Notes on Capter 7: Art and Literacy: Reading and Language Arts

Similarities between Language Arts and Visual Arts
  • Both focus on means of expression
  • Both use symbols
  • Both employ similar methods of critical analysis and interpretation

Drawing before writing forces the child to recall and decide on the details that enrich the writing
  • encourage students to draw something that is meaningful to them, on a topic they choose - then ask them to write about it
  • the drawing and the accompanying talk give the naturally curious young child access to other children's minds and feelings

Drawing is critical to the early development of language and narritive
  • Learning to draw requires close observation skills - skills that catalyze thinking skills

THE VOCABULARY OF ART
  • Vocabulary development is a major factor in success in reading
  • The formal elements reflect potential vocabulary for description or representation
  • Have students describe characteristics of lines
  • Have students compare/contrast shapes and forms
  • Art can be used to give visual expression to what adjectives express verbally
  • Making art and talking about what they have made allows children to expand their ability to communicate in alomost endless ways

SPEECH, THOUGHT, AND ART - use art to promote Language Arts goals
  • Illustrate a story - illustrate a character or a scene
  • Keep a journal - for writing and drawing
  • Write a poem or essay about an artwork
  • Talk about a memory
  • Write a story
  • Learn to "read" pictures

Visual Literacy - the ability to analyze and interpret visual images

THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT AND THROUGH ART
  • Speech development and the ability to think critically are fostered by conversations about art
  • Give students a chance to tell you what the see and feel
  • Working in groups facilitates language development

THE ART OF LANGUAGE: COMMONALITIES BETWEEN DESIGN STRUCTURES IN LANGUAGE AND ART
  • Metaphors, representation, variation, symmetry, dominance, and emphasis - design elements that can be used in writing, i.e. figures of speech, alliteration, etc.

Notes on Stuhr’s book review of Celebrating Pluralism: Art, Education, and Cultural Diversity by G. Chalmers

From Studies in Art Education, 1999 40(2), 180-191

According to the feminist postmodern studies (PMS) reading group at The Ohio State University:
“Reviewers must state her perspectives and biases”

“…traditional academic model of critique is not the only available model and that letters to the author, narratives, jotted diary thoughts, poems, and multi-voiced texts, and other writings might hold promise as forms of critique.”

“…multicultural art education should take a position that furthers human rights for all people.”

“We consider multicultural education as a process agent to assist in providing for more equitable opportunities for individuals and groups to gain social, political, and especially educational arenas.”

“There is no such thing as a homogeneous culture anyway that you can get to know completely.”

“All there is that you can get to know is individual people’s experience based on their living within particular cultural groups that exist within a particular nation(s): a piece of that culture.”

“…a person’s cultural identity is made up of many aspects that include their age, gender, social and economic class (education, job, family position), exceptionality, geographic location, religion, sexuality, political status, and ethnicity (which is the aspect most people concentrate on when they think about culture). And many of these aspects of a person’s cultural identity are always in flux and dynamic…”

“…in multicultural education (especially the reconstructionists type) a primary component is to provide a critical filter, and not just to look critically at other cultures but also at our own and nothing should be taken for granted.”

“Because there is bad in every culture doesn’t mean we shouldn’t study that culture, but he (Chalmers) doesn’t talk about what we should do about the bad.” –Terry Barret

“…we want to critically examine differences not just celebrate them.” –Terry Barret

“I think that cultural imperialism advocates one point of view. Pluralism looks at several perspectives.” –Don Krug

“But seeing things from multiple perspectives is a Western point of view.” –Michael Parsons

Notes on Issues vs. Themes: Two Approaches to a Multicultural Art Curriculum

Issues vs. Themes: Two Approaches to a Multicultural Art Curriculum
Author(s): Mary-Michael Billings
Source: Art Education, Vol. 48, No. 1, Content as Method as Content (Jan., 1995), pp. 21-56
Published by: National Art Education Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193557
Accessed: 08/08/2009 17:19


“Though both approaches call for a multicultural curriculum, the issue-oriented approach to art education supports cultural diversity by emphasizing art's potential to promote political change. In contrast, experience of cultural traditions is a primary aim of the thematic approach to art education.”


“…motifs may be developed from observation of natural phenomena (nature), inner psychological experience (self), and social realities (the other).”


“Whereas recurrent motifs and thematic imagery are developed by a culture to express perceptions and ideas about mundane and sacred aspects of reality, an issue develops when ethical questions arise”


“In an issue-oriented approach to art education, the context for making and viewing art requires awareness of immediate political and social realities.”


“While issues are immanent and laden with ethical considerations that require rational discourse, themes in art can be intuitively experienced when the viewer is deeply connected to the cultural context upon which the work is founded”


“In an issue-oriented approach, the focus moves from the artist's (and viewer's) personal experience of aesthetics to development of an ethical point of view. Images are used to communicate ideas to the viewer and therefore it is important to consider the audience and how the work interacts with the viewer.”


HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
“The ideal of the melting-pot, also known as Americanization, was to promote harmony and unity through creation of a distinctly American culture.”


“…discontinuity; this occurs when the school environment represents a culture that differs substantially from the student's and results in the student's alienation.”


“…the reaction against Americanization stems from the belief that the benefits of a culturally diverse society outweigh the benefits of a homogenous culture.”


“…the reaction against disparity in power among different social groups stems from a basic belief that such disparities are unjust.”


“I suggest that the former goal, that of promoting ethnic diversity, per se, may best be realized through a thematic approach to art education focusing on aesthetics. On the other hand, a goal of promoting equality through art may best be realized through an issue-oriented approach focusing on ethics.”


“…the political goals of any particular group may conflict with the cultural traditions of another.”


“…that while preserving cultural diversity and promoting political equality are both goals of multiculturalism, it is difficult to balance the two when developing curricula.”


THE THEMATIC APPROACH
“In a thematic approach to the study of art, the educator begins by presenting an idea or subject to the class which has been or should be explored through visual imagery.”


“In this approach, art is seen as a means by which individuals express ideas and beliefs, and these ideas are seen as part of a cultural aesthetic. The role of the educator is to facilitate dialogue among students and with the artists of various cultures, whose aesthetic views are represented through their artwork.”


“A thematic approach to art education has the ultimate goal of increased awareness and acceptance of a variety of cultural traditions.”


“Values, beliefs and ideas are communicated through art and these ideas are developed within a social context.”


ISSUE-ORIENTED APPROACH
“In an issue-oriented approach, the teacher or perhaps the class as a whole, begins by selecting a matter of general concern. Though this issue might be explored historically, through contextual analysis of complete artworks, the emphasis is on the student's own life experiences and understanding of the current situation in the student's own life and community.”


“In this approach, the power of art not only to shape cultural identity, but also to influence political realities is seen as the fundamental concern of the art educator.”


“…questions of power are among the most central issues discussed in the literature on this approach.”


“Other issues of concern suggested in the literature on this approach to art education include: the ecological crisis, freedom of expression, alienation in a technocratic society, democratization of technology, and feminism.”


“Using an issue-oriented approach, the artist must first recognize his/her own cultural filters and work toward freedom from a limited ethnocentric view of art.”


IMPLICATIONS OF A THEMATIC VS. ISSUE-ORIENTED APPROACH
“…for the artist who defines art in terms of aesthetics or abstract form, an issue-oriented approach to creating art is problematic.”


“Though many advocates of the issue-oriented approach take great pains to expand the traditional focus on "fine arts" to include folk art, crafts, or industrial arts, the reality is that even when the producers of these artifacts insist that they are only concerned with form or that their work is primarily functional and not to be considered art, the social activist will develop a political viewpoint in terms of the context within which these artifacts are produced or used.”


“A related problem occurs when the social activist uses traditional artforms in non-traditional contexts.”


“In seeking to empower students, issue-oriented and the thematic approaches to multiculturalism require a flexible curriculum with attention to the cultural makeup of the class or community.”


“While the thematic approach will focus on cultural differences and commonalties through exploration of themes, the issue-oriented approach will seek to discover ways in which visual images have been used to oppress certain groups in the past, or are presently being used to maintain the dominant culture.”


VALUE OF THE TWO APPROACHES TO CURRICULA
“I would use the issue-oriented approach sparingly. Not only do I find it limited in creating opportunities for individual aesthetic experience in the studio, I see it as potentially ethnocentric when used to study diverse or foreign cultural traditions.”


“I would introduce content because of its educational value, not because it has been previously neglected.”


“I believe that providing an atmosphere conducive to free speech and creative expression will allow for the natural process of cultural change. This does not require an overt emphasis on ethics on the part of the instructor.”


“While I agree that examining one's own cultural filters can be a positive educational tool, it can be destructive and alienating when traditional knowledge is denigrated or lost rather than used as a foundation to be built upon.”


“…each student must be free to create a personal aesthetic, whether or not this aesthetic is perceived as politically correct or socially relevant.”

Notes on Chapter 9: Art and Social Studies

General Strategies for Art and Social Studies Integration

Personalized Responses

  • Motivate student's personal experiences
  • Involve student's from differing cultural backgrounds, but do not stereotype cultures by expecting students to express particular preferences

Hands-on art activities

  • Murals promote social intelligence
  • Promote cultural understanding through puppets and dioramas
  • Discuss sociopolitical issues when doing artwork in the style of another culture

Drawing still-life arrangements about a culture

  • Borrow items from a children's museum
  • Ask parents to loan items from their culture

Using models or speakers

  • When studying a region, invite someone from that region to come and talk while wearing an ethnic costume
  • Invite parents or guests with interesting occupations or hobbies
  • Have students take turns wearing special hats or clothing

Sketching trips

  • Can help students gain insight into issues of historic preservation, trade, technological innovation, and community growth
  • Discuss background or sociopolitical issues that you want students to understand
  • While at the site, point out aesthetic qualities

Using art reproductions

  • Use hypothesizing, evaluating, and synthesizing when discussing reproductions
  • Use posters, postcards, or photographs

A Danger of Social Studies/Art Integration

avoid stereotypes and look-alike art projects

Social Studies Disciplines

Anthropology - the study of a people's symbols

  • It is disrespectful to emphasize just one aspect of a group's culture
  • It is not helpful to exoticise a culture or people
  • Do not homogenize many national groups into one (i.e. lumping Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans, and Cubans into a single category of Latino or Hispanic)

Economics/Vocations - deals with both the structures that exist to provide jobs and services and also with the distribution of wealth

Geography - have students compare geographic areas including differences in climate, transportation, foods, customs, and home architecture

History - make history vivid through art projects

Political science and law-related education

  • Law-related education deals with concepts such as equality, fairness, honesty, justice, power, property, responsibility, and tolerance
  • Include issues such as family law (i.e. beatings), community-safety law (i.e. bike helmets), and consumer law (i.e. shoplifting)
  • Political science is concerned with examining rules, both good and bad, and taking the rights of others into account

Psychology - concerned with how an individual perceives the world or behaves based on those perceptions

  • Use art to build self-respect and positive self-concept
  • Celebrate individual differences through art

Sociology - the study of how people function in groups

  • Encourage students to think about such concepts as norms, society, values, competition, status, and change
  • Use art reproduction to discuss sociological issues

Multicultural Understanding through Art - we can help children to understand and acquire the shared knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes common to both our nation's culture and their specific group

Multiculturalism in the postmodern art world

  • Recently art has moved away from abstract art elements and toward exploring social, political, and environmental world problems through combining historical and popular images and new mixed-media techniques

Multiculturalism through a thematic approach

  • Focuses on cultural differences and commonalities through exploration of concepts such as adaptation, survival, environment, time, space, and motion
  • In teaching thematic units, relate material to the students' own personal experiences

Multiculturalism using contestable issues

  • Another approach is to use issues about which students can debate

Notes on Chapter 6: Integration in the Three Domains: Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor

  • Cognitive domain – deals with factual information and higher-level skills such as analysis and synthesis
  • Affective domain – deals with the role emotions play in learning; includes emotions, drives, and temporary and pervasive feeling states
  • Psychomotor domain – deals with how the movement of the body is involved in learning

Each domain has several levels, or stages, within it


Affective stages in Bloom's Taxonomy:

1. Receiving or willingness to attend
2. Awareness
3. Responding or willingness to participate actively
4. Valuing
5. Organizing values



Psychomotor stages in Bloom Taxonomy:

1. Perception
2. Readiness to act
3. Ability to copy an instructor
4. Ability to carry out simple, and then complex, movement patterns
5. Ability too modify and adapt established patterns
6. Ability to create new movement patterns

List of Teachers on Twitter

This spreadsheet contains an extensive list of teachers on Twitter with what subject they teach.

Notes on Chapter 14: Cognitive and Psychological Factors in Children’s Learning and Creative Development

  • Younger children draw what they know, using scheme (stereotyped ideas that must be overcome so children can draw with accuracy in representation)
  • Older children draw what they see


Constructivism (Piaget’s theory of the self-constructed nature of knowledge)
  • Children are problem seekers, not problem solvers
  • Learners need to discover the means by which to make meaning out of experience and knowledge
  • Discovery learning – focusing on creating the possibilities for the child to invent and discover knowledge
  • Mental change occurs from action, exploration, and interpretation
  • Knowledge is transformative and changing, not objective truth

Changes in children’s thinking correspond with the stages of artistic development
  • The sensory-motor period/scribbling stage
  • Period of concrete operations/learning how to represent things and ideas through art media
  • Period of formal operations/increased intellectual examination (i.e. art criticism, art history, and aesthetics)


Matching the Child's Natural Way of Thinking
  • The task in the early years of school is to put the materials into the child's natural way of thinking-using the senses along with concrete objects
  • Knowledge is acquired in a spiral manner-revisited every year


Role of Social Context
  • Encourage students verbal interaction with peers to develop thinking about issues
  • This encourages students to confront the views of others and defend their own ideas
  • Cooperative learning - requires students to be dependent on each other to achieve learning goals


Role of the Emotions: The Intuitive and the Nonrational
  • Emotions guide actions and are shaped by them
  • Elementary age children must develop an emotion-filled eagerness to learn new skills and win recognition through successful performance, or the child risks developing a sense of failure and inferiority (from Erickson)
  • We "know" about things with both ideas and feelings
  • Art can give psychological voice to the creator's coping strategies


Transformation
  • As art is made, the brain's different mental functions - the rational, the intuitive, and the irrational - are brought together
  • Transformation and novelty are important goals of education
  • Educational task is to keep the playful analogical thinking growing, rather than dwindling, throughout the school year


Children's Similarities and Variability
  • Scribbling - preschoolers begin with random, haphazard marks and then move on to explore different kinds of scribbles, acquiring more control
  • Scribbling is universal across cultures
  • Stage theory should only be used as a descriptive not a prescriptive device
  • U-Shape Decline - slump in creativity that can occur around ages 8-11, probably due to child's inner demand for photographic realism

Formalism Paper

Joni Hough

September 9, 2009

ARTE 5121


Formalism in the Art Classroom

For the last several decades, formalism has played a central role in most K-12 art classrooms. According to Anderson and McRorie, “Any lesson or curriculum teachers institute comes from what they believe is important to be taught” (1997). Since the theories of Clive Bell and Roger Fry reached popularity, formalism has had “a profound influence on art instruction, in schools, as well as in college and university art departments. Indeed, many art teachers are formalist without being aware of the fact, a sure sign that formalist doctrines have been assimilated into our critical, aesthetic, and pedagogical cultures” (Feldman, 1992). Recently, formalism as the central theme in the art classroom has become controversial.


In his article, Formalism and Its Discontents, Feldman defines pedagogical formalism as, “the doctrine that the ultimate focus of aesthetic attention and critical meaning is, or ought to be, organization and presentation of the visual elements of works of art: line, shape, color, texture, mass, space, volume, and pattern” (1992). Feldman also claims that the visual elements are seductive to educators because they easily lend themselves to teaching. However, Feldman objects to a strictly formalist approach to art education. Feldman contends that “in the world’s major art traditions, motives for creating and looking at art are rarely formalist” (1992). Also, formalists tend to ignore nonart contexts, show a preference for nonobjective art, and formalism is ahistorical. Feldman further maintains that “formalist art instruction demeans working-class and/or populist values and aspirations” (1992). Feldman does not propose eliminating formalism from education, “Formalism is effective insofar as it encourages students to attend to ‘the facts’ of form, but formalism is counter-productive insofar as it persuades students that art is always and only a matter of finding the abstract geometrical order hidden in every image” (1992).


In Gude’s article, Postmodern Principles: 7 + 7?, she contends that the seven elements and seven principles of design that are the backbone of formalism are outdated and boring. She states that, “when visiting K-12 school art programs, I rarely see meaningful connections being made between these formal descriptors and understanding works of art or analyzing the quality of everyday design” (2004). Gude argues that when, “artworks are viewed and understood using the streamlined 7 + 7 Euro-American system of describing form…students often do not learn the aesthetic context of making and valuing inherent to the artists and communities who actually created the works” (2004). Gude proposes that instead of using the elements and principles of formalism, art educators should use eight postmodern principles to aid in understanding and making contemporary art: appropriation, juxtaposition, recontextualization, layering, interaction of text and image, hybridity, gazing, and representin’. Gude maintains that, “structuring art projects to introduce students to the relevant contemporary art and thus to postmodern principles…students will gain the skills to participate in and shape contemporary cultural conversations” (2004).


In contrast to Gude’s embracing of postmodernism, Lloyd clings to the formalism of modernist art. In his article, Souvenirs of Formalism: From Modernism to Postmodernism and Deconstruction, Lloyd asserts that formalism is the basis of good design and should be the foundation of any art curriculum. Lloyd states, “I strongly argue for foundation courses in the elements of art, the language of vision, and the grammar of design” (1997). To Lloyd, formalism is “the language of vision” and consists of a notion of order, clarity of form and space, and significant contrast (1997). Of postmodernist work, Lloyd declares, “Form had degenerated into grotesque assemblage. It fit the description of ‘funk’ as an art of systemized irrationality and bad taste” (1997). Lloyd further states, “I would like to admit that today’s postmodernism might be considered an intuitive rather than rational approach, but what I see is capriciousness and novelty celebrating itself as personal power masquerading as direct knowledge” (1997).


In their article, A Role for Aesthetics in Centering the K-12 Art Curriculum, Anderson and McRorie contend that there are, “two critical functions for aesthetics in art education: first, in directing student inquiry; and second …in framing curricula and programs” (1997). Anderson and McRorie then look at two approaches studying aesthetics: formalism and contextualism. They define formalism as, “emphasis upon (1) use of the elements and principles of design, (2) manipulation of materials with focus on mastery of particular media, and (3) originality, all leading to production of objects that have ‘significant form’ or that look good, look well crafted, aren’t copies of other work, that in short, look like art with a capital ‘A’” (1997). Contextualism is defined as the belief, “that the meaning and worth of art can only be determined in the context in which it’s made and used” (1997). Anderson and McRorie argue that formalism alone is not a comprehensive approach to art education. They state, “Women, African Americans, and other representatives of cultural minorities have been underrepresented in the artworld. They have felt left out of the so-called universal (formalist) agenda and have been the strongest advocates of the instrumental reconstructionists train of contextualism” (1997). Anderson and McRorie also state that, “What you won’t find in a pure contextualist curriculum, then, are technical and design solutions engaged in for their own sake. Pure aesthetic enjoyment is not a justified rationale for making art” (1997). They conclude that, “Neither a purely formalist aesthetic position, with its emphasis on elements and principles, media exploration, and originality, nor a purely contextualist one, with its emphasis on communication and socially relevant subject matter, is adequate to ground a comprehensive art program” (1997). Anderson and McRorie argue that a combination of formalism and contextualism, “allows for an almost infinite range of highly suitable art curricula that are locally specific, that includes themes that fire students’ individual imaginations as well as their collaborative social conscience, and that integrate art skills and techniques enabling them to effectively communicate their ideas in visual form” (1997).


In her article, Semiotics: Inscribing a Place between Formalism and Contextualism, Jeffers expands on Anderson and McRorie’s ideas. She states that, “Formalism/universalism is characterized by an essentialist view that sees form as paramount. Indeed, form is self-referential and universally communicates issues of pleasure and beauty to all who respond. The viewer’s (and student’s) task is to read and appropriate the meanings that reside within these aesthetic forms as to appreciate their intrinsic beauty” (2000). About contextualism, Jeffers asserts it, “sees context as paramount and holds that the meaning and worth of art can only be determined in the context in which the work was made and used. In this view, the meaning of a work of art does not reside within its form, but rather, is constructed in the context of its cultural, historical, social, or political functions. The viewer’s (and student’s) task, then, is to construct meanings about the work in these contexts-which themselves have constructed meanings” (2000). Jeffers maintains that, “semiotics not only allows for the exploration of this place (a place between formalist/universalist and contextualist theoretical position), it also calls into question the adequacy of either formalism/universalism or contextualism to explain art-making in the classroom” (2000).


In her article, Using Form+Theme+Context (FTC) for Rebalancing 21st-Century Art Education, Sandall states, “In embracing today’s standards for teaching studio art and art history in the context of contemporary visual culture, we need to help learners more fully understand art images, objects, and events, present and past, building a sense of relevance and significance in their lives” (2009). Sandall proposes a three-pronged approach for doing this. She contends that a comprehensive art program focuses on form, theme, and context. Through, “form, or how the work ‘is,’ we scrutinize the artist’s many structural decisions embedded in the creative process that leads to a final product,” through, “theme, or what the work is about, we discern what the artist expresses through a selected overarching concept that addresses the Big or Enduring Idea (Walker, 2001; Stewart & Walker, 2005) along with relationships that reveal the artist’s expressive viewpoint connecting art to life,” and through, “context(s), or when, where, by/for whom and why the art was created (and valued), we comprehend the authentic nature of the artwork by probing the conditions for and under which the art was created and valued as well as by considering the work under conditions from our perspectives in contemporary, foreign, or older cultures” (Sandall, 2009). Sandall contends that, “rebalancing art and art education through the conceptual mapping approach to exploring art contained in the FTC Palette has the following characteristics: it is focused, dialectical, inclusive (comprehensive), connective, creative, and engaging” (2009).


Personally, I find Sandall’s method to be the most compelling. Her focus on form, theme, and context provides students with a comprehensive, balanced art program. This approach, “…combines the vital aspects of modernism, postmodernism, and visual culture while ensuring each of their important contributions and place in our contemporary understanding of art and visual culture” (Sandall, 2009). This method incorporates the best ideas from Feldman, Gude, Lloyd, and Anderson and McRorie. With this style, students not only learn strong techniques, but they also learn to appreciate the broader meaning of art, while still learning to relate to art in a personal manner.


References

Anderson, T and McRorie, S. (1997). A role for aesthetics in centering the K-12 art curriculum. Art Education. Retrieved September 4, 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193692


Feldman, E. (1992). Formalism and its discontents. Studies in Art Education. Retrieved August 8, 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1320360


Gude, O. (2004). Postmodern principles: 7 + 7?. Art Education. Retrieved August 31, 2009, from https://moodle.uncc.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=43423


Jeffers, C. (2000). Semiotics: Inscribing a place between formalism and contextualism. Art Education. Retrieved September 4, 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193882


Lloyd, B. (1997). Souvenirs of formalism: From modernism to postmodernism and deconstruction. Art Education. Retrieved August 8, 2009, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193693


Sandell, R. (2009). Using form+theme+context (FTC) for rebalancing 21st-century art education. Studies in Art Education. Retrieved September 6, 2009 from http://alumniconnections.com/olc/filelib/NAEA/cpages/9002/Library/UsingFTCStudies_Spring09_Sandell.pdf


Notes on Art Education in a Post-Modern Age

Art Education in a Post-Modern Age
Author(s): Michael E. Parks
Source: Art Education, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Mar., 1989), pp. 10-13
Published by: National Art Education Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193128
Accessed: 08/09/2009 14:10

Modernism Becomes the Establishment
“…formalism became the measure of quality; a work was judged not for its relevance to external concerns, but on the basis of aesthetic coherence within the work itself.”

Industrialization vs. Computerization
“…art becomes pluralistic and diverse, acknowledging the ambiguousness of the present and future, while reinterpreting contemporary life by reflecting on the look of "old" art. It rejects formalism as a standard of measure, relying instead on allegory, metaphor, narration, and the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated images.”

Post-Modernism and Its Critics
“The most vocal critics, however, have targeted the art establishment as a primary source of concern, the proliferation of dealers who select work based on what is marketable rather than on what is good, fostering the idea that art is a commodity, and the museums with their corporately-financed extravaganzas, exhibiting work that is pleasing to the eye, but devoid of anything controversial or particularly thought-provoking.”

Implications for Art Education
Criticism
“The new work is richly endowed with appropriated styles and subject matter, visual metaphor, allegory, and narrative imagery.”

History
“Where Modem artists totally rejected the past, Post-Modem artists have seemingly embraced it.”

Aesthetics
“During the Modem era, the judgment of quality and truth rested on the formal principles of symmetry and closure.”

“Today, artists frequently ignore such concerns, and in some cases deliberately create "bad" art - works that deliberately break accepted rules of composition and taste.”

Conclusion
“The Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE) approach to teaching has parallels with current trends in art. It shifts the emphasis from art as a tool for nurturing self-expression, to art as a subject worthy of study.”

“To understand post-modem art, a viewer needs the kind of background that the DBAE approach provides.”

Notes on Using Form+Theme+Context (FTC) for Rebalancing 21st-Century Art Education

Sandell, R. (2009). Using form+theme+context (FTC) for rebalancing 21st-century art education. Studies in Art Education. Retrieved September 6, 2009 from http://alumniconnections.com/olc/filelib/NAEA/cpages/9002/Library/UsingFTCStudies_Spring09_Sandell.pdf


“…all learners increasingly need 21st-century skills that rely on multiple forms of literacy, including visual literacy, which is to images what reading and writing are to words (Burmark, 2002)”

“Today’s students require capabilities that enable them to encode visual concepts through creating art and to decode meaning by responding to society’s images, ideas, and media which permeate our increasingly complex visual world (Sandell, 2003).”

“Despite how highly visual our world is, for many, art remains a mystery— people do not know how to dissect its meaning and “own” it purposefully in their lives.”

“(Daniel) Pink (2005) indicates that today’s learners will need to use six new senses: design (increasing the visual appeal and organization of things), story (communicating effectively through compelling narrative), symphony (synthesizing ideas, seeing the big picture and how the pieces fit together), empathy (seeing the world as others see it), play (creatively engaging in problem solving and inventive thinking), and meaning (uncovering, finding a sense of purpose, and making informed choices towards higher-order thinking skills and transformation).”

A New Tool for Balanced Visual Literacy in Art Education
“In embracing today’s standards for teaching studio art and art history in the context of contemporary visual culture, we need to help learners more fully understand art images, objects, and events, present and past, building a sense of relevance and significance in their lives.”

“Art = Form + Theme + Context”

“…form, or how the work “is,” we scrutinize the artist’s many structural decisions embedded in the creative process that leads to a final product”

“…theme, or what the work is about, we discern what the artist expresses through a selected overarching concept that addresses the Big or Enduring Idea (Walker, 2001; Stewart & Walker, 2005) along with relationships that reveal the artist’s expressive viewpoint connecting art to life.”

“…context(s), or when, where, by/for whom and why the art was created (and valued), we comprehend the authentic nature of the artwork by probing the conditions for and under which the art was created and valued as well as by considering the work under conditions from our perspectives in contemporary, foreign, or older cultures.”

“By distinguishing how the form and theme work together within specific contexts, we can comprehend art’s relevance and significance for the creator within his/her culture or society, which can lead to greater understanding and appreciation by the contemporary viewer”

“With contextual information, visual learners can perceive the intention and purpose of an artwork by identifying personal, social, cultural, historical, artistic, educational, political, spiritual, and other contexts that influence the creation and understanding of the work.”

“Rather than reactively reject the “infamous” elements of art and principles of design, we might proactively embrace a metaphorically bigger picture of art by balancing Form + Theme + Context.”

“Designed to activate thinking by generating and “mixing” information, the FTC Palette is a visual organizer that builds understanding, makes connections, and inspires deeper inquiry and creativity.”

“Rebalancing art and art education through the conceptual mapping approach to exploring art contained in the FTC Palette has the following characteristics: it is focused, dialectical, inclusive (comprehensive), connective, creative, and engaging.”

“The use of FTC emphasizes balance in making connections so that even inexperienced viewers can more fully address thematic relationships and contextual relevance while gaining a clearer understanding of artistic form.”

“By enlarging the visual thinking process, FTC considerations can help students create and respond to art that is authentic, deep, and meaningful.”

“…we might note Modernism as emphasizing form, Postmodernism as emphasizing theme, and Visual Culture as emphasizing context.”

“…using Form+Theme+Context inclusively combines the vital aspects of modernism, postmodernism, and visual culture while ensuring each of their important contributions and place in our contemporary understanding of art and visual culture.”

“…the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s (n.d.) “new 3Rs” consisting of “Rigor, Relevance and Relationships” used to address high school reform (McCallum, 2007).”

“These 3Rs are equally pertinent to deepening the power of arts learning through FTC when focusing on the rigor of skill and structure (form), understanding and establishing meaningful relationships (theme), and appreciation of significance and relevance (context).”

Notes on Chapter 5: Creating Objectives and Evaluation Criteria

Examples of Assessment:
  • Examining artworks both in progress and after completion and talking with students about those assessments
  • Ongoing monitoring of the learner’s progress, which might include examining a portfolio of student’s projects
  • Assessing learning in art criticism, art history, and aesthetics through informal journals, in-class written assignments and tests, and contributions to class discussions
  • Engaging students in verbal and written expression concerning the meaning they attribute to their work

The Need for Open Objectives and Evaluation Criteria
  • Art teachers must value that which is open, indeterminate, and imaginative
  • Art teachers must develop educational objectives that value demonstration of interpretation, brainstorming, or the ability to adapt to the unexpected
  • Much quality art production occurs during what appears to be nondirectional play
  • Encouragement should be given for the irrational and quirky
  • Rich educational play should not be confused repeating stereotypical images appropriated from popular culture

The Need for Defined Objectives and Evaluation Criteria
  • Needed to meet standards
  • Provides clarity for assessing student performance
  • Expectancy – the need to inform learners in advance about the objectives of any task they are asked to perform
  • Backward design – planning a lesson by first articulating what students will be able to do at the end (this ensures that all lesson-planning builds toward learning outcomes)

Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes
  • Standards-based art instruction – when state or local systems set broad goals (i.e. NC Standard Course of Study)
  • Teachers must use standards to create objectives
  • Objectives – clear, identifiable behaviors that a student can demonstrate
  • Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives – excellent guide for defining clear, meaningful objectives
  • Educational objectives can always be employed

Art Objectives and Assessment
  • Teachers emphasize objectives that reflect personal values about art and education, teaching style, and the ages and ability levels, and learning styles of students
  • Differing ability levels and learning modes requires emphasis on different objectives
  • 5 types of art objectives:
-Art production
-Artistic perception
-Art Criticism
-Aesthetics
-Art history


Objectives and Evaluation of Art Production
  • Be specific
  • Stay focused – stress only a few objectives per class period
  • Encourage depth rather than range – increases personal investment in projects


Objectives and Assessment of Artistic Perception
  • Helps students identify elements of beauty and interest in their daily lives
  • Sources for perceptual objectives
-Classroom
-Artworks
-Daily life experience outside the classroom


Objectives and Assessment of Art Criticism
  • Ensures students use language of art appropriately
  • Can be assessed by asking students to identify how art impacts feeling
  • Students should be challenged to identify specific visual details


Objectives and Assessment in Aesthetics
  • Can best be assessed through class discussion about the nature of art
  • Difficult to encapsulate in specific objectives


Objectives and Assessment of Art History Learning
  • Can be evaluated by pencil and paper tests or discussions


Reporting Art Progress to Parents
  • Helpful to list main goals of program
  • Best indication for parents is actual work with teacher comments attached


School Exhibitions as Assessment Tools
  • Enlivens school
  • Always include an explanation of artistic problem and draw attention to different ways students solved it


Formative and Summative Evaluation
  • Summative evaluation-summarizes student's learning and teacher's effectiveness
  • Formative evaluation
-used to diagnose, to revise curricula, and to determine if objectives have been met
-usually done at the end of the academic year
-periodically go over students' work to determine if goals are being met

Self-Assessment
  • Reflect on your own skills, strengths, and weaknesses as a teacher
  • Try using a video camera in the rear of classroom

Notes on A Role for Aesthetics in Centering the K-12 Art Curriculum

Notes on A Role for Aesthetics in Centering the K-12 Art Curriculum


A Role for Aesthetics in Centering the K-12 Art Curriculum
Author(s): Tom Anderson and Sally McRorie
Source: Art Education, Vol. 50, No. 3, Framing the Art Curriculum (May, 1997), pp. 6-14
Published by: National Art Education Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193692
Accessed: 04/09/2009 13:23

“Two critical functions for aesthetics in art education: first, in directing student inquiry; and second, our focus here, in framing curricula and programs”

“Any lesson or curriculum teachers institute comes from what they believe is important to be taught, and the strategies they develop to teach that content.”

FORMALISM
“Formalist approaches to thinking about and making art have been the foundation for most United States college and university programs in the visual arts, including art teacher education, and most K-12 programs as well, at least since the end of World War II (Risatti, 1993). Formalist ideas include emphases upon (1) use of the elements and principles of design, (2) manipulation of materials with focus upon mastery of particular media, and ( 3) originality, all leading to production of objects that have" significant form," or that look good, look well crafted, aren't copies of other work, that in short, look like art with a capital ‘A.’”

"What is art?"
“…formalists emphasize form, how objects look, what materials are used, and what skills and techniques the artist has demonstrated”

“Form is a "universal language "according to formalists, not bound by social customs or ethnocentrism, and it is form to which we respond in a work from an entirely different culture or different time (Bell, 1914).”

"How and why do we value art?
“The best art communicates through appropriates election of elements and principles (color, balance, texture, and the like), and through the artist's technique (painterly surface, smooth patina, and so on) that it is art and not something else. The best art also shows originality.”

“…each good work of art is both a break from tradition (an avant-garde step) and a continuation of the progression of art.”

“Art is valued (and judged) for the qualities that set it apart from the rest of the world, the things that make it intrinsically important (Greenberg, 1986).”

“Formalist aestheticians often claim to have a democratic ideal of universal appreciation in mind in their emphasis on form and its related aspects, claiming these are qualities anyone can ostensibly see (Bell, 1914).”

"What is the function of art?”
“…formalists maintain that art does not have an instrumental function like arithmetic or cooking might, but exists for its own sake”

“…formalism manifested in school art curricula…leads to emphasis on the elements and principles of design”

“It also means emphasis on experimentation with media.”

“The formalist emphasis on originality results in mostly individual projects, where students work alone following the model of the solitary artist, with a well crafted, highly creative work of art as the goal in mind.”

CONTEXTUALISM
“Contextualists believe that the meaning and worth of art can only be determined in the context in which it's made and used.”

“Since art is communication that requires a shared code within a specific cultural matrix, they believe that there are no universal forms or meanings”

“The most extreme instrumentalists think this action should be reconstruction of existing social systems and that the value in art lies in its potential to change society (Lippard, 1990).”

“Nelson Goodman (1968)…argued that not only is there no predetermined meaning for visual and linguistic symbols, but that meanings for the same symbol can be different in different cultures and times because meanings are assigned.”

“George Dickie (1979/1974)…Dickie's socially centered argument held that art was not something that could be defined by looking at its formal or technical qualities, because there is no one set of qualities that can be found universally in all works of art”

“Dickie looked for a definition to the people who made, viewed, and used the work…in a specialized and hierarchical society, it is cultural institutions that speak for various specializations, Dickie claimed that it is the artworld (curators, painters, art historians, gallery owners, art teachers, and so on) that collectively defines art”

“Women, African Americans, and other representatives of cultural minorities have been under-represented in the artworld. They have felt left out of the so-called universal (formalist) agenda and have been the strongest advocates of the instrumental reconstructionists train of contextualism.”

“Many people have felt that the formalist agenda did not allow their stories to be told”

“Most people in most cultures have had very specific and clearly defined extrinsic purposes for art, from very basic function such as holding liquid, to reinforcement of collective beliefs, to propaganda.”

“A contextually oriented art curriculum, then, assumes that art has some purpose beyond being merely decorative or formally adept.”

“What you won't find in a pure contextualist curriculum, then, are technical and design solutions engaged in for their own sake. Pure aesthetic enjoyment is not a justified rationale for making art.”

“Particularly valuable are the development of analytic and interpretive skills which would help students analyze, interpret, and evaluate images.”

“In the contextualist curriculum, whether the activity is interpreting or making artworks, what is most valued is that the work tells us something of significance about the nature of human experience beyond the narrow boundaries of the artworld itself, and in many cases that it has the power to move us to some kind of action.”

“Fundamental human concerns (themes) are used as a framework to organize instruction as opposed to the common formalist practice of organizing curricula around elements and principles of design and/or media and techniques.”

“Ultimately, the final defining characteristic of the contextualist curriculum is that it in some way helps us to understand people through their art rather than art for its own sake.”

CONCLUSION
“By now it should be clear that neither a purely formalist aesthetic position, with its emphases on elements and principles, media exploration, and originality, nor a purely contextualist one, with its emphases on communication and socially relevant subject matter, is adequate to ground a comprehensive art program”

“Therefore, we advocate a pragmatic combination of contextualism and formalism to conceptually center the K-12 art curriculum.”

“Rather, their combination allows for an almost infinite range of highly suitable art curricula that are locally specific, that include themes that fire students' individual imaginations as well as their collaborative social consciences, and that integrate art skills and techniques enabling them to effectively communicate their ideas in visual form.”

“…consider what your centering concepts say to your students, parents, other teachers, principal, community members, and other stakeholders about what art is, what its functions are, and why it should be valued in the schools. In answering these questions, community concerns should be balanced by issues and skills that you, as the art expert, know your students need for a meaningful education in art.”

Notes on Semiotics: Inscribing a Place between Formalism and Contextualism

Notes on Semiotics: Inscribing a Place between Formalism and Contextualism

Drawing on Semiotics: Inscribing a Place between Formalism and Contextualism
Author(s): Carol S. Jeffers
Source: Art Education, Vol. 53, No. 6, Enlarging the Frame (Nov., 2000), pp. 40-45
Published by: National Art Education Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193882
Accessed: 04/09/2009 10:48


“The theories-formalism (universalism) and contextualism-invoke very different conceptions of art; for example, the former values art for art's sake, while the latter embraces the functional value of art”

“As Anderson and McRorie describe, a program skewed in a formalist direction emphasizes "individual creativity, skills development, and compositional excellence," while a contextualist program focuses on "collaborative experience and social issues" (p. 13).”

“More specifically, formalism/universalism is characterized by an essentialist view that sees form as paramount. Indeed, form is self-referential and universally communicates issues of pleasure and beauty to all who respond. The viewer's (and student's) task is to read and appropriate the meanings that reside within these aesthetic forms and to appreciate their intrinsic beauty.”

“Contextualism, as the name suggests, sees context as paramount and holds that the meaning and worth of art can only be determined in the context in which the work was made and used. In this view, the meaning of a work of art does not reside within its form, but rather, is constructed in the context of its cultural, historical, social, or political functions. The viewer's (and student's) task, then, is to construct meanings about the work in these contexts-which themselves have constructed meanings.”

“Anderson and McRorie (1997) go on to say that "neither a purely formalist aesthetic position, with its emphasis on elements and principles, media exploration, and originality, nor a purely contextualist one, with its emphasis on communication and socially-relevant subject matter, is adequate to ground a comprehensive art program" (p. 13). They advocate a combination of the two approaches”

“Semiotics, as a powerful and versatile tool, facilitates our explorations and the process of combining formalist and contextualist approaches.”

“Semiotics is an "approach to understanding the nature of meaning, cognition, culture, behavior, and life itself” (Smith- Shank, 1995, p. 23)”

“Semiotics also can be understood in a somewhat narrower sense as the "systematic study of signs," when signs are understood as "anything-a word, a gesture, an object, [a line]-that represents something or someone" (Danesi, 1994, p. 2). From this perspective, art forms such as drawing, painting, and sculpture are seen as signs and "texts constructed in the visual mode" (Danesi, 1994, p. 77)”


“Developing a Curriculum In-Between”
“Specifically, I introduce these students to (Barbara) Edwards's concept and practice of "analog drawing." Analog drawing involves the use of line only (and avoids the employment of graphic symbols altogether) to represent portraits, problems, or emotions such as anger, joy, love, and depression.”

“Such lines can be read as signs of these emotions.”

“I also asked my students to represent complex and otherwise abstract social issues in analog form”

“Exploring a Place Between”
“To study what actually happened, I submitted the resulting drawings to a group of graduate students who served as independent viewers and raters”

“The raters identified a number of recurring patterns in the representations of the various social issues.”

“Semiotics facilitates understandings of these drawings as signs of student experiences shaped by personal opinion and social values, by this hybridized approach to teaching, learning, and curriculum design, and by individual membership in contemporary American society.”

“Semiotics not only allows for the exploration of this place (a place between formalist/universalist and contextualist theoretical position), it also calls into question the adequacy of either formalism/universalism or contextualism to explain art-making in the classroom”

Notes on Chapter 4: Motivating Students

Notes on Chapter 4: Motivating Students

Successful ways to begin
  • Class discussion about recalling past experience and designing goals for new project
  • Showing visual materials on the theme
  • Viewing examples of previous work
  • Demonstrating the technical process with student participation
  • Use bulletin board or marker board presentation
  • Have a guest speak, perform, or model for students
  • Use poems, stories, chanting, songs, or music

Inspiration for children's art expression

  • School
  • Home
  • Playground activities
  • Visits to special places
  • Nature
  • Science
  • Math
  • Social studies
  • Other arts

Use personal experience
  • make it vivid and meaningful

Recalled experience
  • Tap into memories
  • Use who, how, where when, and why questions to help students recall experience

Direct perception
  • Helps students become "noticers" and "questioners"
  • Ask "What else does it remind you of?"
  • Help students move away from stereotypes
Use recalled experience and direct perception together (i.e. students add things from memories to background of picture from direct perception)


Use still-life materials
  • Use items that interest students
  • Create themes

Use bulletin boards
  • Change often
  • Lets students appreciate work

Use media
  • Use demonstration to intrigue and challenge students
  • Use in combination with other methods

Use timing and pacing
  • Avoid overwhelming students with too many suggestions
  • Introduce new material at beginning of class

Use exhibitions
  • Every student's work should be exhibited during term
  • Use group displays
  • Keep displays neat and organized
  • Hang work at students' eye-level
  • Incorporate the community

Chapter 3 Notes

Notes on Chapter 3 - The Teacher's Role: Strategies and Management

The Teacher's Role
-Guiding students to create and appreciate
-Create a positive climate for inquiry, creativity, and individuality
-This requires purposeful, consistent, and time-consuming effort
-Try all projects/techniques first
-Learn about pop culture and use as motivation
-Guide students to consider aesthetic choices
-Use audiovisual aids as much as possible
  • original art
  • reproductions - include artist's names
  • films (i.e. Art Babble)
  • photographs
  • slides
  • video recordings
  • magazine articles
  • colorfully illustrated books (have an art book corner)
  • show examples of student work
  • kinetic displays

Have a Positive Personality, Build Rapport, and Respect
-Be positive, cheerful and outgoing
-Be patient, calm, resolute, and firm
-Listen to children's descriptions of their experiences, real and imaginary, with sympathetic interest
-Avoid a detached, keep-your-distance approach
-Commitment, concern, and excitement for project must be evident in actions, words, and facial expressions
-Develop empathetic rapport
-Respond intelligently, sympathetically, and purposefully to children's creative efforts
-Evaluate students' work seriously and objectively
-Take students seriously as artists

Get Off to a Good Start

-Begin with a serious, organized approach
-Make classroom orderly, yet inviting, visually stimulating, but not chaotic
  • attractive bulletin-board exhibits
  • found object displays
  • plants
  • art-book displays
  • hobby collections
  • antiques
  • original art works
  • have non-breakable things kids can touch
Strategies for Teaching Art
-Teach nonverbally
  • use written and display materials
  • use whiteboard to outline specific project objectives and motivational presentations
  • post evaluative criteria in the form of questions
  • perfect "the look"
-Plan the distribution, collection, and organization of materials
  • Establish procedures for everything
  • Review procedures often
  • Stay consistent
  • Include students
  • Supply adequate materials for the project at hand
  • (You are NOT the maid!)
-Begin the lesson: Get their attention
  • Greet students at the door
  • Start with a smile
  • Calm students as they enter
  • Have all eyes before speaking
  • Don't start class the same way everyday
-Keep motivation brief
  • 3-5 minutes
  • bring students back with a pointed question, reprimand, or a pause with a meaningful look
  • distribute materials after discussions
-Get design off to a good start
  • first 3 minutes is crucial
  • give specific tasks to hesitant students
-Nurture creativity during the working period
  • look for examples of creative uniqueness
  • model, instruct, reinforce, question, and explain strategies for thinking in new ways
  • show student examples, but don't single out one student or constantly interrupt a working class
-Foster perseverance
  • let projects stretch out over multiple classes
  • continue to make students aware of project objectives
  • create rubric with students
-Combat lagging interest, stimulate extra effort
  • keep students involved-make assignments personally meaningful
  • post process and evaluative criteria on the board
  • encourage students to go further
  • combine praise with suggestions
  • use in-progress work as examples of compositional requirements and variations in expression
  • write brief constructive comments to older students
-Clean-up and evaluate
  • plan procedures in advance
  • use time after clean-up for evaluation or summing up

Manage Class by Teacher's Presence
-Be aware of what is going on in room and move strategically at critical times (never turn back to class)
-Move among students during studio activity
-Make clear that unruly behavior will not be tolerated
-Be serious
-Discipline and Redirect
  • admonish student and tell them that infraction will be discussed after class
  • use redirection and positive reinforcement to calm a talking class (i.e. hold up a student's work, emphasize an aspect of the project that needs amplification)