned to
ways in which children demonstrate understanding. By the end of the fourth
grade, teachers who have helped students assemble cumulative portfolios of
selected work from each year of elementary school have a wealth of evidence
about a child’s profile of emerging artistic preferences and strengths.
The arts strands place emphasis on
the value of reflection, critique, practice, and revision as activities that
lead to greater control over technique and media.
An important component of instruction
in the arts is teaching the terminology of the discipline so that students can
discuss works of art precisely. A selection of these key terms in each
discipline is included. When they first appear in the Learning Standards they
are in boldface type. Brief examples of classroom practice are printed in italics and accompany some of the
Learning Standards. Learning Scenarios are more extensive examples of
Standards-based arts curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
Visual Arts
When asked, “Why paint a flower so big?,”
Georgia O’Keeffe explained, “So that people will be surprised into taking the
time to look.” from Hands and Minds: the Art
and Writing of Young People in 20th Century America
Visual arts education inspires
students to perceive and shape the visual, spatial, and aesthetic
characteristics of the world around them. Using a variety of ways to explore,
learn, and communicate, students develop their capacity for imaginative and
reflective thinking. The field includes the traditional “fine arts” of drawing,
painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture; the design fields including
industrial, ceramic, textile, furniture, and graphic design; and architecture,
landscape design and urban, regional, and rural planning. Visual
arts is a continuously evolving field that also explores technologies
such as film, holography, video, and other electronic forms of image-making.
Learning
Standards for the Visual Arts:
1. Methods, Materials, and Techniques. Students
will demonstrate knowledge of the methods, materials, and techniques unique to
the visual arts.
2. Elements and Principles of Design. Students
will demonstrate knowledge of the elements and principles of design.
3. Observation, Abstraction, Invention, and
Expression. Students will demonstrate their powers of observation, abstraction,
invention, and expression in a variety of media, materials, and techniques.
4. Drafting, Revising, and Exhibiting. Students
will demonstrate knowledge of the processes of creating and exhibiting their
own artwork: drafts, critique, self-assessment, refinement, and exhibit
preparation.
5. Critical Response. Students will describe and
analyze their own work and the work of others using appropriate visual arts
vocabulary. When appropriate, students will connect their analysis to
interpretation and evaluation.
Connections Strands
6. Purposes of the Arts. Students will describe
the purposes for which works of dance, music, theatre, visual arts, and
architecture were and are created, and, when appropriate, interpret their
meanings.
7. Roles of Artists in Communities. Students
will describe the roles of artists, patrons, cultural organizations, and arts
institutions in societies of the past and present.
8. Concepts of Style, Stylistic Influence, and
Stylistic Change. Students will demonstrate their understanding of styles,
stylistic influence, and stylistic change by identifying when and where art
works were created, and by analyzing characteristic features of art works from
various historical periods, cultures, and genres.
9. Inventions, Technologies and the Arts.
Students will describe and analyze how performing and visual artists use and
have used materials, inventions, and technologies in their work.
10.Interdisciplinary Connections. Students will apply their knowledge
of the arts to the study of English language arts, foreign languages, health,
history and social science, mathematics, and science and
technology/engineering.
Visual Arts Standards
STANDARD 1: Methods, Materials, and Techniques
Students will
demonstrate knowledge of the methods, materials, and techniques unique to the
visual arts.
Students will:
1.1 Use a variety of
materials and media, for example,
crayons, chalk, paint, clay, various kinds of papers, textiles, and yarns, and
understand how to use them to produce different visual effects
1.2 Create artwork in a
variety of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) media, for example: 2D – drawing, painting,
collage, printmaking, weaving; 3D – plastic (malleable) materials such as clay
and paper, wood, or found objects for assemblage and construction
1.3 Learn and use
appropriate vocabulary related to methods, materials, and techniques
1.4 Learn to take care of materials and tools and to use them safely
STANDARD 2: Elements and Principles of Design
Students will demonstrate knowledge of the elements and principles
of design.
Students will:
2.1 For color, explore
and experiment with the use of color in dry and wet media
Identify primary and
secondary colors and gradations of black, white and gray in the environment and
artwork
Explore how color
can convey mood and emotion
For example, students mix light and dark
values of colors or predict the results of overlapping and blending primary
colors.
2.2 For line, explore the
use of line in 2D and 3D works
Identify a wide
variety of types of lines in the environment and in artwork
For example, students take a walk around the
school and note jagged, straight, curved, thick, and thin lines.
2.3 For texture, explore
the use of textures in 2D and 3D works
Identify a wide
variety of types of textures, for
example, smooth, rough, and bumpy, in the environment and in artwork
Create
representations of textures in drawings, paintings, rubbings, or relief
2.4 For shape and form,
explore the use of shapes and forms in 2D and 3D works
Identify simple
shapes of different sizes, for example,
circles, squares, triangles, and forms, for
example, spheres, cones, cubes, in the environment and in artwork
2.5 For pattern and
symmetry, explore the use of patterns and symmetrical shapes in 2D and 3D works
Identify patterns
and symmetrical forms and shapes in the environment and artwork.
Explain and
demonstrate ways in which patterns and symmetrical shapes may be made
For example, a student folds and cuts paper
to achieve symmetry, or makes printed patterns.
2.6 For space and
composition, explore composition by creating artwork with a center of interest,
repetition, and/or balance
Demonstrate an
understanding of foreground, middle ground, and background
Define and
identify occurrences of balance, rhythm, repetition, variety, and emphasis
STANDARD 3: Observation, Abstraction,
Invention, and Expression
Students will demonstrate their powers of observation, abstraction,
invention, and expression in a variety of media, materials, and techniques.
Students will:
3.1 Create 2D and 3D
artwork from direct observation
For example, students draw a still life of flowers
or fruit, action studies of their classmates in sports poses, or sketches of
the class pet having a snack or a nap.
3.2 Create 2D and 3D
expressive artwork that explores abstraction
For example, a student simplifies an image by
making decisions about essential colors, lines, or textures.
3.3 Create 2D and 3D
artwork from memory or imagination to tell a story or embody an idea or fantasy
For example, students draw members of a
family from memory; illustrate a character in a folktale or play; build a clay
model of an ideal place to play; or make images that convey ideas such as
friendship.
STANDARD 4: Drafting, Revising, and
Exhibiting
Students
will demonstrate knowledge of the processes of creating and exhibiting their
own artwork: drafts, critique, self-assessment, refinement, and exhibit
preparation.
Students will:
4.1 Select a work or
works created during the year and discuss them with a parent, classmate, or
teacher, explaining how the work was made, and why it was chosen for discussion
For example, a first grader chooses a painting and tells
how she mixed the colors, and talks about the decisions she made.
4.2
Select works for exhibition
and work as a group to create a display
4.3 As a class, develop and use criteria for informal classroom
discussions about art
STANDARD 5: Critical Response
Students
will describe and analyze their own work and the work of others using
appropriate visual arts vocabulary. When appropriate, students will connect
their analysis to interpretation and evaluation.
Students will:
5.1 In the course of
making and viewing art, learn ways of discussing it, such as by making a list
of all of the images seen in an artwork (visual inventory); and identifying
kinds of color, line, texture, shapes, and forms in the work
5.2 Classify artworks
into general categories, such as painting, printmaking, collage, sculpture,
pottery, textiles, architecture, photography, and film
5.3 Describe similarities
and differences in works, and present personal responses to the subject matter,
materials, techniques, and use of design elements in artworks
5.4 (Grades 3 and 4) Explain strengths and weaknesses in their own
work, and share comments constructively and supportively within the group
Connection Strands
History, Criticism, and Links to Other Disciplines
This strand sets the expectation that students will learn about
their artistic heritage. They will investigate the historical and cultural
contexts of the arts, learn about the arts in their communities, and use their
knowledge of the arts in the study of other disciplines.
The history, criticism, and philosophy of the arts are taught most
effectively at the PreK–12 level when they are integrated with studio work and
performance. For example, when instrumental students learn to play a
composition, they should also learn about the life and times of its composer.
Effective arts curricula also make use of community resources, and incorporate
live performances, the viewing of original works of art in museum collections,
and on-site examination of works of architecture and public sculpture. Teaching
students about the history of the arts should be a shared responsibility. The
elementary classroom teacher and the secondary history teacher will find many
opportunities to introduce works of arts when studying world and
Since this
strand deals with all the arts, for the sake of brevity the word “artist” is
used below to signify people who create and/or perform at a high level in the
fields of dance, music, theatre, visual arts, and architecture.
The
Standards for the Connections Strand are:
6. Purposes and Meanings in the Arts. Students
will describe the purposes for which works of dance, music, theatre, visual
arts, and architecture were and are created, and, when appropriate, interpret
their meanings.
7. Roles of Artists in Communities. Students
will describe the roles of artists, patrons, cultural organizations, and arts
institutions in societies of the past and present.
8. Concepts of Style, Stylistic Influence, and
Stylistic Change. Students will demonstrate their understanding of styles,
stylistic influence, and stylistic change by identifying when and where art
works were created, and by analyzing characteristic features of art works from
various historical periods, cultures, and genres.
9. Inventions, Technologies, and the Arts.
Students will describe and analyze how performing and visual artists use and
have used materials, inventions, and technologies in their work.
10. Interdisciplinary Connections. Students will apply their knowledge
of the arts to the study of English language arts, foreign languages, health,
history and social science, mathematics, and science and
technology/engineering.
In
addition, there are relevant Standards in the English Language Arts and History
and Social Science Curriculum Frameworks that should be integrated into the
study of the arts.
English
Language Arts Curriculum Framework:
19. Students will write compositions with a clear focus, logically
related ideas to develop it, and adequate detail.
23. Students will use self-generated questions, note-taking, summarizing,
précis writing, and outlining to enhance learning when reading or writing.
24. Students will use open-ended research questions, different sources
of information, and appropriate research methods to gather information for
their research projects.
History and
Social Science Curriculum Framework:
1. Chronology and Cause. Students will
understand the chronological order of historical events and recognize the
complexity of historical cause and effect, including the interaction of forces
from different spheres of human activity, the importance of ideas, and of
individual choices, actions, and character.
2. Historical Understanding. Students will
understand the meaning, implications, and import of historical events, while
recognizing the contingency and unpredictability of history — how events could
have taken other directions — by studying past ideas as they were thought, and
past events as they were lived, by people of the time.
3. Research, Evidence, and Point of View.
Students will acquire the ability to frame questions that can be answered by
historical study and research; to collect, evaluate, and employ information
from primary and secondary sources, and to apply it in oral and written
presentations. They will understand many kinds and uses of evidence; and by
comparing historical narratives, they will differentiate historical fact from
historical interpretation and from fiction.
5. Interdisciplinary Learning: Religion, Ethics,
Philosophy, and Literature in History. Students will describe and explain
fundamental tenets of major world religions; basic ideals of ethics, including
justice, consideration for others, and respect for human rights; differing
conceptions of human nature; and influences over time of religion, ethics, and
ideas of human nature in the arts, political and economic theories and
ideologies, societal norms, education of the public, and the conduct of
individual lives.
The Content of Arts History and Criticism: Selecting Works
Teachers of
the arts at any level are keenly aware of the limited amount of time they have
with their students, thus it is important that they avoid spending class time
learning about works that are only of passing interest. In choosing works of
art for study, or for students to memorize and perform, teachers should
emphasize the following:
• works that are
historically or culturally significant because they embody a particular style,
or represent an important “turning point” in the history of the discipline;
• works of aesthetic
significance that display imaginative skill and whose formal elements and
content are highly unified;
• works whose themes provoke thinking and
insights into universal human emotions and dilemmas, and explore the complexity
of the human condition; and
• performances or
works that display a high degree of technical virtuosity and craftsmanship from
a variety of cultures and historical periods.
Appendix A,
beginning on page 92, presents a reference list of suggested important works,
artists, and styles teachers should explore as they present the history of the
arts.
Organizing
Instruction
There are a
variety of ways to organize instruction. Seven of the most common approaches
are described below.
1. Organizing Art History Chronologically to
Align with History and Social Science
As students study history, they should become
familiar with significant artists and works of art from the periods and
cultures they are studying; likewise, as they study the arts, they should
deepen their understanding of history and cultures. Teachers will, of course,
have to make choices about which artists to emphasize, and how deeply to pursue
topics.
Teachers of the
arts can take advantage of students’ knowledge of history by choosing works of
art for discussion that come from the historical periods that their students
have studied in history and social science. The Massachusetts History and
Social Science Curriculum Framework recommends the
following scope and sequence:
• PreK–4: Introductory study of world and
• Grades 5–8: World history to 700 AD,
• Grades 9–10: World history, c. 500 AD to
the present
• Grades 11–12:
2. Complementing the Study of Arts History and
Criticism with Study of Literature in English or Foreign Languages
Students’
understanding of the arts in a given period is often enhanced when they also
study examples of literature of the period. This is sometimes called a
“humanities” approach, often used in team-taught high school courses that
examine topics such as the Renaissance, the Romantic Period, or modernism. This
way of teaching leads students to explore the dynamic interplay of literary
ideas and ideas expressed through the performing and visual arts. Teachers
planning such courses or teaching units should consult the Massachusetts
Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts, particularly the Literature
Strand and Appendices A and B of selected suggested authors; and the Curriculum
Framework for Foreign Languages, particularly the Cultures and Comparisons
Strands.
3. Studying the Works of Individual Artists
Students studying
the life work of a particular composer, choreographer, dancer, playwright,
actor, visual artist, or architect learn how the artist develops his or her
distinctive individual style over time. By examining earlier and later works of
prolific artists such as Martha Graham, Amadeus Mozart, Scott Joplin, Henrik
Ibsen, Eugene O’Neill, Mary Cassatt, Pablo Picasso, Faith Ringgold, or Frank
Lloyd Wright, one can learn about the evolution of their thinking and their
individual contributions to the performing and visual arts of their times. By
reading examples of criticism written in different periods, students can
compare contemporaneous perceptions of the artist’s work with later estimations
of its significance.
4. Investigating Genres or Arts Elements and
Principles
Arts teachers may
wish to build units that focus on genres (such as portraiture or folk dance) or
the manipulation of arts elements and principles (such color or rhythm) and
select works for comparison from several historical periods or cultures,
including the present. This approach mirrors the formalist approach to criticism,
and can be very useful in teaching students to be attentive listeners and
observers. When using this approach, teachers should also help students develop
an actual or mental timeline of the works they choose to discuss.
5. Studying the Different Approaches of Arts
History, Criticism, and Aesthetics
There are many
approaches to thinking about the arts, and teachers may want to teach how these
approaches differ. Historians of the arts research the forms of the arts that
existed in other times and places, or document the arts as they are being
created today. Their work entails adding objective knowledge to the story of
what humans have created or performed, and is informed by findings of
historians (including historians of literature), archaeologists, and
anthropologists. The work of the art critic is more subjective than that of the
historian. He or she describes works, gives interpretations of them, and makes
judgments about them based on knowledge of the individual work and other works
in the domain. Other writers explore the philosophy of the arts, or aesthetics,
dealing with issues such as defining art, and explaining its significance.
6. Making Connections across the Curriculum
Teaching an
interdisciplinary curriculum involves collaboration among faculty and the
community. Teachers and students might explore topics such as:
• visual,
oral, aural, and kinetic elements of the four arts disciplines;
• characteristics
common to the process of creating art works in each discipline;
• interpretations
of a theme or concept, such as harmony or compassion, through each of the four
arts disciplines;
• the
ways in which the content of other disciplines is interrelated with the arts;
including languages and literacy, scientific principles, mathematical reasoning,
and geographical, cultural, and historical knowledge; and
• the
ways in which concepts from other core disciplines may be expressed through the
arts.
7. Making Connections across the Community
• arranging for
professional visual artists and performers to work with students in school
residencies;
• investigating
permanent collections, temporary exhibitions, and programming of visual arts
museums, galleries, and historical societies;
• researching the
history of a community’s architecture and city/town planning;
• attending public
rehearsals and performances of performing arts organizations; and
• acquiring
information about opportunities for further study and careers in the arts in
higher education and business.
Connections
STANDARD 6: Purposes and Meanings in the
Arts
Students will describe the purposes for which works of dance,
music, theatre, visual arts, and architecture were and are created, and, where
appropriate, interpret their meanings.
Students will:
6.1 When viewing or
listening to examples of visual arts, architecture, music, dance, storytelling,
and theatre, ask and answer questions such as, “What is the artist trying to say?” “Who made this, and why?” “How does
this work make me feel?”
6.2 Investigate uses and
meanings of examples of the arts in children’s daily lives, homes, and
communities
For example, children learn and teach other
children songs in languages other than English; interview parents and community
members about dances, songs, images, and stories that are part of their family
and cultural heritage.
STANDARD 7: Roles of Artists in
Communities
Students
will describe the roles of artists, patrons, cultural organizations, and arts
institutions in societies of the past and present.
Students will:
7.1 Investigate how
artists create their work; read about, view films about, or interview artists
such as choreographers, dancers, composers, singers, instrumentalists, actors,
storytellers, playwrights, illustrators, painters, sculptors, craftspeople, or
architects
For example, teachers invite an illustrator
of children’s books to school to show how she creates her illustrations.
STANDARD 8: Concepts of Style, Stylistic
Influence, and Stylistic Change
Students will demonstrate their understanding of the concepts of
style, stylistic influence, and stylistic change by identifying when and where
art works were created and by analyzing characteristic features of art works
from various historical periods, cultures, and genres.
Students will:
8.1 Identify
characteristic features of the performing and visual arts of native populations
and immigrant groups to
• styles
of North American native cultures of the East Coast, Plains, Southwest, and Northwest;
• styles of folk and
fine arts of immigrant groups from European, African, Latin American, Asian,
and Middle Eastern countries
For example, students look at examples of
Native American clay containers from the Southwest, and wooden containers from
the Northwest and compare the similarities and differences in form and
decoration.