.- FLORIDA STATS UNIVERSITY A STUDY TO DETERMlNE WHETHER EIGHTH GRADERS CAN DEVELOP CERTAIN SPECIFIC CONGEPTS CONtiERNING AMERICAN ART THROUGH AN ESPECIALLY CONSTRUCTED LEARNING UNIT BY MARGAKET G. VIOLETTE Am Submitted to the Graduate School of f Florida State Universlty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for . the degree of Master of Science Approved: ProfessoroDirecting Paper August, 1962 Dean of the Graduate School r TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................ ii LISTOFTABLES ........................ iv INTRODUCTION ......................... 1 Purpose of the Study Assumptions Limit8tion 5 Definition of Terms Procedure of the Study SUMMARYOFFINDINGS ...................... 15 r Determining Significance of Raw Scores Essay Test Objective Test Student's Weekly Written Reactions Evaluated Student Work CONCLUSIONS .......................... U. Appblidice s A. LIST OF VISUAL MATERIAL USED IN LEBRNING UNIT ON AMERICAN ARTISTS ............. 25 E. VERBdL TEACHING OUTLINE ON AMfBICAN ARTISTS AND THEIHWORX .................... 28 C. ESPECIALLYDESIGFW TESTS .............. 43 D. CRITERfdUSEDINSGORING ............... 50 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................... 55 iii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Determining Significance of Raw Scores ........ 15 2. Written Essay Exam .................. 16 3. Written Objective Exam ................ 17 4. Student's Weekly Written Heactions .......... 18 5. Student Work as evaluated by Two Judges ....... 20 6. Judges' Rating of the Number of Paintings Under Each Category for the Class of 18 ...... 22 r iv INTRODUCTION In the curriculum during the period between 1930 and 1950 art appreciation per se of the work of American artists was presented to children in an indirect manner. Art appreciatibn, as found during this period, was more often a by-product for the student's learning experiences in art. The emphasis was on the immediacy of the student's own involvement in the creative process rather than learning any particular body of content about the artist and his way of working. Jack Bookbinder points out that many art teachers have been wary and even skeptical in the past of formal art appreciation in their teaching.' Within the past decade increasing interest has been shown among art educators in determining methods of introducing to children concepts of artists and their work and relating these concepts to the student's problem-solving situations in art. The writer, as a teacher in the public school system of Dade County, Florida, has observed the lack of knowledge and understanding which junior high school students evidenced of the background of their own country's art heritage. It was noted that although most students could recognize the nams of Leonerdo da Vinci, or Michelangelo, and an occasional student could cite several other artists who were all European, few showed a knowledge of artists in America. IJack Bookbinder, "The Problem of Art Appreciation," School -Arts, Vol. LXI, No. 9 (May, 19621, p. 5. 1 2 As young artists, themselves, interpreting their American environment in their art expression, the students were not relating a knowledge of American artists and the way they work to their own problem-solving situations. It was because of this lack of relationship between the student's creative expression and the knowledge of the way in which artists in America have created their art, that the writer became interested in and selected the subject of this study. In determining the nature and scope of the study, the writer examined literature and research per- taining to the teaching of art appreciation. Research in art education has revealed the effectiveness of relating appreciation to the student's on-going learning and creating experiences in art. Although she was studying teaching methods for art appreciation for college students, Eleanor Armis' findings with regard to the relationship of appreciation to involvement in creative arh expression are significant. She concluded that lecture-studio learning in art appreciation was more effective, particularly for spontaneous students, than was the lecture method. 1 Burkhart's opinion is that courses in art appreciation should, through discussions and work in materials, encourage the developmant of art acceptance attitudes which help students become more open to new forms of art expression and more conscious of the intrinsic values of the art product itself .2 Appreciation relies on an understanding with which the learner 'Robert C. Burkhart, Suontaneous and Deliberate Ways of Learn- & (Scrantoh, Pa.: International Textbook Co., 19621, p. 194. 3 can identify and see meaning. Thus, relating the creative act to the knowledge (and understanding) of works of art is of great value to learning in art appreciation. As Schinneller points out: The uniqueness of art is that it is dependent upon the per- former for the final solution. Only he, since the activity is based on self-determination, can provide the answer. This is to imply not that various forms of assistance are unavailable for enlightenment, but rather, that, unlike other activities, the conclusion cannot be found in following rules and regulations. Instead, it is dependent on invention. Art is unique in indi- cating the supremacy of the doer, rather than the body of knowledge concerning the field. An experience may be relived, details recalled, and life intensified through art activity. What one can expect from art is, of cowse, dependent upon what one is willing to give to the field. Effort and study increase knowledge, and active participation-- from drawing and painting to carving to designing architectural forms--provides valuable insights and develops skills.' If we may assume that learning in art appreciation is dependent on the relating of a student's experiences in art with a particular body of knowledge about artists, we should also look to the curriculum of the school for what it implies for this study. The junior high school, with which the writer is immediately concerned, has curricular organization in which the interdependence of learning in the various subject areas is sought. For example, art can serve to enrich social studies units on American life in the nineteenth century through the exploration of common problems and ideas as expressed in the creative work of the artists of the time. These creative wurks can be more meaningful to the student to the degree he can relate them to his per- sonal creative experiences. We can appreciate, says Barkan, what others do and share with them only to the degree that we have common experience lJames A. Schinneller, Art: Search and Self-Discoverp (Scranton, Pa.: International Textbook Go., 1Y61), pp. 2-3. 4 with them. Such experience requires involvement with ideas having personal significance. 1 Another aspect of teaching art appreciation with art expression is the nature of the concepts to be learned. According to de Francesco, A concept is a generalized idea of a whole classification of people, objects, animals, things, or situations. Through learning, concepts expand by the inclusion of additional common elements of the classification and by the exclusion of differences. In addi- tion, a concept brings to mind pertinent situations and associations. For example, the term paint refers, among other things, to water- color painting, oil painting, landscape, still-life, figure, mural, and portrait painting. But it also refers to house painting, painting a fence, or it may refer to the phrase "painting the town" or "painting a beautiful picture" with words. Art education is educ tion in thinking, in seeing, in sensing, and finally in acting. 3 Education through creative art experience concenns itself with the development of perception, insight, and action. The visual arts, states Barkan, are a lenguage through which people express their ideas, feelings, and understandings of the things they see in their world. When an individual draws or paints, designs or constructs, he creates a visual art from out of his aesthetic-social-psychological insights. The choice of subject for a painting is a selective process which reveals an individual's attitudes and ideas about the subject. Similarly, when he selects subjects to design or construct, he zeveals his under- standing and his When children's creative art expression is related to cognitive lManuel Barkan, A Foundation for Art Education (New Pork: Ronald Press, CO., 19551, pp. 6.L-67. 21talo L. de Francesco, Art Education: Its Means and Ends (New York: Harper Bros., 1958), pp. 18-21. %nuel Barkan, & Foundation for Art Education (New York: Ronald Press, Co., 19551, p. 17. 5 understandings learning is enlarged. An example of this is described by June MoFee. To make an African mask more meaningful to children, so they can respond more fully to its visual qualities, the teacher could read aloud the story of symbolic meaning behind the mask, its functions in the lives of the people who made it--its part in tribal ritualistic life. The class could learn how it was made, the tools used, and the role of the artist who made it. To understand the structure and possible forms of masks they should view it in many lights to see its contours and design, the textures and colors. 211 of these understandings increase the children's preparation for observing the object. This is an example of reciprocal action between cognitive understanding and visual perception. Knowing the nature of the mask increases the number of things one will look for. Being able to look at the mask in terms of its visual qualities enriches the concepts the children are developing about African masks. To give them less restricted learning about the mask, they could be encouraged to improvise on it by making masks of their own. More advanced children might like to design masks for OUT om ulture or for another group of people they are learning about. E In literature of art education, the concepts most generally presented about works of art are: 1. A knowledge of biographical data about the artist which consti- tutes a frame of reference in understanding his work. 2. A knowledge of the society in which the artist worked and the forces that may have influenced him.