6th Grade

Middle School Art Program

The Art Curriculum at Elwood Middle School has been designed to provide every child with highly successful experiences creating visual order and communicating with art. Exposed to many methods and materials, the students are presented with the elements and principles of art in such a way that success is easily achieved. Therefore, an open-mindedness about art and individual motivation is maintained throughout the middle school years. Too often, students are exposed to techniques before they are ready and are turned off to art by constant failure in their visual experiences.

At Elwood Middle School, we concentrate on developing their ability to see and their ability to visually organize what they see and communicate it in such a way so that it gives visual pleasure.

At each middle school level - 6, 7, 8 - art is presented as design problem solving - it involves thinking, looking and doing.

Thinking - What is to be achieved? What are the visual, stylistic, and physical requirements? When is the solution needed?

Looking - The artist, including the middle school artist, learns by observing visual information and other art.

Doing - The act of creating the finished project.

Joseph Albers says that "to design is to plan and organize, to order and relate and to control." The planning and organizational skills that the students develop in our middle school art program carry over to their other subject areas as well as contribute to their continual learning outside of the classroom.