Grade 7 Visual Arts Curriculum Guide

TRENTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

GRADE 7 VISUAL ARTS CURRICULUM GUIDE

Unit 1: Principles of Design: Balance

Grade level: Seventh Grade

“I can” Statement: I can identify the of principles of balance and use it in an artwork based on a famous work of art or piece of literature/math.

Stage 1: Desired Results
Goals:
By the end of Seventh Grade, students will:

Engage in exploration and imaginative play with materials.
Engage collaboratively in creative art-making in response to an artistic problem.
Through experimentation, build skills in various media and approaches to art-making.
Identify safe and non-toxic art materials, tools, and equipment.
Create art that represents natural and constructed environments.
Explain the process of making art while creating.
Identify uses of art within one’s personal environment.
Describe what an image represents.
Create art that tells a story about a life experience.

Enduring Understandings:
(Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.)

Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.

Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.

(Anchor Standard 2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.)

Artists and designers experiment with forms, structures, materials, concepts, media, and art-making approaches.
Artists and designers balance experimentation and safety, freedom and responsibility while developing and creating artworks.
People create and interact with objects, places, and design that define, shape, enhance, and empower their lives.

(Anchor Standard 3: Refine and complete artistic work.)

Artist and designers develop excellence through practice and constructive critique, reflecting on, revising, and refining work over time.

(Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.)

Individual aesthetic and empathetic awareness developed through engagement with art can lead to understanding and appreciation of self, others, the natural world, and constructed environments.
Visual imagery influences understanding of and responses to the world.

(Anchor Standard 10: Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.)

Through art-making, people make meaning by investigating and developing awareness of perceptions, knowledge, and experiences.

(Anchor Standard 11: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.)

People develop ideas and understandings of society, culture, and history through their interactions with and analysis of art.

Essential Questions:
(Anchor Standard 1)

What conditions, attitudes, and behaviors support creativity and innovative thinking?
What factors prevent or encourage people to take creative risks?
How does collaboration expand the creative process?
How does knowing the contexts histories, and traditions of art forms help us create works of art and design?
Why do artists follow or break from established traditions?
How do artists determine what resources and criteria are needed to formulate artistic responses?

(Anchor Standard 2)

How do artists work?
How do artists and designers determine whether a particular direction in their work is effective?
How do artists and designers learn from trial and error?
How do artists and designers care for and maintain materials, tools, and equipment?
Why is it important for safety and health to understand and follow correct procedures in handling materials, tools, and equipment?
How do objects, places, and design shape lives and communities?
How do artists and designers determine goals for designing or redesigning objects, places, or systems?
How do artists and designers create works of art or design that effectively communicate?

(Anchor Standard 3)

What role does persistence play in revising, refining, and developing work?
How do artists grow and become accomplished in art forms?
How does collaboratively reflecting on a work help us experience it more completely?

(Anchor Standard 7)

How do life experiences influence the way you relate to art?
How does learning about art impact how we perceive the world?
What can we learn from our responses to art?
What is an image?
Where and how do we encounter images in our world?
How do images influence our views of the world?

(Anchor Standard 10)

How does engaging in creating art enrich people's lives?
How does making art attune people to their surroundings?
How do people contribute to awareness and understanding of their lives and the lives of their communities through art-making?

(Anchor Standard 11)

How does art help us understand the lives of people of different times, places, and cultures?
How is art used to impact the views of a society? How does art preserve aspects of life?

What Key Knowledge and Skills will Students acquire as a result of this unit?
Content / NationalCore Art Standards / Skills: Student Learning Objectives
Students will be able to:

Introduction to different art media and how to properly use them.

Physical & Visual Balance.

Symmetrically,

Asymmetrically & Radical.

Composition

Negative Space balance.

Experimenting in three-dimensional space

Introduction to critique and evaluating art work

/ Creating
Investigate - Plan – Make
VA:Cr 1.1.7a: Apply methods to overcome creative blocks
VA:Cr 1.2.7a: Develop criteria to guide making a work of art order sign to meet an identified goal.
Investigate
VA:Cr 2.1.7a: Demonstrate persistence in developing skills with various materials, methods, and approaches in creating works of art or design.
VA:Cr 2.2.7a: Demonstrate awareness of ethical responsibility to oneself and others when posting and sharing images and other materials through the Internet, social media, and other communication formats.
VA:Cr2.3.7a: Apply visual organizational strategies to design and produce a work of art, design, or media that clearly communicates information or ideas.
Reflect - Refine – Continue
VA:Cr 3.1.7a: Reflect on and explain important information about personal artwork in an artist statement or another format.
Presenting
Select
VA:Pr 4.1.7a: Compare and contrast how technologies have changed the way artwork is preserved, presented, and experienced.
Analyze
VA:Pr 5.1.7a: Based on criteria, analyze and evaluate methods for preparing and presenting art.
Share
VA:Pr 6.1.7a: Compare and contrast viewing and experiencing collections and exhibitions in different venues.
Responding
Perceive
VA:Re.7.1.7a: Explain how the method of display, the location, and the experience of an artwork influence how it is perceived and valued.
VA:Re.7.2.7a: Analyze multiple ways that images influence specific audiences.
Analyze
VA:Re8.1.7a: Interpret art by analyzing art making approaches, the characteristics of form and structure, relevant contextual information, subject matter, and use of media to identify ideas and mood conveyed.
Interpret
VA:Re9.1.7a: Compare and explain the difference between an evaluation of an artwork based on personal criteria and an evaluation of an artwork based on a set of established criteria.
Connecting
Synthesize
VA:Cn 10.1.7a: Individually or collaboratively create visual documentation of places and times in which people gather to make and experience art or design in the community.
Relate
VA:Cn 11.1.7a: Analyze how response to art is influenced by understanding the time and place in which it was created, the available resources, and cultural uses. /

Demonstrate knowledge of the principle of design; concentrating in the principle of balance within two-dimensional examples as well as creating this principle within theiroriginal art work.

Identify Physical & Visual balance in two-dimensional works of art and apply those design in their original artwork.

Identify symmetrical, asymmetrical, radical balance in two-dimensional works of art and apply those design in their original artwork.

Identify composition balance in two-dimensional works of art and apply those design in their original artwork.

Use a variety of art making materials (e.g., paint, crayons, markers etc.) and color mixing to create realistic, abstract and expressive balance in two-dimensional works of art.
Use the principle of design to create two- dimensional artwork based on personal symbols that is seen in everyday life (e.g., cityscape, railroad.)
Demonstrate the principle of balance by creating three dimensional artwork based on observation of the physical world (e.g., landscapes, animals, people) using a variety of media and tools appropriate to the production of the works (e.g., clay and shaping tools, cardboard, scissors and glue, wire).
Use the various materials, tools, techniques and demonstrate their knowledge by identifying the materials, tools as well as methods they have used.
After viewing a master work(s) that communicates emotion(s), describe what emotions the artwork conveys and how the artist conveys those emotions (i.e., through content/subject; through medium used; through use of principle of balance, etc.). Create a work of art that tells a story of that emotional response.
Communicate personal responses to a variety of historical works of art with common subjects or themes. Responses will describe likes and dislikes through comparing and contrasting characteristics of the various art works.

Stage 2: Assessment Evidence
What evidence will show that students understand?
Performance Task Option:
Students understand the importance of elements of art;
SLO / Creating

Document early stages of the creative process visually and/or verbally in traditional or new media.
Collaboratively shape an artistic investigation of an aspect of present day life using a contemporary practice of art or design.
Demonstrate willingness to experiment, innovate and take risks to pursue ideas, forms, and meanings that emerge in the process of art making or designing.
Apply relevant criteria to examine reflect on and plan revisions for a work of art or design in progress

Presenting

Develop and apply criteria for evaluating a collection of art works for presentation.
Collaboratively prepare and present selected theme-based artworks for display, and formulate exhibition narratives for the viewer.

Responding

Interpret art by analyzing how the interaction of subject matter, characteristics of form and structure, use of media, art making approaches, and relevant contextual information contributes to understanding messages or ideas and mood conveyed.

Connecting

Make art collaboratively to reflect on and reinforce positive aspects of group identity.
Distinguish different ways art is used to represent, establish, reinforce and reflect group identity.

Assessment Task Options:
SLO / Responding
Students collaboratively examine and respond to a body of contemporary artworks in order to make interpretations of meaning conveyed through such works.

Construct an interpretation of an artwork supported by reasons based on observations and relevant contextual information.

Creating
Students use knowledge gained to experiment, plan, and make their own artworks to express meaning relevant to a theme or idea important to the group.

Visually and/or verbally documents early stages of the creative process while generating ideas for art making.
Refer to the methods used by contemporary artists to make meaning when shaping an artistic investigation.
Demonstrate and/or discuss a willingness to try alternate ways of working and experimenting with materials, tools, and ideas.
Identify characteristics of quality specific to the artwork in progress and explain how they were used to make revisions.

Presenting
Students develop an artist statement to accompany their work and prepare both to display.

Develop criteria for evaluating artworks.
Apply criteria to selecting and evaluating artwork for display.
Select artworks based on a theme to display in a public or private place.
Prepare artworks for display.
Develop an exhibition narrative to guide viewers.

Connecting
Students collaboratively exhibit their work and develop an exhibition narrative to guide viewers.

Make an individual art work that reflects on and reinforces a collaboratively chosen theme or idea.

Contribute to an exhibition narrative that distinguishes how the exhibited art works represent, establish, reinforce, and/or reflect a group theme or idea.

TRENTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

GRADE 7 VISUAL ARTS CURRICULUM GUIDE

Unit 2: Principles of Design: Contrast

Grade level: Seventh Grade

“I can” Statement: I can identify the principles of contrast and use it in an artwork based on a famous work of art or piece of literature/math.

Stage 1: Desired Results
Goals:
By the end of Seventh Grade, students will:

Engage in exploration and imaginative play with materials.
Engage collaboratively in creative art-making in response to an artistic problem.
Through experimentation, build skills in various media and approaches to art-making.
Identify safe and non-toxic art materials, tools, and equipment.
Create art that represents natural and constructed environments.
Explain the process of making art while creating.
Identify uses of art within one’s personal environment.
Describe what an image represents.
Create art that tells a story about a life experience.

Enduring Understandings:
(Anchor Standard 1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.)

Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.

Artists and designers shape artistic investigations, following or breaking with traditions in pursuit of creative artmaking goals.