Inquiry project

Inquiry Project: Teaching Writing to Teens


In last class, my group members shared about writings used in classroom of some different content area. In art classroom, students often write about a specific art work. They describe and make their interpretation about the piece. First they learn about some art terms to use for developing an expository paragraph. They describe, analyze, and finally make their interpretation, called 'Formal Analysis' in art writing.


How to organize and develop an expository/descriptive paragraph in art content?


Expository paragraph is used in art class room for description part in the formal analysis. This is the beginning part of the analysis and is very important because good observation and detailed explanation connect and lead to making a good interpretation later. 
There are some components used in the art work that creates certain visual and moods. These components the artist intended to use are the Element of art and Principles of design. 

Elements

:They are the building blocks used to create a work of art.  they can be isolated and defined.

   - Line, Shapes, Forms, Space, Value (lightness/ darkness), Color, Texture
Principles

:The principles of design describe the ways that artists use the elements of art in a work of art.

    -Balance, Contrast, Movement, Emphasis, Pattern, Proportion, Unity

Students should spend enough time to make detailed observation in the art work. They identify the components of element and that of principle used in the piece. Students sometimes get confused with which one to write first and what comes next. There is no preference in the order of mentioning the categories in each group(element group and design group). However, explain about all element components first and then use them to come up with principles of design such as movement happens afterward. 

Length of the paragraph could vary based on the art work. some may be extremely complicated with many components while some are minimal with only few components used. Well written paragraph would include at least five sentences. For examples, every physical art works has color (even black and white photograph), space, and shape at least.  

If students are unfamiliar in writing about art, using handout materials with a list of components and brief definition of them could be helpful until they get used to with the terms.

Inquiry Citation

Writing About Art Marjorie Munsterberg, 2012.<http://writingaboutart.org/pages/formalanalysis.html>

DESIGN AND COLOUR 1999. JOHN LOVETT, 2012

<http://www.johnlovett.com/test.htm>

Understanding Formal Analysis The J. Paul Getty Trust. 2012. <http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/formal_analysis.html>


Principles of Design Kristina, 2010
<http://www.powayusd.com/teachers/kopstad/Art%20Analysis/principles.htm>

2 content area websites with description

Leonardo da Vinci and Renaissance
1.http://gardenofpraise.com/art17.htm
2.http://www.kidspast.com/world-history/0288-the-renaissance.php
3.http://www.history.com/topics/renaissance-art

Website#1 is good website that children can learn about Leonardo da Vinci. Students who don't know anything about him can feel comfortable with it because it tells about his entire life from when he was a child to adult as a great artist, also as a scientist. Since it is a lot of reading, students can easily get tired or lose interest. Rather than a hard explanation, the writing style here is easy to read and made simple with large bold font. As the story changes and time changes, they are seperated into small paragraphs so children can have a small break after understanding one. Between the paragraphs, it includes pictures of certain paintings and sketches of da Vinci that were mentioned in the writing. While developing the knowledge of him as an artist, students can be confused when facing the description of him also as a scientist in a sudden. Between art and science, they can be confused or worried with unexpected word of science.
"Leonardo kept books of sketches he made. He studied human anatomy and drew sketches of the body. He had ideas for inventions that would not be developed for hundreds of years. He had an idea for a flying machine, a propeller, and for weapons of war. He designed and built bridges, canals and locks to carry water and move ships." Kindly, it makes nice transition from tellling his talent in drawing great sketches of human body to detailed outstanding sketches in science and design of machine. There are pictures of both human body sketches and science design that are helpful for better understanding. They can click on the image. In the bottom of the page, they some recommended books about renaissance and da Vinci as reference.
Website #2 is also a good place to learn about renaissance in Italy. It gives the thoughts and trends of the people in the time period, how they were changed through renaissance period and what renaissance did to people. In the beginning, it gives background knowledge about Rome and florence where developed renaissance. By clicking next pages, children can learn more about renaissance and famous artist with some helpful pictures on each page. I also added Website#3 link because it has some reference for video clips about renaissance and Leonardo da Vinci. Watching some of these short video clips can be useful break for children between readings.

Preview of annotated bilbiography

My content Area is Art. I will be teaching a unit on the Modernism to 9th grade students.
To supplement and enrich this unit, I will be incorporating the following three trade books:

1. Spence, D. (2010). Gauguin. New York: Newforest Press
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gauguin-david-spence/1101752398
2. Spence, D. (2010). Cezanne. New York: Newforest Press
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cezanne-david-spence/1102245341?ean=9781848983151&itm=1&usri=cezanne+david+spence
3. Johnson, S.T. (2008). A Is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet. New York: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/is-for-art-stephen-t-johnson/1100630979?ean=9780689863011&itm=1&usri=an+abstract+alphabet

Additional website and How instruction

I found two more website below beside previous seven found websites.
Old ones are more about history, background and famous artist in the period.
Whereas these two are focused in telling details and color uses of the artists in the period. http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/picasso.html
http://www.moodbook.com/history/modernism/henri-matisse-art.html



Renaissance
http://www.students.sbc.edu/kitchin04/artandexpression/modern%20art.html
http://www.students.sbc.edu/kitchin04/artandexpression/artandexpression.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/2838/artgal.htm
http://www.arthistory-famousartists-paintings.com/RenaissanceArt.html
20th century Art
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/grisham/1d_categories.html
http://www.henri-matisse.net/artofmatisse.html
http://abstractart.20m.com/Pablo_Picasso.html


I found several website that could benefit my children in learning the lesson. My content area is Art.
The lesson is about Expressionism. If I directly jump into Expressionism, I'm afraid if they will be really ready to go deeper in to expressionism. so first, I will use the picture of the timeline of art style stages and tell them how artists changed their style overtime and each style has its name such as expressionism which we will learn today. As we see according to the timeline, expressionism falls in 20th century which we consider Modern art. We can click on one of the stylistic categories to know more about the smooth transition of before and after. (http://instruct.westvalley.edu/grisham/1d_categories.html). Now we can click on the 'Expressionism'.  Famous paintings from six well know artist in the period with brief description comes up. Once they click on the particular artist, longer description of their background and detail about more paintings come up. They can learn doing the same thing with other five artists in the previous page. Also I'm not forgetting about Picasso and Matisse! two of the most well known artists in expressionism. Some children may heard about him or not at all. First two website above are about them. It tells about not only their background and style which could be little boring but also teaches about use of color in interesting way.  It lets children click on the color palette and changes the whole color of the original painting. They will learn how applying different color could change the whole mood of the painting. (What did Picasso intend to achieve? why does the painting look so gloomy and blue overall? What if you click on Orange on color palette? does it still look gloomy? etc)
Though art itself is visual, sometimes it is hard to make children understand the painting because they don't have enough art knowledge to interpret the painting. Need of other easy way and effective sources to prepare our children to get into the lesson/topic is very important so they don't get lost.


*Its my first year to teaching and haven't taught any children before.. so I don't know if I answered enough? I used best of my knowledge and spent time for research. sorry I didn't attend elementary or middle school in America so it may vary... Please let me know if I need to be corrected in someway :)

content area (art) website for teaching

Renaissance

http://www.students.sbc.edu/kitchin04/artandexpression/artandexpression.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/2838/artgal.htm
http://www.arthistory-famousartists-paintings.com/RenaissanceArt.

20th century Art

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/grisham/1d_categories.html
http://www.henri-matisse.net/artofmatisse.html
http://abstractart.20m.com/Pablo_Picasso.html

another content area website: http://www.nyfa.org/

another content area website
http://www.nyfa.org/

NAEA  arteducators.org