National Standards (5–8)

Content Standard #1: Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes

• Students select media, techniques, and processes; analyze what makes them effective or not effective in communicating ideas; and reflect upon the effectiveness of their choices
• Students intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes to enhance communication of their experiences and ideas

Content Standard #2: Using knowledge of structures and functions

• Students generalize about the effects of visual structures and functions and reflect upon these effects in their own work
• Students employ organizational structures and analyze what makes them effective or not effective in the communication of ideas
• Students select and use the qualities of structures and functions of art to improve communication of their ideas

Content Standard #3: Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas

• Students integrate visual, spatial, and temporal concepts with content to communicate intended meaning in their artworks
• Students use subjects, themes, and symbols that demonstrate knowledge of contexts, values, and aesthetics that communicate intended meaning in artworks

Content Standard #4: Understanding the visual arts in relation to history and cultures

• Students know and compare the characteristics of artworks in various eras and cultures
• Students describe and place a variety of art objects in historical and cultural contexts
• Students analyze, describe, and demonstrate how factors of time and place (such as climate, resources, ideas, and technology) influence visual characteristics that give meaning and value to a work of art

Content Standard #5: Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others

• Students compare multiple purposes for creating works of art
• Students analyze contemporary and historic meanings in specific artworks through cultural and aesthetic inquiry
• Students describe and compare a variety of individual responses to their own artworks and to artworks from various eras and cultures

Content Standard #6: Making connections between visual arts and other disciplines

• Students compare the characteristics of works in two or more art forms that share similar subject matter, historical periods, or cultural context
• Students describe ways in which the principles and subject matter of other disciplines taught in the school are interrelated with the visual arts