The purpose of this article is to describe a teaching strategy to help elementary students understand the complexities of historical decisions by actively engaging them in learning activities involving the arts. For journal availability see SO 504 433. (Author)

Elementary teachers can use music as the springboard for across-the-curriculum activities. The article presents strategies for introducing elementary students to music and integrating the arts into other subjects. It also explains how to select the right pieces and suggests various helpful products for integrating music into the curriculum. (SM)

In mock interviews with Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Plato, and George Santayana, the value of the arts in education is discussed. The author suggests this mock interview technique as a method for teaching other topics. (KC)

Offers a lesson plan for acquainting students in grades 10-12 with the dimensions of style and technique of still life painting in the United States during the late nineteenth century. Uses William Michael Harnett's "Plucked Clean" to convey concepts of composition. Suggests instructional strategies and outlines a studio activity. (KO)

Describes a computer system in which art reproductions are described and entered into a database containing 27 categories of information. Named the Visual Art Index System (VIAS), its underlying structure is influenced by contemporary models of aesthetics and art criticism. Maintains that the database and laserdisk can effect teaching methodology,…

This article briefly describes the Aesthetic Eye Project, a federally funded inservice program of the Los Angeles County Schools. It also explains the concept of aesthetic perception developed by the project and discusses how this concept can be applied to unified arts teaching and the teaching of basic skills. (SJL)

Games and dramatic activities can help students explore their personal responses to literary works.

This article describes how to combine painting and poetry by studying famous paintings and poetry of recognized artists from both media. It covers how to design a project, discussing pictures and poems, and giving children a chance to create their own art. A sidebar lists artists and poets that work well together. Includes extension activities.…

Explores the sources of art criticism and reviews some extant pedagogical models. Outlines the content skills to be developed and the role of art criticism in a discipline-based teacher training curriculum. Recommends that art criticism should incorporate pedagogy and other disciplines of art. (KM)

The collected papers from three conferences about art education are documented in three volumes. The first conference addressed art education, aesthetics, and art criticism. Eighteen scholars representing classroom teachers, museum educators, and university faculty were invited to prepare papers on the general topic of aesthetics and art criticism…

The author developed a combined arts project with her first-graders in which the fine arts were treated as alternate languages for creative expression. Students first expressed themselves in verbal language by writing poems, then translated their conceptions into music, painting, dance, or pantomime. (SJL)

Provides a lesson plan for teaching K-three students to analyze and empathize with a portrait by post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. Describes background of the artist and the painting "The Postman Roulin." Suggests instructional strategies, activities, and evaluation methods. Lists bibliographical material relative to van…

A year-long study of knowledge development in 40 college students focused on the relationships between the historical and philosophical dimensions of the curriculum, teaching method, and quality of learning. Student exposure to the discipline's history and philosophy, discussion-based instruction, and personally meaningful topics were seen as most…

Discusses problems in the teaching of art history to art students. Reports on a study in which student analysis and categorization of their own paintings and paintings of other artists became the primary activity of an art history course. Concludes that this approach enhances the use of art history as a source for students' own creative work. (CFR)

This series is intended for music educators and features speeches and articles by leaders in music and arts education on a wide variety of current issues. The issue develops notions based on two core events: the teaching of music and the learning of music. Two major concepts are addressed: the identification of a realm of competence acceptable in…