36 Week High School Lesson Matrix: General Art Narrative Overview

My 36 week high school curriculum is designed to help teach students various fundamental skills while allowing them to explore a number of different media. Throughout completion of the 14 planned lessons, students will learn foundations related to: composition and balance, value, line and tonality, perspective, the color wheel, color harmony, form, digital imaging, portraiture, texture, the elements and principles of design, form and material manipulation, and action, performance, and gesture. All of such foundations are related to essential art skills. Gaining such knowledge is vital for students if they wish to be taken seriously within the contemporary art world. I want for students within my course to master these skills so that they may begin to feel a sense of pride as artists. Students will work with media including: collage, charcoal, recycled linoleum and ink, colored pencils, acrylic paints, Saran wrap, photography, oil paints, clay and glaze, silkscreen Tshirts and ink, found-objects, and performance. Exploring such a broad array of media will allow each student to find a way of working with which he or she feels comfortable. This will allow art to seem more accessible to students, and thus to become a subject to be embraced rather than rejected. Each lesson within this curriculum is designed to incorporate not only a studio project, but also a brief discussion on art history and/or aesthetics and art criticism. Students will also be asked to consider diversity and visual culture within these lessons. In addition, for each project, students will complete a journal activity designed to enhance their learning. Students will be encouraged to discuss both western and non-western artists, both male and female, traditional and contemporary. This will offer students a well-rounded approach to learning, which will

leave an impact upon them long after their schooling. My 36 week high school curriculum will also focus upon the theme of identity. Students will participate in projects which help to foster both personal interests and individual empowerment. Throughout the assigned projects, students will examine self-schemas, and objects and issues of personal interest. Within this particular course, students will consider: selfesteem, personal products, individual environmental issues, personal imprisonment, individual artist tags, identification through individual poses, personal roles within group work, individual concerns about endangered species, individual human rights issues, personal relation to recycling, and relation of the self to others. Overall, this course is designed to allow students to gain confidence in their ability to create fundamentally sound, meaningful works of art. As students explore various foundations and media, they will develop a sense of working that they can embrace which is completely their own. Throughout this process, students will learn about themselves as individuals. More importantly, though, they will learn how they personally relate to society and the larger world around them. Students in this course will be challenged to take risks with their art. Whether or not these students pursue their interests in art, this curriculum will help to shape students into critical thinkers. This course follows the Art for Life approach, allowing students to create awareness and understanding via art.