Objectives
Although I am known as a Visual Arts teacher, I feel strongly that the most important lessons I can teach my students involve critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills. So I focus most of my curriculum and instruction on these three strategies taught through art making. The Art Based Research approach allows me to expand upon the notion that art is a lens for which all of our learning can take place and throughout this unit Art Based Research will enable my students to blend note taking and qualitative research through an aesthetic process that encourages art making to collect data and conduct analysis.
This in depth research demands that students engage in thoughtful and meaningful historical inquiry using the visual skills they've developed previously in class. Through Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), students will interpret primary and secondary historical documents visually and verbally. Seeking clues and context as they examine maps, cartoons, and photographs students will develop an understanding of the issues and ideas that surrounded the immigration debate of each time period we study. As each document is analyzed through critical class discussions, students begin to put together strong and personal knowledge of immigration throughout a historical context. In collaboration with VTS, students will conduct research by visual note taking, making sketches, physically manipulating copies of primary source images, and posing inquiry questions within their sketchbooks. The process of collecting information and expressing ideas visually allows students to make meaning from within the laws we are studying, forming their own questions for further research, and expressing their learning to others.
Comments: