Visual Arts Standards

Acknowledgments

Madison Metropolitan School District Visual Arts Standards Committee:

Grades K-5 Visual Arts:

• Richard Davis -- Mendota Elementary
• Katharine Goray -- Lincoln Elementary
• Randy Hopkins -- Shorewood Elementary
• Lee Kleeman -- Thoreau Elementary
• Susan Klein -- Huegel Elementary
• Susan Moberly -- Franklin Elementary

Middle School Visual Arts:

• Mary Ann Emmerton -- Jefferson Middle School
• Richard Jensen -- Toki Middle School

High School Visual Arts:

• John Currie -- Memorial High School
• Don Hunt -- West High School

Committee Facilitator:

• Mariel Wozniak -- Coordinator of Fine Arts

The Visual Arts Standards committee referred to the National Standards for Arts Education (MENC, 1994) as a model from which to create the district's standards. The committee refined the expectations for the primary and intermediate levels and clarified those for the middle, high school, and advanced levels for this district. It extends its gratitude to the visual arts educators across the nation who contributed to the national standards as well as the district's visual arts faculty who reviewed Madison's standards and offered their suggestions. The document standardizes the expanding practice of our outstanding teachers as they respond to learners' abilities and their needs into the 21st century.

Intent of Visual Arts Education

Definition:

The Visual Arts are an essential part of human existence. They communicate ideas, feelings, and experiences into meaningful visual expressions. Through the use of a medium and the simple elements of line, form, space, color, and texture, people from earliest recorded history have created art. It is all around us. It appears in nature, in the imitation of nature, and in original expressions. One of the most revealing ways that people share their culture is through the arts which are as varied as the cultures that create it. The different forms of visual art reflect what is happening in a nation and in the world. It exists in the form and function of everything on the market and its importance is sometimes taken for granted in the design of such things as apparel, furniture, appliances, technology, vehicles, etc.

Purpose:

Art is universal because it transcends barriers which can exist in the spoken and written word. Through art, the common threads of humanity and cultural differences are recognized and appreciated. In a world which depends so much on accurate visual interpretation, learners need to interpret the visual experience through an understanding of other subject matter, symbols and ideas.

The visual arts give balance to human existence. They are a means used to convey people's emotional reactions to others and the life around them. Art permits people to express who they are and what they feel about the world they live in. It establishes their identity in a particular place and at a particular time. They are a means of caring for and preserving the life of the human spirit. Because the nation's population is more diverse, understanding and communication across nations and cultures is essential. Students need to understand the function and structure of the visual arts, the relationship to human history and cultures, and the connections between the visual arts and other disciplines.

The "Goals 2000: Educate America Act" was approved by both houses of Congress in 1994 and established the arts as a core subject among the disciplines in which every American should demonstrate competence. It is studied for itself and for the profound effect it has on facilitating the learning of spatial concepts needed in architecture and geometry, and on the creativity which is essential to development in science and engineering. Additionally, the study of visual arts assists consumers in understanding how art and its elements affect people and how they are used commercially to influence the cognition, behavior, and the environment.

Characteristics:

Art education makes a unique contribution to a student's experience. It facilitates the ability to communicate in a nonverbal manner and to develop and expand problem solving skills. It fosters the development of craftsmanship and encourages perception, reflection, and production. The act of creating art involves people on many levels of thinking and modes of learning. It offers learning opportunities to students of all mental and physical ability levels and ages. The eye, hand, and mind act in concert in the creation of art.

A well-balanced curriculum and the instruction of art includes the following areas of study in the K-12 art program: drawing, painting, printing, sculpture, ceramics, environmental design and architecture, art metal, commercial art, photography, cinegraphics, fiber art, and viewing and responding. Students are taught to know and apply the principles of movement or rhythm, balance, contrast, emphasis, unity, and repetition to their art.

Wisconsin Statutes PI 8.01(2)(j)(k)(l) require that regular visual arts classes, which follow a comprehensive curriculum, be taught by a visual arts specialist from kindergarten through eighth grade in the elementary schools, and through the sixth grade in middle schools. Thereafter, each school district is required to offer art courses as electives through high school.

These visual arts standards provide unified expectations for students and inform the community of what a person who is literate in visual arts knows and can do at each level of development.

Visual Arts Standards

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Sees creative possibilities in all internal and external images within their environment through the process of making artworks.
2. Uses insightful observations over time to reflect their abilities, interests and talents.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Gathers information from a variety of sources and stimuli; applies that information to create artworks.
2. Uses insightful observations over time to reflect their abilities, interests and talents.

Intermediate Performance Standards

1. Uses insightful observations over time to reflect their abilities, interests, and talents.
2. Understands art as a form of visual communication.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Explores and understands prospective content for works of art.
2. Understands art as a form of visual communication.

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Makes and uses a plan of creative action and defines the steps necessary to carry it out.
2. Identifies a variety of singular characteristics from a variety of sources to analyze, apply and create new ideas.
3. Describes how different materials, techniques, and processes can result in different visual expressions.
4. Expresses oneself freely with an awareness of multiple solutions without fear of failure.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Expresses oneself freely with an awareness of multiple solutions without fear of failure.
2. Formulates problems, eliminates ineffective information, and forms creative solutions.
3. Identifies a variety of singular characteristics from a variety of sources to analyze, apply, and create new ideas.
4. Describes how different materials, techniques, and processes can result in different visual expressions.

Intermediate Performance Standards

1. Describes how different materials, techniques, and processes can result in different visual expressions.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Knows that there is a range of different qualities to materials, techniques, and processes.

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Understands the nature and properties of materials and tools and uses compositional principles, elements of design, expressive features, and sensory qualities in designing their artworks.
2. Recognizes visual systems and demonstrates their importance in creating artworks.
3. Employs organizational structures and analyzes what makes them effective or not effective in the communication of ideas.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Devises and applies a plan to create artwork.
2. Recognizes visual systems and demonstrates their importance in creating artworks.
3. Employs organizational structures and analyzes what makes them effective or not effective in the communication of ideas.

Intermediate Performance Standards:

1. Knows the differences among visual characteristics and purposes of art in order to convey ideas.
2. Experiences and identifies that features and elements of art cause different visual results.
3. Describes how different expressive features and principles cause different responses.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Experiences and identifies that features and elements of art cause different visual results.
2. Describes how different expressive features and principles cause different responses.

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Implements their designs into creating images and objects that communicate and express their ideas using varied media, techniques, and processes so that their artwork has both aesthetic and functional qualities.
2. Communicates ideas regularly at a high level of effectiveness in at least one visual arts medium.
3. Selects and uses the qualities of structures and functions of art to improve communication of their ideas.
4. Generalizes about the effects of visual structures and functions and reflects upon these effects in their own work.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Selects media, techniques, and processes; analyzes what makes them effective or not effective in communicating ideas; and reflects upon the effectiveness of their choices.
2. Intentionally takes advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of their experiences and ideas.
3. Selects and uses the qualities of structures and functions of art to improve communication of their ideas.
4. Generalizes about the effects of visual structures and functions and reflects upon these in their own work.

Intermediate Performance Standards:

1. Uses different media, techniques and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Knows the differences between materials, techniques, and processes.

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Uses art materials and tools in a safe, responsible and skillful manner.
2. Makes artwork that meets the craftsmanship requirements of each specific media, tools, and techniques.
3. Demonstrates technical proficiency in a variety of media.
4. Follows directions, interprets and executes those directions, without creative compromise and evaluates results.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Uses art materials and tools in a safe, responsible and skillful manner.
2. Creates a quality product applying craftsmanship as dictated by best personal effort.
3. Demonstrates technical proficiency in a variety of media.
4. Follows directions, interprets and executes those directions without creative compromise and evaluates results.

Intermediate Performance Standards:

1. Uses art materials and tools in a safe, responsible and skillful manner.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Uses art materials and tools in a safe, responsible, and skillful manner.

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Correlates responses to works of visual art with various techniques for communicating meanings, ideas, attitudes, views, and intentions.
2. Analyzes contemporary and historic meanings in specific artworks through cultural and aesthetic inquiry.
3. Describes and compares a variety of individual responses to their own artworks and to artworks from various eras and cultures.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Compares multiple purposes for creating works of art.
2. Analyzes contemporary and historic meanings in specific artworks through cultural and aesthetic inquiry.
3. Describes and compares a variety of individual responses to their own artworks from various eras and cultures.

Intermediate Performance Standards:

1. Understands there are various purposes for creating works of visual art.
2. Describes how people's experiences influence the development of specific art works.
3. Understands that there are different responses to specific artworks.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Understands that there are various purposes for creating works of visual art.
2. Understands how people's experiences influence the development of specific art works.
3. Understands that there are different responses to specific artworks.

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Describes the origins of specific images and ideas and explains why they are of value in one's artwork and in the work of others.
2. Evaluates and defends the validity of sources for content and the manner in which subject matter, symbols, and images are used in one's works and in significant works by others.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Integrates visual, spatial, and temporal concepts with content to communicate intended meaning in their artworks.
2. Uses subjects, themes, and symbols that demonstrate knowledge of contexts, values, and aesthetics that communicate intended meanings in artworks.

Intermediate Performance Standards:

1. Selects and uses subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.
2. Understands that different subject matter, symbols and ideas communicate meaning.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Understands and uses subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.
2. Understands that different subject matter, symbols, and ideas communicate meaning.

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Differentiates among a variety of historical and cultural contexts in terms of characteristics and purposes of works of art.
2. Describes the functions and explores the meaning of specific art objects within varied cultures, times, and places.
3. Analyzes relationships of works of art to one another in terms of history, aesthetics, and culture, justifying conclusions made in the analysis and using such conclusions to inform their own art making.
4. Analyzes and interprets artworks for relationships among form, context, purposes, and critical models showing understanding of the work of critics, historians, aestheticians, and artists.
5. Analyzes common characteristics of visual arts evident across time and among cultural/ethnic groups to formulate analyses, evaluations, and interpretations of meaning.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Knows and compares the characteristics of artworks in various eras and cultures.
2. Describes and places a variety of art objects in historical and cultural contexts.
3. Analyzes, describes, and demonstrates 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.

Intermediate Performance Standards:

1. Knows that the visual arts have both a history and specific relationships to various cultures.
2. Identifies specific works of art as belonging to particular cultures, times and places.
3. Demonstrates how history, culture, and the visual arts can influence each other in making and studying works of art.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Knows that the visual arts have both a history and specific relationships to various cultures.

Elective:

High School Performance Standards:

1. Compares the materials, technologies, media, and processes of the visual arts with those of other arts disciplines as they are used in creation and types of analysis.
2. Compares characteristics of visual arts within a particular historical period or style with ideas, issues, or themes in the humanities or sciences.
3. Synthesizes the creative and analytical principles and techniques of the visual arts and selected other arts disciplines, the humanities, or the sciences.

Required for all Students:

Middle School Performance Standards:

1. Compares the characteristics of works in two or more art forms that share similar subject matter, historical periods, or cultural context.
2. Describes ways in which the principles and subject matter of other disciplines taught in the school are interrelated with the visual arts.

Intermediate Performance Standards:

1. Understands the similarities and differences between visual arts and other arts disciplines.
2. Identifies connections between the visual arts and other disciplines in the curriculum.

Primary Performance Standards:

1. Understands and uses similarities and differences between characteristics of the visual arts and other arts disciplines.

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Updated: August 24, 2005 11:11 AM
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