An important revival in art education seeks to provide adolescents with art projects that are culturally and politically relevant to their lives. Stimulated in part by both a postmodernist attitude and the attention to visual culture, such projects address content that is meaningful to students' families, their futures, and their society. These…

This article describes an arts and narrative intervention program using visual art, storytelling, music, journaling, and support groups with incarcerated abused women to address the following questions: How can visual art and music empower incarcerated female survivors of domestic violence? Can art, music, storytelling, journaling, and support…

The power of images to convince, impact, illuminate, and provide long-lasting reminders of events underscores the significance of contemporary images to art education (Green, 1999). Incorporating such imagery into curriculum can, however, be a daunting enterprise. Relevant and compelling on the one hand, on the other, the undertaking can be…

The Comic Book Project was launched originally as a way of putting into practice some of the most important educational research of the last decade--that is, the correlation between involvement in the arts and performance in academic subjects (Deasy, 2002; Fiske, 1999). This article is not necessarily about comic books; it is about children…

Current recommendations for teaching increasingly call for meaningmaking and discussion (Walker, 1996). However, new teachers are seldom given instruction or guidelines for creating an environment that nurtures or encourages dialogue or discussion that is not teacher-centered (Milbrandt, 2002). Most art teachers are familiar with questioning…

In this article, the author expresses concern that art educators and art teachers frequently lack sufficient and tangible understandings of the processes that distinguish artmaking activity. An open-ended situation directed by ongoing dialogue make for an elusive process that is difficult to get one's hands around; however, substantive knowledge…

This article provides an overview of a secondary art education methods course developed in response to a variety of educational directives and movements in the fields of art, education, art education, and design. Within each unit of study in this course, students engage in four learning environments--studio, information design, planning, and…

Public school art education in the United States has been around for over 125 years. Professional art education associations of one kind or another have been with us for at least 100 years. The National Art Education Association has provided information and support to art teachers for many decades, but the truth is that most public school art…

This article presents a thematic, inquiry-based Instructional Resource for secondary students. This instructional resource uses thematic inquiry to facilitate transfer of knowledge. A theme is a general topic that can help students see relationships and make connections--and transfer information to new situations. Students may be more willing and…

According to Hanes and Schiller (1994), "The student teacher experience is the traditional transition from theories of the university to practical realities of public schools. It is in this experience that critical changes occur and determine the manner of practice that preservice teachers tend to adopt for their future classrooms" (p. 218). The…

In this paper, the author asks the reader to imagine the format of a new reality show: "American Teacher," which would feature preserves college students competing for a chance at a lucrative teaching contract, albeit far less than a million dollars. Each week, viewers would vote the contestants out of the classroom instead of off the island.…

This article offers an introductory framework for public art that supports an inquiry approach to instruction. "Public art," or for the purposes of this article, "artworks outside museum and gallery walls," is a large and complex subject that lends itself to a variety of categorical divisions. A basic category, for example, includes the various…

The Blue Grass Trust in Lexington, Kentucky sponsors the annual visual art contest for historic preservation, one of the many events they sponsor as part of the celebrations planned for Historic Preservation Month each May. When the announcement concerning the Blue Grass Trust visual art competition is released, area high school art teachers…

In this paper, the author discusses the use of an interactive computer technology, "MOO" (Multi-user domain, Object-Oriented), in her art education classes for preservice teachers. A MOO is a text-based environment wherein interactivity is centered on text exchanges made between users based on problems or other materials created by teachers. The…

As an illustration of meaningful exploration of public art, Coutts provides a tour of a multimedia curriculum project based on art works in Glasgow, Scotland. He explores the potential of multimedia to engage students and teachers in a debate about public art for students at the interface of primary and secondary schools. Scanning the City, a…