A museum field trip should be the highlight of every art appreciation course. Through this experience, students are introduced to the museum as a source for authentic, original art and for scholarship, education, and entertainment. A well-planned field trip achieves this objective through the use and modification of eight components: (1)…

This annotated bibliography contains about 50 books dating from 1960 through 1974 that deal mainly with art history. Many of them state the motives and ideas expressed by various artists and the techniques employed in the construction of each work of art. The books can easily be adapted to a social science program or used in an art appreciation…

The Clementine Hunter Black History Month Exhibition (Natchitoches, Louisiana) was a successful demonstration that five objectives can be achieved with a zero budget and teamwork. Objective 1 demonstrated that specially designed cultural and extracurricular events can be used as tools for retaining black students on a predominantly white college…

Through the use of a visual literacy process of instruction as an initial stage in perceiving and creating, beginning college art students can acquire knowledge and skills for completing successful drawings. This process includes the following steps: selecting a simple and familiar subject; studying the entire form of the subject; looking for big…

Deals with differences between drawing in art class and in other subjects. Points out that the latter are considered serious learning while learning promoted by art class is often dismissed. Advocates both rational analysis of art and the imaginative extension of such rational art as maps and diagrams to promote visual literacy. (KO)

Discusses the REAP (Reviewing Education and the Arts Project) Report, a quantitative meta-analysis of arts education studies of the last 50 years. Finds little quantitative support that the arts improve reading skills, but finds a strong link between classroom drama and various language outcomes. Discusses the nature and direction of arts…

Both teacher and student editions of a guide for a tour of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, designed for students in an intensive English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program at Temple University (Pennsylvania) are presented here. They were intended to provide a content-based tour of a local art museum for university ESL students that ESL teachers…

Seeks to clarify why drawing traditionally holds a central place in the art school program. Outlines what is meant by the Renaissance concept of drawing and how the role of drawing has changed over the centuries. (KM)

Contends that art therapy promotes mental health beyond diagnosing and treating illness. Outlines four overlapping ways that art contributes to mental health: (1) giving people a sense of identity and place; (2) conferring status; (3) expanding and directing thought processes; and (4) utilizing the security of the rhythmic "takeover"…

Eighteen scholars, representing classroom teachers, museum educators, and higher education faculty were invited to prepare papers on the topic of aesthetics and art criticism in the classroom. The papers included are: "Signs Visual and Verbal" (Mary Wiseman); "Role-playing the Aesthetician in Art Education" (Robert Russell); "Is Teaching…

Describes a game designed to motivate students to conduct art historical research. Required students to find artists who created art in four different ways, realistically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Students chose ways to take collected data and work cooperatively to create a mural. (KM)

Offers a perspective on talking about the arts to kids. States that the meaning of an art work is a negotiated transaction between the work and the viewer. Argues that students must be taught how to "see," understand, and value arts experiences that open up a new language system and new ways of understanding themselves and their world. (CR)

Explores critical activities in the visual arts and how they can enhance art appreciation. Outlines sources of criticism, different types of criticism, the varied backgrounds of art critics, and the artist-critic relationship. Maintains that, by emphasizing interpretive aspects, school art criticism can come closer to professional art criticism.…

Reflects on the state of the arts in general and theatre arts in particular. Examines the role of controversy in the arts; discusses "elitism," issues of diversity and being committed to community. Argues that deep, substantive discussions are needed on the value to society of the arts and the values that the arts uphold and exemplify. (SR)

Reports on a teacher-education course that emphasized the use of the visual arts in promoting content area reading. Local art museum personnel and teacher-education faculty identified works that could invoke discussions in certain content areas of specialization. Students used these as a basis for their papers. (MJP)