FIS Upper School Visual Arts Department

Curriculum Overview

Faculty

Facilities

Student Work

Special Events

Art Main

Visual Arts Curriculum Overview

Click on the FIS Logo above to go to FIS main website. This page updated: July 2008

Here you can get a glimpse of the Visual Arts Curriculum, from grades 6 to 12 at FIS. Scroll down to get a glimpse of what students study in the art studios at FIS.

Visual Arts Curriculum at FIS, grades 6 to 12

Philosophy

The Visual Arts program is designed to help students develop creative and practical skills in order to understand more about the visual world in which they live and to appreciate the arts and crafts of diverse cultures in the world. Students learn about art through creative process learning strategies which often seek to make direct and tangible links with what they are studying in other subjects. All major areas of visual expression are experienced including drawing, painting, ceramics, wood, stone and plaster sculpture, printmaking, photography, digital film and video editing.

General Description

All students in grades 6, 7 and 8 take two periods of art per cycle (8 days), meeting twice a cycle for 100 minutes (2 x 50-minute periods). Grade 9 Visual Arts is an elective course, meeting three times per 8-day cycle for a total of 150 minutes (3 x 50-minute periods).

Due to an increasing involvement and awareness of the importance of interdisciplinary work in the schoolwide program, the nature of many of the projects completed by students in Grades 6-8 Visual Arts classes rely heavily upon materials and issues covered in other subjects.

For an overview of the material and projects of the Visual Arts courses at FIS please click on the links below (this will start download of the Word documents).

Grade 6 Visual Arts Curriuclum Overview

Grade 7 Visual Arts Curriculum Overview

Grade 8 Visual Arts Curriculum Overview

Grade 9 Visual Arts Curriculum Overview

Grade 10 Foundations Art Curriculum Overview

Grade 11 & 12 IB Diploma Visual Arts Curriculum Overview

Assessment in the Visual Arts at FIS

Students are assessed in the Visual Arts according to a highly developed and subject-specific group of criteria. From grades 6 to 8, student performance is evaluated according to the fundamental criteria: Knowledge & Understanding, Application, Reflection & Evaluation and Artistic Awareness & Personal Engagement.

In Grade 9, the first criteria takes on additional refinement by emphasizing how the student develops (Development) his or her work and how well the student begins to handle materials (Sensitivity to Materials).

In Grade 10 (Foundations Art) in addition to the refinements mentioned above, all four of the initial criteria are further focused towards looking at how a student investigates his or her work (Investigation), develops facility and technique with materials (Technique), begins to use his/her sketchbook as a means of developing work done in the studio (Integration) and shows evidence of awareness of the relevance an artwork has to culture and the larger world (Relevance).

By grade 11 (IB Diploma Level Visual Arts) the student is prepared for the 16 very particular Visual Arts criteria prescribed by the Diploma Level program when examining students: Investigation, Understanding, Cultural & Contextual Awareness, Development, Technique, Process, Vocabulary, Sensistivity to Materials, Integration, Acknowledging Sources, Depth & Breadth, Critical Awareness, Relevance, Presentation, Confidence and Independance.

The chart below shows how the Visual Arts instructors at FIS implement the various criteria throughout the student's development. By clicking on the image, you can download a PDF version of the document for your reference.

Investigative and Studio Criteria/ Formative & Summative Assessment

The Visual Arts Department at FIS follows the International Baccalaureate Organization practice of recognizing that the various criteria at the Diploma level for assessment are divided into two types: Investigative and Studio criteria. These are as follows:

Investigative Criteria	Studio Criteria
Cultural & Contextual Awareness	Understanding
Technical Awareness	Relevance
Investigation	Development
Depth & Breadth	Sensitivity to Materials
Vocabulary	Technique
Acknowledges Sources	Confidence
Presentation	Independence
Integration	Process

At the Middle Year levels (grades 6-8) the four fundamental criteria applied address evaluative tasks both formative and summative, with the greater weighting resting upon summative tasks in final assessment.

While the Investigative and Studio criteria at the upper levels do not directly correspond to formative and summative assessment at the lower level, there is nevertheless a relationship between these, the understanding of which can lead to better student awareness of how they are assessed across the grade levels.

The assesment criteria and the various assessment tasks help both the student and the teacher arrive at an understanding of the student's performance. Descriptors for each criteria are applied to a point scale to help the teacher determine a student's grade in that area of consideration. Finally, a holistic grade of 1-7 is derived from the marks in the various criteria, corresponding to the International Baccalaureate's overall descriptors of the 1-7 scale:

GRADE	DESCRIPTOR
7	Excellent performance: Demonstrates in a highly consistent manner: excellent growth and a strong relationship between research and artistic production; thorough command of topics/concepts; highly developed understanding of sociocultural and historical perspectives in more than one cultural context; excellent critical analysis; excellent exploration of ideas, and meaningful and creative studio works, excellent technical ability and effective setting and solving of artistic problems.
6	Very good performance: Demonstrates in a very consistent manner: very good growth and a sound relationship between research and artistic production; thorough understanding of most topics/concepts; understanding of sociocultural and historical perspectives in more than one cultural context; very good critical analysis; very good exploration of ideas, and meaningful and creative studio works, very good technical ability and setting and solving of artistic problems.
5	Good performance: Demonstrates in a consistent manner: good growth and a good relationship between research and artistic production; generally sound understanding of most topics/concepts; understanding of sociocultural and historical perspectives in more than one cultural context; good critical analysis; good exploration of ideas, and mostly meaningful and creative studio works, good technical ability and setting and solving of artistic problems.
4	Satisfactory performance: Demonstrates in a fairly consistent manner: satisfactory growth and ari adequate relationship between research and artistic production; satisfactory understanding of most topics/concepts; adequate understanding of sociocultural and historical perspectives in more than one cultural context; satisfactory critical analysis; satisfactory exploration of ideas, and some meaningful studio works, satisfactory technical ability and solving of basic and routine formal and technical problems.
3	Medíocre performance: Demonstrates: medíocre growth and a partial relationship between research and artistic production; mediocre understanding of some topics/concepts; partial understanding of sociocultural and historical perspectives in more than one cultural context; limited critical analysis; some mediocre exploration of ideas, and the limited development of a few meaningful studio works, mediocre technical ability and solving of some basic and routine formal and technical problems.
2	Poor performance: Demonstrates: poor growth and a limited relationship between research and artistic production; weak understanding of topics/concepts; poor understanding of sociocultural and historical perspectives in one or sometimes more cultural contexts; little capacity for critical analysis; poor exploration of ideas and the limited development of studio works, poor technical ability and solving of a few basic or routine formal and technical problems.
1	Very poor performance: Demonstrates: very poor growth and a very limited relationship, if any, between research and artistic production; very weak understanding of topics/concepts; very poor understanding of sociocultural and historical perspectives in one or sometimes more cultural contexts; very little capacity for criticai analysis, if any; very poor exploration of ideas in studio works, very poor technical ability and very occasional solving of basic or routine formal and technical problems.

NEWS!

Curriculum review is nearing an end!

FIS Visual Arts undergoes curriculum review and makes full use of Rubicon Atlas database!

This school year is a busy one in curriuclum development in the Visual Arts at FIS. As we begin to re-examine our current program and formulate a more appropriate assessment policy, we will be looking carefully at what constitutes "best practice" and how we can most effectively achieve the learning outcomes that we value most. By the start of the 2008-2009 school year, we hope to have a brand new, complete and finalized curriculum in place in time for the major efforts we will be making to document our teaching for the accreditation process next year.

Additionally, this year marks the climax of our digital curriculum documentation at FIS/ISW, as the entire school completes the entry of its guidelines into the Rubicon Atlas Curriuclum database. The Visual Arts faculty has already entered the bulk of our curriculum and related documentation into the database, which facilitates more communal access to our work and allows for an increase in our ability to reflect upon and modify what we do in the studios. Watch this site for updates on our progress in our efforts to generate a state-of-the-art ,living curriculum in the Visual Arts!

Parents and students wishing to know more about the requirements for the Visual Arts courses at FIS should contact the Head of Visual Arts Department here: Art@FIS

Oil painting in the studio

In warm weather many of our students paint outside the studios

IB1 students taking an exam in Byzantine art & architecture

Art History in the Visual Arts Curriuclum at FIS:

Education in the Visual Arts takes many forms at FIS. Students learn by making art, but also but looking at art and studying its evolution over time.The History of Art is an important component in our curriuclum at all levels, but in grades 9-12 (when Visual Arts becomes an elective course) the students spend one in every eight classes studying the history of humanity's visual expression.

Students are exposed to the material in several ways. Digital slide shows present the development of the history of art in clear, notated progression. Videos and DVD clips are also used. Text books and study sheets support their learning and all art history classes are audially recorded and the recordings made into MP3 files which can be downloaded by students for their reveiw.

Curriculum• Faculty• Facilities• Student Work• Special Events