Art App or Music App/Fine Arts credit over 4 years?

[yvonne]

Some have mentioned that you do 1 fine arts credit by spreading it out over the four high school years. I'm especially interested in how you do that and what materials you use if you're doing art appreciation or music appreciation. 

 

Do you do a chronological study, sync'd to your history cycle?

 

Besides the wonderful Teaching Company dvd's, do you have other favorite resources? 

 

Do you have some sort of "spine" that you use to figure out what exactly to cover as  you go along? Or do you just use the sections of the Teaching Company dvd's and/or Annotated Mona Lisa and/or Sister Wendy that correspond to the time period you're studying that year and call it good? 

 

Has anyone spread the credit out over 4 years and tried to cover whatever's needed for the AP Art History exam? 

Thanks for any thoughts!

yvonne

[regentrude]

We have been doing music appreciation/history and art appreciation/history each over the course of four years, and I have awarded one credit each for cumulative work. I have not incorporated a performance assessment and simply given a grade of P for participation; no letter grade was assigned.

Art:

Each year, we covered the art of the time period we studied. We used The Annotated Mona Lisa and Sister Wendy's Story of Painting.

We visited many art museums in the US and Europe and visited many historical of architectural landmarks.

 

Music:

we used the TC lectures How to listen to and understand Great music (48 lectures) and attended 30+ live performances of all eras and genres - several operas, chamber music, vocal music. 

 

I can not answer your question about the AP exam; we had no interest in that.

[yvonne]

Thank you so much, regentrude. I was hoping you'd pop in. Thanks for the info on the resources you use.

 

(I only have a half-hearted interest in the AP exam as a way to check that box for the UC system's fine arts credit because we're in CA. The more I look at those boxes, though, the more ridiculously limiting they seem.)

 

I really like the idea of spreading the credit out over 4 years. It seems like it would be more enjoyable.

 

Do you have your students do any writing or anything similar for art & music hist/appreciation? 

[regentrude]

Do you have your students do any writing or anything similar for art & music hist/appreciation? 

 

No. This is also why I do not assign a letter grade, since I do not require them to demonstrate any kind of mastery (which I then would have to measure). We learn to appreciate music and art - they are integrated into our lives. I feel no need to make it busy work.

[swimmermom3]

Our plan is similar to regentrude's.

 

Our main spine is An Introduction to Music and Art in the Western World and Art in Focus for some of the non-Western art. I am a bit frustrated in trying to put more emphasis on non-Western art, music, and architecture.

 

I also pull from the following resources:

 

How to Look at and Understand Great Art

How to Listen to and Understand Music

The various museum lecture series from TTC as well as utilizing major museums online resources

Stokstadt's Art History

an architecture book whose name I can't think of off the top of my head

museum trips and soon, live performances

 

Our goal is to make it as fun as possible.  I was impressed at how much my son was able to apply what he had learned about the characteristics of different art periods when we went to the museum. It's like a logic puzzle to see if you can guess the time frame from the content and style without looking at the exhibit card.

 

Two of my uncles are architects, so ds will spend some time talking to them. We've already decided on a senior project that explores the architecture of our particular city and who makes the decisions, what happens when things go wrong, what's required to protect the skyline, etc.

 

He keeps a notebook with art that has been examined and hopefully some music reviews will go in there as well. Part of the notebook project is to take some photos while he is downtown and identify architectural elements.

[yvonne]

Thank you for all the resource suggestions, Lisa!  And what a fun senior project for your son!

 

Like Regentrude, I really want to avoid busy work. I like the idea of having a notebook to keep track of some of the works we've actually studied or places we've been with distinctive architecture. If nothing else, I could see simply adding photos/cards of some of the works we've especially liked, maybe according to period.

Thank you!

[Julie of KY]

For the history of music we like Discovering Music. You can do it by dvd or online subscription. There are also lots more music courses she has produced.

[TechWife]

Keep in mind there is a difference between Art Appreciation, Art History and Studio Art. Each of them is credit worthy under the umbrella subject of Fine Arts. 

 

Let me know if you're interested in some resources for Studio Art.

[yvonne]

Thanks, Tech Wife. I think Studio Art would be too much of a stretch for us, but thank you!  I can't even draw a stick figure. If the boys want to do studio art, it would only happen if we outsourced. LOL

[Julie of KY]

Keep in mind there is a difference between Art Appreciation, Art History and Studio Art. Each of them is credit worthy under the umbrella subject of Fine Arts. 

 

Let me know if you're interested in some resources for Studio Art.

I'd like some resources for Studio Art if you'd care to share.

[TechWife]

I'd like some resources for Studio Art if you'd care to share.

 

Sending you a pm so as not to derail the OP's thread. 

[yvonne]

Tech Wife, Please feel free to derail away!!  All ideas are good ideas. I think studio art would be too much for us, so I didn't want to ask you to go to the trouble of typing it up just for me... But, I never know where other people's suggestions will lead, so if you're typing up suggestions anyhow, I'd love to hear them, too!

[TechWife]

You're very sweet, Yvonne! I did a long blog post about this last year, but I'll summarize it here. 

 

First, you should know that my husband and I are in no way artistic. In the early elementary years, I did what most people call "stewing" by having good quality art supplies available, some project books for ideas and some books that were "how to draw" oriented. In Junior High, his interest in art was gaining and at that point, we started Artistic Pursuits. This program includes picture study, instruction on a technique and practice exercises. 

 

For high school credit, I have cobbled together all of the resources that he has used. It has been a combination of learning from books, talking to artists, co-op classes, private classes, group classes and museum exhibits. Basically, I just made sure that I helped him take advantage of every opportunity to learn. 

 

The three books that he has gravitated to repeatedly over the years are:

The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Postmodern by Carol Strickland 

An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers by Danny Gregory

DK Art School: An Introduction to Art Techniques by Ray Smith, Michael Wright and James Horton.  

 

Of those, DK Art School was a tremendous find. It covers drawing, perspective, watercolor, pastels, oil painting, acrylics and mixed media. There are very detailed step by step instructions with great photos for all of the techniques. He has been using this book for several years now and it definitely covers high school level material. 

 

For specific curriculum packages, the Lifepac for high school art is very good (surprisingly, to me) - it concentrates on drawing, providing incremental instruction and a range of projects. Artistic Pursuits is also very good, in my opinion, but ds isn't fond of it. 

 

Another thing we have done is to take advantage of local opportunities. He has attended art exhibits at the local art museum and makes a particular effort to get over there when they are having special exhibits. If you visit a museum, check to see if drawing the pieces is allowed. At ours, students can draw anything in the permanent collection, but the special exhibits are on a case by case basis, so he has to ask about them. He also served on the Teen Advisory Council for the art museum for two years. When we travel, we seek out art museums as well.

 

Other local opportunities have included: digital photography camp at the museum, urban art sketching seminars, NCSU Design Camp, various art exhibits, lessons with a local professional artist and Open Studio hours at the NCSU College of Design. 

 

I'm happy to answer any questions or listen to any ideas people want to bounce off of me as far as what to grant credit for when using a non-traditional approach to art courses. 

 

 

 

[yvonne]

Ah, now see... This is why I love hearing what other people do, esp. in areas in which I am clueless.....  I had never heard of the book DK Art School: An Introduction to Art Techniques. That is a find!  My daughter would love it. I purchase a lot of different art supplies for her and the boys, but they end up just too intimidating... How do you use this stuff?  The Art School book looks like a how-to primer we could actually use from the start. They won't be creating masterpieces, but just the experience of experimenting w/ the different media will reduce the intimidation factor. If they find one particular medium they like, I'm sure I could find a live class using it.

Thank you! 

[Arcadia]

 I had never heard of the book DK Art School: An Introduction to Art Techniques. That is a find!  My daughter would love it. I purchase a lot of different art supplies for her and the boys, but they end up just too intimidating... ........ If they find one particular medium they like, I'm sure I could find a live class using it.

 

Your county library has four available copies.  CSMA is very good if you want to try a live class.  We especially like the pottery wheel/ceramics teacher.

[yvonne]

You are an internet search whiz, Arcadia. :)  (Don't you love having so many library systems locally? :) )

 

Just did a search on CSMA. My daughter has been asking for a "real" pottery class. We'll have to check out the offerings at CSMA. Thanks for the suggestion.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

Some have mentioned that you do 1 fine arts credit by spreading it out over the four high school years. I'm especially interested in how you do that and what materials you use if you're doing art appreciation or music appreciation. 

 

Do you do a chronological study, sync'd to your history cycle?

 

Besides the wonderful Teaching Company dvd's, do you have other favorite resources? 

 

Do you have some sort of "spine" that you use to figure out what exactly to cover as  you go along? Or do you just use the sections of the Teaching Company dvd's and/or Annotated Mona Lisa and/or Sister Wendy that correspond to the time period you're studying that year and call it good? 

 

Has anyone spread the credit out over 4 years and tried to cover whatever's needed for the AP Art History exam? 

Thanks for any thoughts!

yvonne

 

We just finished AP Art History here this year (including both the exam and the official audit).

 

Based on this experience--you can certainly cover art appreciation over 4 years in sync with history.  TOG outlines that process in their various Rhetoric level year plans.  Chronological study of art history is certainly a reasonable path. 

 

If you intend to have an AP at the end, and certainly if you want to go through the audit process, you will need to select a recent edition college level text book that covers a world wide history of art through the 20th century.  (The AP Audit page lists at least a dozen possible texts.) Annotated Mona Lisa or Sister Wendy are nice as supplements but not sufficient alone for the course.  If you read the Q&A's information on the AP website the readers often comment on how students are using older texts that reflect outdated interpretations and research, this has or soon will begin costing points on essays if I am understanding them.  Teaching Company DVDs are wonderful!  If you are looking for music appreciation I recommend Teaching Company and Dr. Carol.  Barb at Harmony Fine Arts also has some wonderful 4 year cycle programs for a variety of grades.

 

I think I would recommend against a four year schedule as a preparation for the AP Art History exam.  It would be hard to meet the requirements of the audit if you tried to hold the class over 4 years.  But if only the exam is the goal you will end up having to spend many months reviewing all the work you did in previous years.  The exam requires detailed knowledge about works to include artist, title, date, period, medium, patronage and sometimes location as well as an understanding of the techniques used to create the work, the meaning of the work and its place in history; you also need to be able to compare works across time periods, mediums, and cultures.  It is hard to sustain that much detailed knowledge over a 4 year period.  Admittedly AP is changing the exam for next year-they have reduced the amount of works that need to be known to about 250 listed works.  They have also increased the amount of works from beyond the European tradition and there are more works from modern periods that need to be known.  This can make the matching with a 4 year history cycle to be difficult as most history cycles are centered on the US and Europe and not devoted to world history to the extent that the AP Art History exam is concerned with non-western art-I think the new figure is somewhere around 30-35% of the works are beyond the European tradition. 

 

I would also give anyone considering the class fair warning-you will receive many comments about the difficulty of the class.  Our local AP coordinator commented on how brave it was to take on this exam as it has a reputation of being the most difficult AP.  I'm not sure I agree with this assessment but if that urban legend is out there then any student will have to deal with it; also it may not have as many testing sites available as it is less common.  It is a wonderful course and we had a great time as a family working with the material.  It think it is certainly able to be done as a homeschooler and I wouldn't want to scare anyone off.   However, it is important that you recognize that it isn't a fluff exam, it will require hard concentrated work. 

[raganfamily]

Curious how to handle the credits for fine arts.  WTM has it listed as 1 fine arts credit each year.  

 

I planned to cover art/ music appreciation spread over the four years.   I don't think this would be 1 credit each year, but maybe 2 credits overall?  Those that have spread it over 4 years and added art instruction, how did you place this on the transcript?

 

 

[TechWife]

Curious how to handle the credits for fine arts.  WTM has it listed as 1 fine arts credit each year.  

 

I planned to cover art/ music appreciation spread over the four years.   I don't think this would be 1 credit each year, but maybe 2 credits overall?  Those that have spread it over 4 years and added art instruction, how did you place this on the transcript?

 

I do my transcript by subject, so the art instruction is listed as "Studio Art I CU." My son has done enough that he has earned a total of 2 CU's (so far), so I have Studio Art I and Studio Art II listed. 

 

Remember that art instruction is different than art appreciation or art history. These can actually be three separate courses. I recommend that you look at the amount of time your student has spent in each area to determine if they have earned a credit. Generally speaking, 130 hours of work = 1 CU. In counting the time spent, I consider the product produced as well. I'm not likely to give credit hours for doodling while watching tv, for example. Time spent researching, attempting new techniques, working on art pieces, instructional time in classes or with tutors and museum trips to sketch all count as time spent on Studio Art. 

[raganfamily]

Thank you.  I have not considered doing a transcript by subject.  That may make it easier in my mind.