Sixth Grade Visual Art Content Standards

• Creative expression:
  • Students will continue to learn to value their creative process and product, and those of others, as they engage in a variety of art-making experiences. They will explore different ideas, concepts, themes, materials, techniques, tools, media, and processes, which will enable them to communicate visually at a more sophisticated level and expand their artistic awareness. Students will explore the following skills while they are actively doing, creating art: planning (sketching, rough drafts, brainstorming), experimenting (tinkering, trial and error, mistake making), and problem solving, making aesthetic choices, developing ideas, critical thinking in variety of forms, observing and documenting observations, sharing through discussion, reflective writing, and critiques.
• Historical/cultural heritage (art appreciation):
  • Students will establish a context for their artmaking experiences as well as make connections to their community and to the world. These connections will offer them multiple viewpoints, and cross-cultural references. They will explore traditional as well as contemporary artists, across time and place, seeking to discover similarities and differences between them and themselves.
• Aesthetics:
  • Students will engage in inquiry about the nature and value of art (e.g. What is art? Who makes art and why? How and what kind of art is made? What is the role of art and artmaker?) as they immerse themselves in the creative process. Students will gain skills in discovering and discussing the many different purposes, intentions, interpretations, and meanings derived from their own artworks, their peers, and artists from many cultures. Students will discover and share what people do with art in their homes and community, locally and globally. They will have opportunities to develop respect for multiple viewpoints by comparing their values of art with those of others.
• Artistic perception:
  • Students will use their senses to perceive their own art work, and others, as well as objects in nature and their environment. They will expand their ability to communicate about their own work and process, and that of others by using visual arts language (e.g. expressive features, sensory qualities, compositional and organizational principles, elements of design). They will learn to understand that people “see” through different lenses, and that the way people perceive the world is shaped by their individual experiences and the opportunities they have had to educate their senses.

District-wide, Mill Valley students will learn to express personal ideas and feelings using their imagination, intuition, memory, or observation through the visual arts. Students learn to value originality, artistic freedom, and the art process. The art curriculum places art making at the center. Aesthetics, art criticism, and history grow out of and integrate with students’ creative experiences. Students have opportunities to make choices and cope with ambiguity and uncertainty as they exercise judgement in solving artistic problems. These artistic problems encourage them to invent, experiment, take risks, make mistakes, and learn from each other. The art curriculum emphasizes the development of the students’ imagination and sensory perception.

MVMS art curriculum builds upon the K-5 elementary art program. It introduces students to age-appropriate elements of creative and critical thinking skills and processes which prepare them for future experiences in the visual arts and extend to all areas of life. Through the practice of creating, using a wide variety of materials and media, students are able to see themselves as artists.

Students will develop responsibility and ownership for their participation in art-making within the Art Studio. They will have experiences in the preparation, maintenance, and care of materials, tools, equipment, and facilities. They will keep journals/sketchbooks and in-process portfolios.

Sixth grade students experience the following:

• Drawing
  • use a variety of materials (e.g. graphite sticks, charcoal pencils, pen and ink) to develop line quality; experiment with concepts of shading, value, proportion and texture; observational drawing of light and shadow on objects; exploration of portraiture, figurative, and still life as subject matter
• Painting
  • further exploration of tools for painting, and experimentation of paint application; refinement of use of tempera, watercolor and mixed media; individual and group mural experience
• Printmaking
  • continued use and expansion of previously learned skills and techniques (e.g. collagraphs and /or monoprints); experience producing multiple prints
• Ceramics
  • introduction to slip and scoring as methods of construction; introduction to underglazes; use of slip as surface decoration; refinement of additive and subtractive methods of working with clay
• Sculpture
  • use of a combination of materials (e.g. wire, recycled, wood, natural) to create three dimensional forms
• Photography
  • introduction to visual elements of composition, framing, perspective, motion, and lighting through the use of the camera (still, video, digital); non-darkroom experience making images (e.g. photocopy machine, collage, alternative processes)
• Crafts
  • papercrafts (e.g. hand made paper using pulp to build a relief, paper pulp casting), collage, fiber art (e.g. batiks), basketry, weaving, quilting
• New Genre
  • introduction to installation, conceptual, alternative processes
• Tech Arts
  • introduction to shop work in wood, metal, electronics, recycled material; computer/digital arts; hypermedia; computer graphics

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