Developing Meaningful Lessons Based on Works of Art

Celebration could be the enduring idea of this Chinese folk painting.

What are some of the benefits of students learning about artists and artworks? They can develop personal meanings through the historical, critical, and aesthetic content of works of art. They can recognize that artists consciously choose media and techniques to express particular ideas.  They can develop an understanding and appreciation of an artist’s challenges, ideas, and skill through the use of the elements of art and the principles of design, and they can develop an understanding of art and appreciation of an artist's challenges, ideas, and skill through experimentation with art media and techniques. They can understand that art media and techniques in the artworks artists produce reflect the technology and belief systems of the time period and culture in which they are created.

There is no benefit in having students copy the work of artists. The result may be the recognition of an artist or artwork, but that knowledge will be at the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy. A much richer approach (with higher level thinking) is to focus on the enduring understandings, big ideas, or key concepts represented in the work. Students can then develop their own art based on these concepts and their own experiences. The new national standards for the arts, due to be released in March, are based on these kinds of concepts and should provide helpful guidance in teaching through this approach.

Approaches Centered on Works of Art

• Utilize images of artworks in significant ways. Involve students in activities which are centered around the main ideas and most significant aspects of the work(s) being studied instead of a purely product-oriented activity.

• Encourage students to discover and explore the meaning of the art object. Identify and investigate why the materials and tools used were chosen by the artist.

• Identify and investigate how the materials and tools used by the artist contribute to the understanding of an artwork's meaning;

• Design appropriate art making activities around the artwork that allows students an opportunity to make authentic art decisions and improve their individual art making skills without copying the source artworks.

• Promote individual expression that culminates in a variety of solutions rather than cookie-cutter finished products. Art making activities that allow individual students to think like artists will result in a wide variety of solutions and products. In no case should student work look like a copy of the artwork of focus.

North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts