VISUAL ARTS

VISUAL ARTS

Purpose of Visual Arts

The K-12 visual arts program in the public schools:

• uses the elements of art and the principles of design as a foundation for exploring visual arts concepts and processes
• employs developmentally appropriate processes for teaching and learning that are based on activity-oriented methods.
• encourages disciplined creativity by using higher level critical thinking skills to identify problems, explore original solutions, and complete the problem solving process. This has practical application not only in visual arts, but in all areas of the curriculum and for life-long learning.
• utilizes reading, writing and math to explore art concepts and facilitate learning in these three areas.
• develops and promotes self-expression.
• makes enriching connections between and integrates visual arts and other curriculum areas.
• expands aesthetic and intellectual awareness through reading, writing, listening, researching, discussing, critiquing and reflective thinking.
• teaches how to use both traditional media and incorporates new technology to create art that is individual and expressive.
• builds knowledge and understanding of ideas, values, and beliefs of people in different times throughout history as communicated through visual art with the goal of developing visually literate students.
• challenges students to recognize their own ideas, values and beliefs and communicate them through visual arts.

Strands

The following strands run throughout the visual arts program and are guiding concepts for visual arts study at every grade level and in each high school course. For the purposes of this study, they are listed and defined as follows:

• Perceiving - To develop a conscious awareness of sensory stimuli.
• Producing - To use art media, tools and processes to communicate content, ideas and themes.
• Knowing - To identify, appreciate and/or understand the historical/cultural context, content and processes of art as it relates to the self and others.
• Communicating - To initiate an interchange of ideas through means of artistic expression that may include any or all of the multiple intelligences ( verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, body/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal )
• Evaluating - An intuitive, informal or formal, critical response that results in an understanding or conclusion. A formal critical assessment includes describing, analyzing, interpreting, judging and reflecting. An intuitive informal assessment is based on personal likes and dislikes.
• Connecting - To discover and understand integral, intrinsic relationships among other disciplines, life, individuals, ideas, skills and all learning.

Definition

Visual arts is a term used for a broad category of different types of art. This category may include the traditional fine arts such as drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture; communication and design arts such as film, television, graphics, and product design; architecture and environmental arts such as urban, interior, and landscape; folk arts; and works of art such as ceramics, fibers, jewelry as well as works in wood, paper, and other materials.

Basis for Visual Arts

From the beginning of time, the compulsion to create a visual vocabulary has been as innate in every society as the desire to acquire a system of spoken symbols. Visual art from past civilizations is frequently one of the few remaining clues with the power to illuminate which values were held most dear. As we rediscover these fragments of mankind's puzzle and attempt to piece together our common humanity, the undeniable power of visual expression is an immutable and triumphant message. Today, every aspect of our designed environment will serve to explain who we are to those of the future.

If we study the growth and development of an individual child, the pattern of society to develop a multi-sensory means of communicating symbols and values is then clearly revealed as a reflection of the maturation process of every member of every society. A child discovers objects, those objects take on meaning, and this meaning is denoted and communicated through the various means of expression available to that child. The goal in educating every child must be to allow each to develop the most complete expression of self and potential, an expression that can occur only if all the senses are involved. In acquiring an education, the senses know no curricular boundaries. The purpose of education is to aid in the development of all children, that all children must be allowed to reach their full potential, and that this can only be accomplished by encouraging the use of all the communication skills they have as their birthright. Thus, the visual arts program seeks to provide visual literacy for every child by promoting fluency in the various modes of visual communication to include studio production, art history, aesthetics and criticism. Students learn the characteristics of visual arts by using a wide range of subject matter, media and means to express their ideas, emotions and knowledge. They evaluate the merits of their efforts and this assessment forms the basis for further growth that extends to all disciplines in school and to life in general.

Sequence of Visual Arts

The program outlined in this document is structured both to accomplish specific art objectives and embrace integrated concepts. To meet the Visual Arts Program goals for each grade, students must be able to understand and apply concepts that become sequentially more complex.

Visual arts education is a multifaceted creative process. It includes the development of perceptual awareness and the ability to use materials expressively. In addition, creative and critical thinking are taught and identified as: generative, imaginative, metaphorical, analytical, synthetic, and collaborative. These components of the creative process are taught by using a variety of approaches that integrate history/appreciation, aesthetics, criticism, production of artwork, as well as reading and writing. As a result of visual arts study, students develop a life-long process for problem solving that has direct relevance to all other disciplines. Through participation in visual arts, students have the opportunity to recognize and celebrate the creativity and diversity inherent in all of us.

Program Continuity

Throughout the curriculum objectives progress from one grade level to the next K-12. Some objectives may recur at more than one grade level; however, the content, instruction, student outcomes, and evaluation methods should increase in sophistication at each grade level, or whenever differentiation is appropriate. Teachers should modify objectives appropriately to meet the instructional and developmental needs of each student.

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