Writing interpretation paragraph

Writing interpretation paragraph

      I have been repeatedly saying that in art class room students should  know how to describe, analyze, and make interpretation about art object. Previously, I discussed about teaching students how to write descriptive writing and analysis writing. Interpretation writing comes at last after writing descriptive and analysis part.

      Students interpretate why the artist creates the piece and what it means. They find the main idea of the art work and support it with inside and outside art work evidence. When making interpretation, students should not be misunderstood or biased because it is not their favored style of art. Student must understand the Art is different from beauty or level of quality. Any creative endeavor artists do with their believes in art can be art. Even if nobody likes it or want to interpret it, it is still art. Students should have respect towards the work of the artist and carefully discover what is the artists' intention and why he intended it.

Barrett's Principles of Interpretation

1. Artworks have "aboutness" and demand interpretation.
2. Interpretations are persuasive arguments.
3. Some interpretations are better than others.
4. Good interpretations of art tell more about the artwork than they tell about the critic.
5. Feelings are guides to interpretations.
6. There can be different, competing, and contradictory interpretations of the same artwork.
7. Interpretations are often based on a worldview.
8. Interpretations are not so much absolutely right, but more or less reasonable, convincing, enlightening, and informative.
9. Interpretations can be judged by coherence, correspondence, and inclusiveness.
10. An artwork is not necessarily about what the artist wanted it to be about.
11. A critic ought not to be the spokesperson for the artist.
12. Interpretations ought to present the work in its best rather than its weakest light.
13. The objects of interpretation are artworks, not artists.
14. All art is in part about the world in which it emerged.
15. All art is in part about other art.
16. No single interpretation is exhaustive of the meaning of an artwork.
17. The meanings of an artwork may be different from its significance to the viewer. Interpretation is ultimately a communal endeavor, and the community is ultimately self- corrective.
18. Good interpretations invite us to see for ourselves and to continue on our own.

Barrett, Terry. (1994) Criticizing Art: Understanding the Contemporary. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing

Content area web sites

Cubism and Paul Cezanne   (11th grade, Art)

Cezanne's painting, Apple

       Paul Cezanne is a famous artist in Modern art History particularly for Cubism. He is usually taught after or with Pablo Picasso's. They are both considered modern artist falling in 1860s to 19870s. Students often have fear with learning art in middle ages or renaissance period because they have hard time relating themselves to its period and old style. In contrast, student can be more familiar and engaging to approach Modern art. Modernism developed as artists escaped from traditions and, old rules and tried their fresh, unique style and experiment freely. Therefore, during this period, many artists came up with interestingly different style of paintings involving various, open subject matters, style, and range of colors and shape. With  providing sufficient images in the beginning, teachers can introduce them the dynamic visual world of modernism and make it exciting.

     A movement I suggested for modern art was Cubism and I thought of Paul Cezanne right away. The first website has brief description about his life and style and majorly consists his painting of almost 1000. It is much easier and accessible to see paintings first and visually approach rather then learning from text. The rest of website below has information about Cubism, Cezanne and also some other cubist artists. The reason why I selected Cezanne was because I considered that his painting shows the best of example for cubism. However, once students understand the style of cubism, teachers can provide more sources about other cubist paintings. Children can find similarities and connections within the paintings and experience wide range of experiment of artists.  

*Cubism and Paul Cezanne
http://www.paul-cezanne.org/
http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/cubism.htm
http://www.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ens-cubisme_en/cubisme_en.html


*Video of Cezanne's use of Impressionism + Cubism 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm7XuMzC1II&feature=fvst

Writing analysis paragraph

Writing analysis paragraph 

Teaching writing in Art classroom is not exercised as often as in English class room like rest of my inquiry group member's. In art class, students should know how to describe, analyze, and make interpretation. They usually discuss out loud together or make their own brainstorm but they also need to be able to carry and organize these process into a form of writing. 

Previously, I discussed about teaching students descriptive writing. After students know the art vocabularies and know how to describe an object using those terms, they can reflect them on actual writing. When students understood the process of writing description, they are ready to learn writing Analysis. With the elements they found from the observation, they determine how those elements work in the art piece.  Students decide on were made, what effect they creates, how they contribute to the appearance or other extended questions. They can extend their question and make determination. Is he creating certain style by using specific choice of lines and colors? Does the structure system makes certain value? Is it warm or cold? Does the color he used makes the entire mood blue? Is it showing dramatic light and shadow? How does the  idea of certain thing composed with using only specific elements?  What is your perception to specific things. What are the impact and reaction to the object due to having certain elements?

Again, students are using the vocabularies to determine what and how the features convey certain ideas. Numerous questions cross their mind in analyzing thinking process. They find their own answer to each question and organize one by one in paragraph.  They determine the function and balance of the object according to the elements they found.

Writing an art analysis paragraph could be hard but very flexible and authentic exercise. It requires lots of thinking process and they set their opinion and purpose in their own analysis. Since art is very subject matter, the analysis of classmates could vary little or a lot due to their characteristic and perceiving subject matter. They is not right or wrong answer. Through analysis writing activity with their friendly art work, students can be engaging and thought provoking. 

Reference Cite

http://hsblogs.stanford.edu/arthistoryta/teaching-formal-analysis/ (MicrosoftWord/ PDF)

http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators/how-to/from-theory-to-practice/formal-visual-analysis.aspx

http://teachingmyselfthehistoryofart.wordpress.com/formal-analysis/

Helpful Video: How to Look at Art-Formal Analysis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l659OM2zaHM

2websites with description

* color wheel ! *

http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-theory-intro.htm
http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Understanding of color theory is important in high school art level. I learned about the color wheel and basic color theory in Art 1 in my freshman year of high school too. If students understand about how color works, it makes much easier and effective to make a good painting and show their expression well. Often young artist gets frustrated with the outcome of their painting after spending several long hours of working. Tonality or mood overall painting can be totally changed from applying slightly wrong color. For example, if you used a little bit lighter red instead of vibrant pure red, your intention of pulling an impact of strong red in the painting could be potentially distorted. Moreover, the little mistake of one wrong color could distort the rest of the painting and overall mood. Of course high school children will think color is easy and they already know about it since kindergarten. But color theory is extended idea to understand the relationship of the colors to each other. Telling them the important purpose of knowing the relationship and how much they are useful should be introduced to children before the lesson. I like the tigercolor website because it has clearly indicated color wheel and it has four categories of important factors. They are divided into primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, warm/cool colors, tints, shades, tones, and color harmonies. For each subcategories, it includes a picture or more than a picture to assist understanding of the text. The second website has color palette generator that they can play with. They can try all of the color harmonies method taught from the first website on this color palette generator. This second website does not have much text as in the first website but it has key vocabularies of color harmonies: mono, complement, traid, tetrad, analogic, and accented analogic. Children can click on each one and the color generator will lead them to make a specific harmony of color using that specific method and they are easy to manipulate by simply clicking on colors they want. 

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