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Lesson Plans


Re: CURRICULUM ISSUES: THEMES

[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]
Teresa Tipton (ttipton.wa.us)
Sat, 1 Mar 1997 11:55:10 -0800 (PST)

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I think of a theme as an overarching concept which links separate "subject
matter" together. Your example is a good one to illustrate this as long
as them you add in some other types of "war and peace" expressions. For
example, to be a literalist, use Tolstoy's "War and Peace" as a literary
expression of the same "theme" with different "subject matter."

Teresa Tipton

On Fri, 28 Feb 1997, Patricia J. Miltner wrote:

> This message responds to ArtsEdNet website Curriculum Issues Seminar on
> Our Place In the World, Dr.Erickson's Curriculum Resource. As I browsed
> the list of themes in Activity One: Thinking About Themes, a question
> came to mind initiated by a student. How is a theme different from
> subject matter? She thought that subject matter was a subject that
> mattered(what the art is about). The theme is the main or BIG IDEA(all
> people know about this)that can travel across time and place. Would
> subject matter then include still life, portrait, landscape, sensory
> properties, genre???? Her example....Pippin's Holy Mountain is a
> landscape, that is the subject matter, but the big idea, the theme, is
> war and peace. Does anyone have other ideas as to how to explain this to
> students?????????
>
> art is art is art is art is art is art is art is art is art is art is art is
> Pat Miltner
> Dr. Eugene Skinner Magnet Center
> 4304 North 33rd Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68111
>
>
>
>

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