Anchor Standards, Essential Questions, Enduring Understandings at a Glance

Visual Art Standards

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CREATING: Conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work.

Anchor Standard #1: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.

Enduring Understandings:

• 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.

Essential Questions:

• 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 investigations?

Anchor Standard #2: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.

Enduring Understandings:

• 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.

Essential Questions:

• 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?

• What responsibilities come with the freedom to create?

• 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: Refine and complete artistic work.

Enduring Understandings:

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

Essential Questions:

• 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?

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PRESENTING: Conceiving and developing new artistic ideas and work.

Anchor Standard #4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.

Enduring Understandings:

• Artists and other presenters consider various techniques, methods, venues, and criteria when analyzing, selecting, and curating objects artifacts, and artworks for preservation and presentation.

Essential Questions:

• How are artworks cared for and by whom?

• What criteria, methods, and processes are used to select work for preservation or presentation?

• Why do people value objects, artifacts, and artworks, and select them for presentation?

Anchor Standard #5: Develop and refine artistic work for presentation.

Enduring Understandings:

• Artists, curators and others consider a variety of factors and methods including evolving technologies when preparing and refining artwork for display and or when deciding if and how to preserve and protect it.

Essential Questions:

• What methods and processes are considered when preparing artwork for presentation or preservation?

• How does refining artwork affect its meaning to the viewer?

• What criteria are considered when selecting work for presentation, a portfolio, or a collection?

Anchor Standard #6: Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.

Enduring Understandings:

• Objects, artifacts, and artworks collected, preserved, or presented either by artists, museums, or other venues communicate meaning and a record of social, cultural, and political experiences resulting in the cultivating of appreciation and understanding.

Essential Questions:

• What is an art museum?

• How does the presenting and sharing of objects, artifacts, and artworks influence and shape ideas, beliefs, and experiences?

• How do objects, artifacts, and artworks collected, preserved, or presented, cultivate appreciation and understanding?

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RESPONDING: Understanding and evaluating how the arts convey meaning.

Anchor Standard #7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.

Enduring Understandings:

• 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

Essential Questions:

• 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 #8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.

Enduring Understandings:

• People gain insights into meanings of artworks by engaging in the process of art criticism

Essential Questions:

• What is the value of engaging in the process of art criticism?

• How can the viewer "read" a work of art as text?

• How does knowing and using visual art vocabularies help us understand and interpret works of art?

Anchor Standard #9: Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.

Enduring Understandings:

• People evaluate art based on various criteria.

Essential Questions:

• How does one determine criteria to evaluate a work of art?

• How and why might criteria vary?

• How is a personal preference different from an evaluation?

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CONNECTING: Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context.

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

Enduring Understandings:

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

Essential Questions:

• 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: Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural and historical context to deepen understanding.

Enduring Understandings:

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

Essential Questions:

• 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?

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References:

National Art Standards PDF