The fear of embarrassment in middle- and high-school students often inhibits their attempts at drawing realistically. Many find it difficult to reproduce what they see accurately, and as a result, complain, act out or refuse to do the task in order to save face. In this article, the author describes a lesson that does three things: (1) it attempts…

Color wheels are a traditional project for many teachers. The author has used them in art appreciation classes for many years, but one problem she found when her pre-service art education students created colored wheels was that they were boring: simple circles, with pie-shaped pieces, which students either painted or colored in. This article…

Creating an appreciation of art history in her junior-high students has always been one of the author's greatest challenges as an art teacher. In this article, the author describes how her eighth-grade students re-created a famous work of art--piece by piece, like a puzzle or a stained-glass window--out of construction paper. (Contains 1 resource.)

Images with narrative intent are ideally suited for beginning art viewers. As cognitive psychologist Abigail Housen has discovered in her research on aesthetic development, viewers at this stage-children and adults alike-look for stories in art, even when the artist did not intend them. In this first "Aesthetic Stage" viewers are considered…

The author describes a lesson she did on abstract art with her high school art classes. She passed out a required step-by-step outline of the project process. She asked each of them to look at abstract art. They were to list five or six abstract artists they thought were interesting, narrow their list down to the one most personally intriguing,…

A milagro is a little metal pendant that symbolizes a request, a prayer, or a wish. This "Teacher's Guide" and bilingual "Student Booklet" accompany a bilingual videotape and color wall poster in a multimedia package intended to introduce students in grades 3-8 to the folk art tradition of milagros. The videotape, presented…

This resource kit, for secondary teachers of art, social studies, and the humanities, presents an art appreciation activities program that spans the visual art history of the United States. The kit is organized into nine chronological sections that follow the history of art in the United States: (1) Native American Art (prehistory to the present);…

This "Teacher's Guide" and "Student Workbook" accompany a videotape and poster map in a package intended to introduce the heritage, historical events, customs and beliefs of the Haitian people, with emphasis on the valuable contributions of the African-American culture. The student workbook contains a summary of the video…

This multimedia kit includes 3 video programs with over 50 images in both live footage and still images; introduction to the art and culture of Australia's Aboriginal people, a presentation and discussion of artwork including ancient rock painting, Gagudju and Kunwiniku X-ray style bark painting, and Papunga dot painting; 2 studio activities…

Art education in the United States has never been on a firmer footing than at the present time. It faces a future secure in the knowledge that during the past 10 years its social, economic, and educational values have been demonstrated and acknowledged and generally put into practice. Educational leaders no longer ignore it; rather one finds an…