WSD: Visual Arts
Our Philosophy of Art Education:
Our belief is that quality instruction in the Visual Arts should be provided by Arts specialists and supported by classroom teachers, school leaders, and partnerships with Arts organizations and community programs. This partnered instruction serves to enhance Visual Art education as a vital and basic component in the development of all human beings. All visual art students at WSD are provided a non-critical learning environment; a learning environment that values cultural and social differences, recognizes divergent learning styles, and encourages deep thinking and better cognition.
Through an education in the Visual Arts WSD students are able to learn about themselves and the world around them. Visual Arts education at WSD is much more than making things. It enables students to develop and creatively express their ideas, solve problems, and make meaning. The WSD K-12 Learning Standards define visual arts education as sequential development in these five areas: Disciplinary Literacy; Creation, Performance, and Expression; Creative Problem Solving; Aesthetics and Criticism; Connections.
It is our belief that an education in the Visual Arts allows students to develop and use creative potential; to see the value of their own ideas; and to think divergently-- searching beyond the boundaries of what is known. While the Visual Arts have their own intrinsic value, they also share many attributes with other content areas. As a department we strive to integrate those connections as the foundation of our instruction. Meanwhile, the language of Visual Arts is an avenue of expression not addressed or taught in other areas of the curriculum, it is a basic and unique part of education and provides experience and knowledge not found in any other area of the curriculum.
Sarah Ritz Swain
-K-12 Visual Arts, Westbrook School Department, 2014-14
WSD Visual Arts Standards & the K-12 Curriculum
It is important to WSD that children study art for many reasons, such as:
The intrinsic value of the fine arts and art-making;
the study of art enhances the interconnectedness of other subjects;
art enhances the study of self;
the study of art develops important ways of knowing and understanding our community and the world.
Our K-12 curriculum combines aspects of the Visual Arts Standards defined by the Maine Learning Results as well as the National Core Art Standards developed by the National Art Education Association. As I district our standards are grouped into 5 categories:
Literacy; Creation; Creativity; Aesthetics; Connections. Each category has a series of clusters, aligned with performance indicators, that increase in number and rigor from kindergarten to grade 12.
Throughout WSD’s K-12 Art Curriculum, the importance of developing and expressing a unique identity and voice through artwork is encouraged. While knowledge and skills in the use of the basic vocabularies, materials, tools, techniques, and intellectual methods of each arts discipline act as the foundation for student expression. Proficiency in at least one medium, including the ability to define and solve artistic problems with insight, reason, and technical proficiency is required at each grade-level. The basic analyses of works of art from structural, historical, and cultural perspectives, and from combinations of those perspectives acts as a summative to all project-based units. This includes the ability to understand and evaluate work in the various arts disciplines. As a district we continue to strive for students of WSD to have an informed acquaintance with exemplary works of art from a variety of cultures and historical periods, and a basic understanding of historical development in the arts disciplines, across the arts as a whole, and within cultures. To be proficient students at WSD should be able to relate various types of arts knowledge and skills within and across the arts disciplines. This includes mixing and matching competencies and understandings in art-making, history and culture, and analysis in any arts-related project.
An example of WSD K-12 Art Standards are highlighted below.
An example grade-level outline with standard-alignment:
Kindergarten (Preconventional)
Line, Pattern, and Color
Art Literacy
EA: Elements of Art
Color: Primary and Secondary
White and black (light and dark)
Line: Variety
Space: over, under, around, close, far, overlapping
Shape: geometric (circle, square, rectangle, triangle, diamond, crescent)
Objects as shapes
Texture (surface quality): hard, soft, rough, smooth
Principles of Design
Pattern
(repeating color, line, and shape)
MT: Media Tools, Techniques and Processes
Media/Tools: pencil, chalk, clay, tempera paint,
Techniques/Processes: Stamp a print; paste two surfaces together; cut, fold, and
bend paper; hold, use, and clean a paint brush; hold, use, and carry scissors safely
Creation, Performance, Expression
MS: Media Skills
Drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking
CS:Composition Skills
Draw and paint original ideas; 3d work (clay/pinch pot)
Creative Problem Solving
CR: Craftsmanship
Generate multiple ideas in order to create a work of art that well ordered
Aesthetics and Criticism
DA: Describe and Analyze (look at and discuss)
Works of art (and artists’ works) that use: line, shape, color, pattern
For more information regarding standards for arts education, please visit:
