MIDDLE SCHOOL
Barbara Weiss
Jacob, emulated artist: LeRoy Neiman
For this year-long endeavor, we begin at the end of seventh grade with a trip to the Cleveland Art Museum. Starting just before the Renaissance, we travel through the galleries, and students are introduced to the periods, movements, and schools of art, ending with contemporary painting.
Over the summer, students have an assignment that introduces them to researching artists. Each student must choose three artists who were born one hundred years apart and respond to the following prompts:
Starting with Research
We use Google Docs, and I am available to assist students in their research throughout the summer. The assignment is due the first day of eighth-grade art. Required resources include Janson’s History of Art and The Oxford Dictionary of Art, as well as specific websites. It is important to limit resources since there are so many opinions about certain artists. For example, van Gogh can be called a Symbolist or an Impressionist, but Post-Impressionism suits him best. The resources I suggest have fairly consistent information for most artists.
Studentsʼ paintings attract many a passer-by, and their parents are extremely proud, as is their teacher.
The second week of the new school year finds us back in the museum. This time we focus on specific painters, once again traveling from the Renaissance to the present. Students are asked to choose an artist they would like to study, present, and emulate in a work of art.
Class Presentations
Once the artists are chosen, with no duplicates, in-depth research begins. Each student is expected to speak in front of a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation that they have created using a minimum of twelve slides to tell the class about the life and work of their chosen artist. If they are going to speak the words, those words canʼt appear on the slide, and images are imperative.
The student audience is required to take notes on each artist. They have access to a study guide, which is a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation of each of the painters being studied.
Following the last presentation, I give them an art history exam with seventy questions that test them on the painter and the period associated with each image projected. The exam also includes student-written questions.
Preview Mode - Subscribe to unlock full content
SchoolArts Magazine
A national art education magazine committed to promoting excellence, advocacy, and professional support for educators in the visual arts.