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National Visual Arts Standards
Grades 5 - 8
Except as noted,the standards in this section describe the cumulative
skills and knowledge expected of all students upon exiting grade
8. Students in grades 5-7 should engage in developmentally appropriate
learning experiences to prepare them to achieve these standards
at grade 8. These standards presume that the students have achieved
the standards specified for grades K-4; they assume that the students
will demonstrate higher levels of the expected skills and knowledge,
will deal with increasingly complex art works, and will provide
more sophisticated responses to works of art. Determining the curriculum
and the specific instructional activities necessary to achieve the
standards is the responsibility of states, local school districts,
and individual teachers.
Students in grades 5-8 continue to need a framework that aids them
in learning the characteristics of the visual arts by using a wide
range of subject matter, symbols, meaningful images, and visual
expressions. They grow ever more sophisticated in their need to
use the visual arts to reflect their feelings and emotions and in
their abilities to evaluate the merits of their efforts. These standards
provide that framework in a way that promotes the students' thinking,
working, communicating, reasoning, and investigating skills and
provides for their growing familiarity with the ideas, concepts,
issues, dilemmas, and knowledge important in the visual arts. As
students gain this knowledge and these skills, they gain in their
ability to apply the knowledge and skills in the visual arts to
their widening personal worlds.
These standards present educational goals. It is the responsibility
of practitioners to choose among the array of possibilities offered
by the visual arts to accomplish specific educational objectives
in specific circumstances. The visual arts offer the richness of
drawing and painting, sculpture, and design; architecture, film,
and video; and folk arts--all of these can be used to help students
achieve the standards. For example, students could create works
in the medium of videotape, engage in historical and cultural investigations
of the medium, and take part in analyzing works of art produced
on videotape. The visual arts also involve varied tools, techniques,
and processes--all of which can play a role in students' achieving
the standards, as well.
To meet the standards, students must learn vocabularies and concepts
associated with various types of work in the visual arts. As they
develop increasing fluency in visual, oral, and written communication,
they must exhibit their greater artistic competence through all
of these avenues.
In grades 5-8, students' visual expressions become more individualistic
and imaginative. The problem-solving activities inherent in art
making help them develop cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skills.
They select and transform ideas, discriminate, synthesize and appraise,
and they apply these skills to their expanding knowledge of the
visual arts and to their own creative work. Students understand
that making and responding to works of visual art are inextricably
interwoven and that perception, analysis, and critical judgment
are inherent to both.
Their own art making becomes infused with a variety of images and
approaches. They learn that preferences of others may differ from
their own. Students refine the questions that they ask in response
to artworks. This leads them to an appreciation of multiple artistic
solutions and interpretations. Study of historical and cultural
contexts gives students insights into the role played by the visual
arts in human achievement. As they consider examples of visual art
works within historical contexts, students gain a deeper appreciation
of their own values, of the values of other people, and the connection
of the visual arts to universal human needs, values, and beliefs.
They understand that the art of a culture is influenced by aesthetic
ideas as well as by social, political, economic, and other factors.
Through these efforts, students develop an understanding of the
meaning and importance of the visual world in which they live.
1. CONTENTS STANDARD:
Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes
ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS: STUDENTS
a. select media, techniques, and processes; analyze
what makes them effective or not effective in communicating ideas;
and reflect upon the effectiveness of their choices
b. intentionally take advantage of the qualities
and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance
2. CONTENTS STANDARD:
Using knowledge of structures and
functions
ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS: STUDENTS
a. generalize about the effects of visual structures
and functions and reflect upon these effects in their own work
b. employ organizational structures and analyze
what makes them effective or not effective in the communication
of ideas
c. select and use the qualities of structures and
functions of art to improve communication of their ideas
3. CONTENTS STANDARD:
Choosing and evaluating a range of
subject matter, symbols and ideas
ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS: STUDENTS
a. integrate visual, spatial, and temporal concepts
with content to communicate intended meaning in their artworks
b. use subjects, themes, and symbols that demonstrate
knowledge of contexts, values, and aesthetics that communicate intended
meaning in artworks
4. CONTENTS STANDARD:
Understanding the visual arts in relation
to history and cultures
ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS: STUDENTS
a. know and compare the characteristics of artworks
in various eras and cultures
b. describe and place a variety of art objects
in historical and cultural contexts
c. analyze, describe, and demonstrate how factors
of time and place (such as climate, resources, ideas, and technology)
influence visual characteristics that give meaning and value to
a work of art
5. CONTENTS STANDARD:
Reflecting upon and assessing the
characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others
ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS: STUDENTS
a. compare multiple purposes for creating works
of art
b. analyze contemporary and historic meanings in
specific artworks through cultural and aesthetic inquiry
c. describe and compare a variety of individual
responses to their own artworks and to artworks from various eras
and cultures
6. CONTENTS STANDARD:
Making connections between visual
arts and other disciplines
ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS: STUDENTS
a. compare the characteristics of works in two
or more art forms that share similar subject matter, historical
periods, or cultural context
b. describe ways in which the principles and subject
matter of other disciplines taught in the school are interrelated
with the visual arts
GRADES K - 4
GRADES 9 -
12
WHAT ARE THE NATIONAL
VISUAL ARTS STANDARDS?
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