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National Standards for Arts Education
The goal of the Art
curriculum is to present “a balance between Fine Arts techniques and
Crafts skills and …between the two dimensional and three-dimensional
qualities in art works”. Our focus is primarily on realism. The
middle school youngster wants his/her work to look real. This
perception is balanced with art appreciation slides and museum field
trips that serve to broaden the student’s view and educate his/her eye.
Art history/appreciation weaves its way throughout our program as Art
weaves its way throughout our lives.
The HKMS curriculum
incorporates the following six Content Standards designed by the Visual
Arts Curriculum Committee; the standards are based on the National
Standards for Arts Education:
Content Standard #1
Students will understand, select and apply media, techniques and
processes.
Content Standard #2
Students will understand and apply elements and organizational
principles of art.
Content Standard #3
Students will consider, select and apply a range of subject matter,
symbols and ideas.
Content Standard #4
Students will understand the visual arts in relation to history and
culture.
Content Standard #5
Students will reflect upon, describe, analyze, interpret and evaluate
their own and others’ work.
Content Standard #6
Students will make connections between the visual arts and other
disciplines.
Sixth, Seventh and
Eighth grade classes are scheduled to attend ART on a trimester
rotational basis. Fifth grade classes meet once every three days for
the full year.
Sixth
Grade
In order to promote
an understanding of the concepts and techniques employed in the visual
arts, students combine Art vocabulary with practical, hands-on
application of each concept via a variety of media. Students use pen
and ink, graphite, colored pencils and markers in addition to mixing
tempera paints in order to achieve a working understanding of the color
wheel. Various clay techniques and projects encourage students to
explore the concept of three dimensions.
The focus for the
art appreciation unit is Edgar Degas, the impressionist style paintings
and other artists as they relate to classroom projects.
Seventh
Grade
Our students “learn
how to draw” via the grid method and drawing the other- half
method. Drawing is a preliminary exercise essential to a multitude
of media in general and to our watercolor unit in particular.
Watercolor serves as a springboard into our art appreciation unit.
Winslow Homer is the focus of a slide/lecture presentation. The slides
acquaint students with the works of one of America’s greatest watercolor
artists while reinforcing the student’s understanding of the watercolor
media. Thus, art history is woven into the curriculum without taking on
the characteristics of an academic study.
Students explore the
three-dimensional through creative pottery design and coloration.
For computer
appreciation as well as color interaction, students use the Microsoft
“PAINT” program to experiment with Joseph Albers’ color action theory
and composition. They apply color theory when making a beautiful string
art design.
As part of our
Writing Across the Curriculum program, students critique a Vincent Van Gogh post impressionist painting. Their
writings are surprisingly insightful.
Eighth
Grade
The course begins
with the grid method of drawing as a method to reinforce skills that
were acquired in the seventh grade. Students then choose one of their
drawings and enlarge it onto a Luan board. Students then colorize it
with a medium of their choice.
Students will be
introduced to Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and the Pop Art style with
its ramifications in both the fine art and commercial art worlds. They
will then design a Pop Art painting for exhibition.
The silk screen unit offers students the
opportunity to design and print their own T-shirts. The students, as a
class, will be responsible for the production of the Eighth grade
Pancake Breakfast T-shirts and the Spaghetti Dinner T-shirts.
The three-dimensional experience in art
will be addressed in the realistic rendering of a portrait in self-
hardening clay on an armature wire and block pedestal.
In April, the Art and French language
students will visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC where they will
view original paintings with a focus on the French Impressionists.
We will lunch at La bonne Soupe for delicious French food. In May,
the Art and Spanish language students will visit the new MoMA and focus
their visit on the Spanish artists' works, particularly Pablo Picasso.
We will lunch at Victor's Café 52 restaurant, a famous Cuban restaurant.
Writing Across the
Curriculum is an integral part of our program. Art students are asked
to write a critique of a Romare Bearden painting.
The computer lab
allows our students to access the Art Gallery CD ROM that serves
as a research source for information on the lives and styles of
pertinent artists. Students choose an artist from the Impressionist
period and research his life, painting technique, and personal style. |
