AP Studio Art 

Visual Journal

Students will be provided with a sketchbook to serve as their visual journal. Working in a sketchbook is an ongoing process that will help students make informed and critical decisions about the progress of their work. This course teaches students a variety of concepts and approaches in drawing,  2D, and 3D design. The sketchbook is the perfect place to investigate a variety of concepts and techniques as students develop their own voice and style. Good, clear photographs of the work in students' sketchbooks can be submitted as part of the portfolio to demonstrate practice and experimentation with materials and processes. 

Art and Design Resources

Students are encouraged to investigate a variety of creative art and design resources to enhance their aesthetic understanding and generate possibilities for investigation. Art 21 is an excellent database of contemporary artists and the concepts that they explore in their work. Once you find artists that interest you,  visiting their websites of can provide an even more in-depth understanding of their processes.

Researching past examples of AP Art and Design Portfolios can also be a helpful practice. Those portfolios can be found on the College Board AP Art and Design page. 

Digital Tools & Resources

Students will document their developing portfolios weekly using school-provided digital cameras and will regularly upload their images to a class Google Site to organize and manage their image files and written reflections. Students have access to school provided computers and iPads with internet connections and access to image editing software and apps to ensure that their portfolio images are the highest quality possible. During group critiques, students will project images of their work so that their work is experienced the way that portfolio reviewers will experience their work in the spring. The class will discuss how the images relate to specific AP portfolio requirements.

Projects and Assignments

Finished artworks will be due approximately every two weeks. Scaffolded activities will offer opportunities for students to pursue a sustained investigation while being challenged to explore materials, develop technical skills and push conceptual thinking. Progress checks midway through the two-week cycle will allow students to receive in-progress guidance and feedback from the instructor and/or from peers. 

Developing a Sustained Investigation through inquiry, practice, experimentation, and revision

Students will engage in brainstorming activities in order to generate possibilities for their sustained investigation. Their brainstorming will be shared and discussed in class to help students identify why they may be drawn to work with a particular idea, material, or process based on their personal experiences and context. Students will research how the materials, processes, and ideas they’re interested in have been used by other artists, designers, and makers and will share out their findings. As students develop works of art exploring their question or idea,  the teacher and classmates will help each student identify  common threads of an idea running through the developing body of work and will envision development of the idea in future works, leading to questions that can guide further investigation. 

Once a focus for the sustained investigation has been established, students will collaborate with the teacher to formulate inquiry questions that guide their sustained investigation through art and design. 

After the initial ideation process, students will begin work towards investigating these inquiry questions using preliminary sketches, maquettes, and/or written notes to inform ongoing practice and experimentation. Students will develop and revise their work, strengthening relationships of ideas, materials, and processes with the goal of demonstrating synthesis.

Synthesis

In AP Studio Art, student artworks must demonstrate visual and written evidence of alignment (synthesis) between ideas, materials, and processes. Students will analyze one another's works of art for visual evidence of that alignment during critique and will collaborate to generate possible alternative materials and processes that would strengthen synthesis within the artwork. 

Written Evidence

Because of the AP Portfolio's requirements regarding visual and written evidence students will practice written expression daily in class. This writing will take place in their visual journals, on their Google Site in-progress portfolio, in self-contained writing practice assignments, in written critiques and reflections, and on quarterly assessments.

Students may be prompted to:

• document questions that guided their sustained investigations, notes, experiments, data, and other significant information; 

• record and share the results of their questions, processes, and results;

• describe the synthesis between materials, processes, and ideas.

Critiques

Once a week, students gather as a group for dialog about work in progress or finished artworks. They discuss materials, processes, and ideas they’re using to make work and receive constructive feedback from peers and their teacher. This feedback will be aligned with the AP portfolio requirements with specific emphasis on visually evident synthesis and 2D, 3D or Drawing skill. Feedback is provided through discussion and written notations. Comments will relate to specific portfolio requirements (i.e., evidence of skillful synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas; practice, experimentation, and revision; inquiry). Each student will write, type, or otherwise transcribe a summary of feedback about their work to inform ongoing thinking and making. 

Quarterly Portfolio Assessment

At the end of each quarter, students will be asked to prepare a digital portfolio demonstrating sustained investigation of their topic. This digital record of growth will also include some written self-evaluation and goal setting. This will act as students' quarterly assessment for the course and will take place during the following timeframes:

    Q1    TBD           Q2  TBD           Q3    TBD          Q4  TBD

Time Outside of Class

This course does NOT offer enough time to fully investigate a topic. The assigned projects will not completely fulfill the requirements of the AP Exam Portfolio. Instead, students will need to work beyond the limits of class time. Finding time to sustain an active creative practice is part of being an artist. Students are welcome to come in for additional work time during FLEX and are encouraged to research, reflect, create art, and document the development of their artwork from home. 

Artistic Integrity and Plagiarism

In this class, students will understand integrity in art and design as well as what constitutes plagiarism. When students produce work that makes use of others’ work as sources of inspiration-- or when another artist's work informs a student's making or thinking-- students will document and cite their references to be submitted alongside their images and written evidence within their in-progress portfolios.

Any work that makes use of (appropriates) photographs, published images, and/or the work of someone else must show substantial and significant development beyond duplication. This is demonstrated through manipulation of the materials, processes, and/or ideas of the source. The student’s individual vision should be clearly evident. It is unethical, constitutes plagiarism, and often violates copyright law simply to copy someone else’s work or imagery (even in another medium) and represent it as one’s own.

Ongoing conferences with the teacher, as well as teacher-guided group peer critiques will provide additional activities to help with this understanding. 

North County High School emphasizes personal, social, and technical academic integrity by ensuring that student work, either individual or collaborative, is valued and others’ work is appropriately acknowledged. Academic dishonesty is a violation of the Code of Student Conduct. Students will receive discipline consequences and may receive a zero for any incidents of academic dishonesty.

Academic Dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Using AI of any kind to generate work

• Sharing or working with peers to complete individual assignments

• Violating the cell phone/personal electronic policy during a graded assignment

• Missing or improper citations when required

• Using another’s work as one’s own

Withholding Credit for Chronic Absenteeism

Students must be present in class regularly to earn credit for the course regardless of their grade in the gradebook. Students who earn a marking period grade of 60% or higher and have 9 or more class period absences (excused and unexcused) in the semester shall be referred to the Attendance Review Committee. The Attendance Review Committee will review the circumstances of the student’s absences and make a recommendation for one of the following:

• Deny credit, with a contract in place to revisit awarding the initial withheld credit after a demonstrated improvement in attendance during the next semester.

• Deny credit, and the student would have to recover the credit in Twilight School, Evening High School, Summer School, or approved online method.

• Award credit with a warning that meeting the yearlong threshold for chronic absenteeism (18+ days in a school year) may result in the denial of other credits.

Please do your best to attend school regularly. Save absences for legitimate illnesses and emergency needs. Always report absences of any kind to the attendance office or submit an absence note online using these directions.