This article explores two teaching approaches available to art education teachers: arranging curricula based on big ideas found in postmodern artists' work and practice, and/or adopting a choice-based studio model. The author considers the role that offering students choice (and fundamentally, shared power) plays in each of these approaches. As a…

As education budgets shrink, art teachers need to find ways to position the study of art closer to mainstream academics by exploring concepts that cut across disciplinary boundaries. Art teachers can challenge students to do serious and thorough research about subject matter partnering with teachers in other areas to select subject matter that is…

Ideas are starting points-for thought, discussion, reading, viewing, writing, and making. The two "brainstorms on paper" presented in this article illustrate how taking an idea and examining it from an artistic point of view can generate thematic starting points to help teachers and students connect the visual arts to ideas that ripple across the…

When art, music, and poetry are integrated into the art room, children can confront difficult themes in works of art and process information in highly personal ways (Jewitt & Kress, 2003). An arts classroom gives children the time and place to confront images of war and violence and decode the multiple levels of meaning (Arnold, 1997) found within…

This article presents a thematic, inquiry-based Instructional Resource for secondary students. This instructional resource uses thematic inquiry to facilitate transfer of knowledge. A theme is a general topic that can help students see relationships and make connections--and transfer information to new situations. Students may be more willing and…

Discusses federal art projects during the New Deal, providing information on Edgar Britton and the influence of being a New Deal artist on his later work. Discusses the use of Britton's murals, housed at Highland Park High School (Chicago), in the curriculum. Comments on today's public art. (CMK)

Presents an online unit titled "Images of Me" to illustrate how themes can build connections to students' prior knowledge, how to use inquiry questions, and how to utilize online art reproductions. Examines how four middle and high school art teachers used the "Images of Me" unit. (CMK)

Profiles a number of projects and activities enacted during the 1996 Summer Colloquium, "Art and Ecology: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Curriculum." Participants created ecologically sensitive structures for pond life at a nearby wetland and attended a dramatic presentation about early mound dwellers performed on the site. (MJP)

Discusses the actions and approaches advanced during the 1996 Summer Colloquium, "Art and Ecology: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Curriculum." Illustrates how action-oriented inquiry makes learning relevant to all people through exploring the poetry of place. The colloquium identified community ecological issues that could be examined through…

Surveys the work of several ecological artists, describes their work, and includes a brief rational for their activity. Examines the artwork of Joseph Beuys in Germany, Andy Goldsworthy in Scotland, as well as Mierle Ukeles, Mel Chin, David Hanson, Ana Mendieta, and Helen and Newton Harrison in the United States. (MJP)

Maintains that student-centered curriculum embodies the progressive and constructivist principles of active, participatory learning. Advocates emphasizing the importance of context as part of a constructivist approach. Includes instructional examples of connecting contextual information about artworks to constructivist activities. (MJP)

Describes a ninth-grade class project where students were asked to recall a specific sense memory involving smell and foods. They wrote a brief narrative reflecting on the experience and created a recipe card for the food. These were combined with a pictorial representation of the food for a final project. (MJP)