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Lesson Plans


Re: Art Level vs. Art Ability

[ Thread ][ Subject ][ Author ][ Date ]
Woody Duncan (wduncan)
Sun, 05 Sep 1999 08:37:15 -0500

Sharon,
Do what is best for the students and their needs. Unless you are in a
very unusual situation,
no one but you or the students are going to know or care what you teach.
Unfortunately, art is
assessed by keeping students and the mess in the classroom and in part "hopefully"
by the displays you put up in the halls.
Woody in KC

Sharon Barrett Kennedy wrote:
>
> First, thanks to all who have written making suggestions re: the structure
> and scope in HS curriculum (as well as all of my other questions since
> joining this list!); your responses are greatly appreciated!
>
> Now here's something else that's got me going at the beginning of this
> school year:
>
> My Art I, II and III students are often in the same class period. I teach
> at a small private school (after 7 years in a large public elementary
> school) so there are often scheduling conflicts, and electives get shuffled
> around quite a bit.
>
> We just finished up our first week of school and I had ALL of them fill out
> an interest questionnaire which included : "On the back of this sheet,
> please draw a house, person and tree." I also had all of them design and
> make a portfolio out of posterboard which had to incorporate their name,
> either in a graphic/logo design OR in a design which reflects their
> interests.
>
> While I've offered some help, made a few suggestions, etc., the purpose of
> the questionnaire and portfolio (aside from being functional) was to
> establish a "baseline" in order to give me the chance to see where these
> kids are, both with their art skills and their writing ability.
>
> What I've found is that some kids who are at the Art I level have skills
> that are much more highly advanced than some of the Art II or III students,
> and some of the students in the Art II/III levels would benefit from some of
> the basic things I'd planned to cover in Art I. Again, bear in mind that
> I've got a mix of students in each class, any way. I also have pretty high
> percentage of ESL students, some of whom have incredible art skills but are
> going to struggle, mightily, with some of the required written work at ANY
> level.
>
> In some ways it's tempting to throw out the whole art "level" concept and
> just gear instruction towards individual abilities, but I don't think I
> could do that..... Dunno.
>
> So--how do you handle this?
>
> Thanks (again!!)
>
> Sharon

-- 
This E-mail message is from Artist/Teacher Woody Duncan
             Rosedale Middle School in Kansas City, Kansas
the new URL for school is http://kancrn.kckps.k12.ks.us/user04
   to see my beautiful grandkids Tim, Tess and Tiff click on
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                         click on wduncan
 better yet visit my Web Site at http://www.taospaint.com