VAPA Content Standards and Framework Reading Notes
Chapter 1
List Guiding Principles
Describe guiding principles
1. Support the ed. Code for instruction in arts
All classes except for PE have standards for teaching the arts. This means that every class will have some aspect of the arts integrated into it.
2. Use the state standards as the basis for teaching
These standards are what teachers are supposed to teach. Teachers are not to pick and choose anything that they like as the subject matter, but are to be guided by these standards.
3. Art needs to be taught as individual disciplines that are also related to each other, and other areas of content
Students are to be able to do the following through the arts: understand artistic perception, have creative expression, understand the historical and cultural contexts, understand and practice aesthetic valuing, understand the connections, relationships, and applications involved in the arts.
4. Taught in a way to prepare for the UC and Cal State systems
All that is guided by the state standards is in line with what it takes to gain acceptance to the UC or Cal State system.
5. Work is assessed based on standards
Assessments should be guided towards understanding what students can do and what they have yet to learn. This also provides an aspect of accountability for students and schools.
6. Use of new media and technology in arts.
Use of this new media and technology is to aid in the understanding of the arts. Computers, film, photography, music, etc. are all to be used to help in this process.
7. Include all learners.
All students should have the ability to learn, and this is not hinging upon disabilities.
8. Culture view is broad.
Multicultural aspects are embraced through these teachings.
9. Recognition that arts play a role in life and career.
Developing creative individuals is crucial to helping to sustain and build the marketplace in California and the US as a whole. Skills will be taught that can help students be very successful in career after school.
10. This is to be used by all involved with teaching the arts.
This is to be used as a guide for teachers, developers, publishers of text, districts, principals, curriculum designers, parents, etc.
Chapter 2
Planning/administering VAPA
Explain key points.
Conducting arts education in Middle Schools
Explain how this is done.
Students will continue their learning in the 4 areas of the arts. They may only work specifically with one of the areas, but will do so in ways that will make connections within the school and outside the school. This can be taught in rotations or more in-depth 1 year studies. Teachers should use the community and events/artists within it to supplement the teaching. Everything should be taught in ways that will set a firm foundation for the high school years arts programs.
Partnering with library staff.
How and why?
The librarian should assist in organizing places for art to be displayed. The library should host much of the primary source art documents and also provide students opportunities to further their knowledge in certain subjects through text, pictures, CDs, etc that can be found in the library. Librarian should also assist in the helping of teaching these topics to students.
Evaluating Arts ed. programs
Briefly explain how to evaluate a VAPA program.
There needs to be a baseline evaluation that determines what is being done correctly and what needs improvement in a program. Then annually there should be another evaluation to determine growth and areas that still need growth. All should be able to contribute to the process of what needs to be strengthened but it must be standards based.
Providing Access for all students
Explain how to provide access for all students.
All should be welcome to participate in the arts program. IEPs and students with special needs should be able to participate just as any other student. Different modes of learning are easily adjusted to because of the variety of ways that this information can be taught. All students should be encouraged to be a part of the arts programs.
Application of media and technology
Explain how to use media and technology in an appropriate manner in elementary VAPA programs.
Students need to have a firm foundation built in the arts before introducing large mounts of technology. The reason for this is because if they do not understand the basics of the arts then the technology will not aid in the process of teaching the arts but will become a hindrance. Once the foundation has been built then students can use media and technology to really aid them in this process and take them further in their studies which may not have been possible with the use of this technology and media.
Chapter 3 VAPA Content
Explain the Key Standards for your selected grade level. Provide an example. Keep notes simple/to the point.
Select a grade level 7 or 8.
Explain the content of each area of the VAPA Standards in the space below.
Describe the developmental levels in both areas. What changes do you see from the younger age group to the older students?
Provide an area of integration for each area with social studies/science. Explain your ideas. Be sure that your ideas are age appropriate.
Provide an area of integration for each area with literature/language arts. Explain your ideas. Be sure that your ideas are age appropriate.
Dance:
Ex. Explain dance content in level of your choice.
Note Level you have selected: _____8____.
The changes that I see from earlier grades is that I grade 8 students have to really describe dance in relevant terms. They are still reproducing dance but also doing things like connect it on deeper levels to other areas of life. It is similar to the elementary years but everything is pushed to the next level.
3.2 explaining how dance relates to history and how it played a role in certain events like different minority groups that immigrated to America.
2.4 Be able to describe the various movements of a certain dance as a way of using descriptor words. Maybe turn this into a poem with similes and metaphors.
Music
This is much more advanced than the years prior to it because students are now actually creating music and performing certain aspects of music that come from various styles, genres or cultures.
Students will discuss how the music applied to photographs in a slideshow help to bring about certain emotions in people. Play the song “Strange Fruit” while showing images of lynching that took place in the South after the Civil War.
Write about a certain piece of music. Critique it or write about its genre, style, or cultural background.
Theater
Students are moving from just participating in theater and making simple connections to various topics to really analyzing and connecting theater to actual events in American History. They are also looking at vary different styles of abstract theater, examples: melodrama. They are also working with improvisation.
Perform a skit or play to describe the impacts of the industrial revolution. Explain how the cotton gin has influenced the use of slavery though the use of a musical play that reflects the time or improvise a skit to do so.
Students write a formal review after watching “Romeo and Juliet”. They will explain their critique using vocabulary that is taught in a previous lesson.
Visual Arts
The basis for critique, analysis, compare and contrast skills are presented in earlier grade levels, but in 8th grade students are really honing in on these aspects. Students are giving reasons for their ideas behind the visual arts. They are comparing various pieces from history.
Students will compare the works of art on Manifest Destiny and photographs from Native American reservations/boarding schools. They will describe the various sides to the views on Manifest Destiny.
After completing a piece students will justify in three sentences how their choices in completing the art contribute to the expressive quality of it.
Chapter 4
Explain the following:
Theater:
1. Artistic Perception
Students are able to understand the areas of theatre that make it artistic because of their learning of vocabulary, theatrical skills, and practice of the art. They are able to perceive what is being done because they are beginning to understand how theatre works.
2. Creative Expression
Students express themselves through various aspects of theatre. They are able to act things out, build sets, costumes, scripts, etc. and this is their form of expression.
3. Historical and Cultural Context
History and cultural context are alive in theatre because these aspects are major influences that must be taken into account if the audience is to have the proper perception of what is being expressed. Many stories of old are expressed through theatre. Cultural context is learned because of its acting out in theatre.
4. Aesthetic Valuing
Students are able to place aesthetic value via theatre because of the emotions that it produces within students. They analyze what is being down and the outcome of the theatre and then place value on it accordingly. They critique and begin to understand various aspects to theatre that they might not have if no aesthetic valuing took places.
5. Connections, Relationships, Applications
Students can relate to theatre because it affects them daily through new forms o technology. It is connected to other subject areas like history, language arts, science, and math. History can be learned via storytelling in theatre, the ability to understand things like plot, character, etc. are relatable to language arts. Math and science are used for set building and problem solving.
Visual Arts:
1. Artistic Perception
Students are able to perceive art in their daily lives because it surrounds them. As they progress in their understanding of visual arts they will become more and more able to describe it and critic it based off of its qualities, whether natural or man made.
2. Creative Expression
Students must learn to synthesize their thoughts and learn ways of producing art via that synthesis. This can be done through a variety of mediums: painting, video, photography, sculpting, etc. They are expressing their thoughts and feelings through different formats.
3. Historical and Cultural Context
History and cultural context can be learned about through visual art to present what things where like during various periods. One can learn what was important and what was considered beautiful via art. Students also learn about how culture has affected them and how their art fits into a cultural context.
4. Aesthetic Valuing
Students learn various ways to analyze and critique art through written, oral, and electronic forms of communication. This is developed over time and with others. Vocabulary, art forms, and philosophies must be learned for this to be very structured.
5. Connections, Relationships, Applications
Students realize that visual arts are all around them and in everything that exists. They realize that this affects their lives daily. Many jobs are available in the creation of visual arts. Students can learn how to make sense of what is around them via the understanding of visual arts. The can learn history, literature, science, and math with various forms of visual art, but they can also learn a whole host of other things as well.
Chapter 5
Purpose of Assessment
Explain Purpose
Types of Assessment
Entry Level
Progress Monitoring
Summative Evaluation
· Vocabulary pretests
· Open ended conceptual questions
· Performance opportunity to show current mastery of theory or technique
· Use material or prompt to show current level of skill
· Provide opportunities for internal monitoring
· External monitoring
· Informal or formal monitoring
· Sum up a unit or lesson
· Used to determine if they mastered what the standard described
· Test of skill
· Oral test
· Ability to perform objective
Assessment tools
Rubrics
Portfolios
Media
Rubrics allow the student to know exactly what it is that they are being graded on. They know what skills they must master and they can work on those skills until they feel they have accomplished what is required of them, and then they can perform the skill for the teacher.
Portfolios show a couple of things depending on what type of portfolio it is. Sometimes they show growth of skill over long periods of time. Other portfolios show mastery of certain skills. Other portfolios show the students’ best works. Lastly, other portfolios show only the best of the students work and are used for competitive or high-stakes purposes like entrance to a university.
Portfolios can be made digital. Art can be shown on a variety of mediums of technology. Technology can be used to critique art work and allows for teacher to assess students on various artistic objectives.
Chapter 6
Read and reflect: How might you develop your knowledge and ability to teach the VAPA?
I will develop my ability to teach the visual and performing arts by working alongside our schools VAPA teachers. I will attempt to teach similar topics via social science when they are being taught in the VAPA classes. I will also see if other teachers can work with the social science pacing guide. Either way there can be n effort to collaborate what is being taught so that there are certain themes being taught congruently. I will also try to mild some of my lessons around the VAPA more. I have noticed that students typically really enjoy themselves when these lessons are taught and they seem to learn the most because they are physically doing something. I will also continue to attend the Teaching American History classes that my district offers because there is usually an effort made to teach VAPA material. I must continue to hone in my craft of teaching social science at the junior high school and high school levels.
Chapter 7
Explain the Instructional Approaches mentioned in the Category 5 paragraph on Instructional Planning and Support.
Page 193.
The instructional approaches are geared towards teaching students in ways that will be standards based first and foremost. There are a variety of suggested ways to do this including the use of technology. The text suggests that teachers use direct instruction, reading, writing, demonstrations, creation of artwork, and internet use and inquiry. There are other areas described as well including: making sure that all lessons are given background information, using a variety of teaching strategies to reach all students, making sure that lessons are properly sequenced, and guidelines for making sure there are safety protocols for all situations and lessons. The use of technology has also opened up doors to teaching different formats of are including graphic imagining, video editing, etc. This is another medium in which the VAPA can be taught and learned.
List Guiding Principles
Describe guiding principles
1. Support the ed. Code for instruction in arts
All classes except for PE have standards for teaching the arts. This means that every class will have some aspect of the arts integrated into it.
2. Use the state standards as the basis for teaching
These standards are what teachers are supposed to teach. Teachers are not to pick and choose anything that they like as the subject matter, but are to be guided by these standards.
3. Art needs to be taught as individual disciplines that are also related to each other, and other areas of content
Students are to be able to do the following through the arts: understand artistic perception, have creative expression, understand the historical and cultural contexts, understand and practice aesthetic valuing, understand the connections, relationships, and applications involved in the arts.
4. Taught in a way to prepare for the UC and Cal State systems
All that is guided by the state standards is in line with what it takes to gain acceptance to the UC or Cal State system.
5. Work is assessed based on standards
Assessments should be guided towards understanding what students can do and what they have yet to learn. This also provides an aspect of accountability for students and schools.
6. Use of new media and technology in arts.
Use of this new media and technology is to aid in the understanding of the arts. Computers, film, photography, music, etc. are all to be used to help in this process.
7. Include all learners.
All students should have the ability to learn, and this is not hinging upon disabilities.
8. Culture view is broad.
Multicultural aspects are embraced through these teachings.
9. Recognition that arts play a role in life and career.
Developing creative individuals is crucial to helping to sustain and build the marketplace in California and the US as a whole. Skills will be taught that can help students be very successful in career after school.
10. This is to be used by all involved with teaching the arts.
This is to be used as a guide for teachers, developers, publishers of text, districts, principals, curriculum designers, parents, etc.
Chapter 2
Planning/administering VAPA
Explain key points.
Conducting arts education in Middle Schools
Explain how this is done.
Students will continue their learning in the 4 areas of the arts. They may only work specifically with one of the areas, but will do so in ways that will make connections within the school and outside the school. This can be taught in rotations or more in-depth 1 year studies. Teachers should use the community and events/artists within it to supplement the teaching. Everything should be taught in ways that will set a firm foundation for the high school years arts programs.
Partnering with library staff.
How and why?
The librarian should assist in organizing places for art to be displayed. The library should host much of the primary source art documents and also provide students opportunities to further their knowledge in certain subjects through text, pictures, CDs, etc that can be found in the library. Librarian should also assist in the helping of teaching these topics to students.
Evaluating Arts ed. programs
Briefly explain how to evaluate a VAPA program.
There needs to be a baseline evaluation that determines what is being done correctly and what needs improvement in a program. Then annually there should be another evaluation to determine growth and areas that still need growth. All should be able to contribute to the process of what needs to be strengthened but it must be standards based.
Providing Access for all students
Explain how to provide access for all students.
All should be welcome to participate in the arts program. IEPs and students with special needs should be able to participate just as any other student. Different modes of learning are easily adjusted to because of the variety of ways that this information can be taught. All students should be encouraged to be a part of the arts programs.
Application of media and technology
Explain how to use media and technology in an appropriate manner in elementary VAPA programs.
Students need to have a firm foundation built in the arts before introducing large mounts of technology. The reason for this is because if they do not understand the basics of the arts then the technology will not aid in the process of teaching the arts but will become a hindrance. Once the foundation has been built then students can use media and technology to really aid them in this process and take them further in their studies which may not have been possible with the use of this technology and media.
Chapter 3 VAPA Content
Explain the Key Standards for your selected grade level. Provide an example. Keep notes simple/to the point.
Select a grade level 7 or 8.
Explain the content of each area of the VAPA Standards in the space below.
Describe the developmental levels in both areas. What changes do you see from the younger age group to the older students?
Provide an area of integration for each area with social studies/science. Explain your ideas. Be sure that your ideas are age appropriate.
Provide an area of integration for each area with literature/language arts. Explain your ideas. Be sure that your ideas are age appropriate.
Dance:
Ex. Explain dance content in level of your choice.
Note Level you have selected: _____8____.
The changes that I see from earlier grades is that I grade 8 students have to really describe dance in relevant terms. They are still reproducing dance but also doing things like connect it on deeper levels to other areas of life. It is similar to the elementary years but everything is pushed to the next level.
3.2 explaining how dance relates to history and how it played a role in certain events like different minority groups that immigrated to America.
2.4 Be able to describe the various movements of a certain dance as a way of using descriptor words. Maybe turn this into a poem with similes and metaphors.
Music
This is much more advanced than the years prior to it because students are now actually creating music and performing certain aspects of music that come from various styles, genres or cultures.
Students will discuss how the music applied to photographs in a slideshow help to bring about certain emotions in people. Play the song “Strange Fruit” while showing images of lynching that took place in the South after the Civil War.
Write about a certain piece of music. Critique it or write about its genre, style, or cultural background.
Theater
Students are moving from just participating in theater and making simple connections to various topics to really analyzing and connecting theater to actual events in American History. They are also looking at vary different styles of abstract theater, examples: melodrama. They are also working with improvisation.
Perform a skit or play to describe the impacts of the industrial revolution. Explain how the cotton gin has influenced the use of slavery though the use of a musical play that reflects the time or improvise a skit to do so.
Students write a formal review after watching “Romeo and Juliet”. They will explain their critique using vocabulary that is taught in a previous lesson.
Visual Arts
The basis for critique, analysis, compare and contrast skills are presented in earlier grade levels, but in 8th grade students are really honing in on these aspects. Students are giving reasons for their ideas behind the visual arts. They are comparing various pieces from history.
Students will compare the works of art on Manifest Destiny and photographs from Native American reservations/boarding schools. They will describe the various sides to the views on Manifest Destiny.
After completing a piece students will justify in three sentences how their choices in completing the art contribute to the expressive quality of it.
Chapter 4
Explain the following:
Theater:
1. Artistic Perception
Students are able to understand the areas of theatre that make it artistic because of their learning of vocabulary, theatrical skills, and practice of the art. They are able to perceive what is being done because they are beginning to understand how theatre works.
2. Creative Expression
Students express themselves through various aspects of theatre. They are able to act things out, build sets, costumes, scripts, etc. and this is their form of expression.
3. Historical and Cultural Context
History and cultural context are alive in theatre because these aspects are major influences that must be taken into account if the audience is to have the proper perception of what is being expressed. Many stories of old are expressed through theatre. Cultural context is learned because of its acting out in theatre.
4. Aesthetic Valuing
Students are able to place aesthetic value via theatre because of the emotions that it produces within students. They analyze what is being down and the outcome of the theatre and then place value on it accordingly. They critique and begin to understand various aspects to theatre that they might not have if no aesthetic valuing took places.
5. Connections, Relationships, Applications
Students can relate to theatre because it affects them daily through new forms o technology. It is connected to other subject areas like history, language arts, science, and math. History can be learned via storytelling in theatre, the ability to understand things like plot, character, etc. are relatable to language arts. Math and science are used for set building and problem solving.
Visual Arts:
1. Artistic Perception
Students are able to perceive art in their daily lives because it surrounds them. As they progress in their understanding of visual arts they will become more and more able to describe it and critic it based off of its qualities, whether natural or man made.
2. Creative Expression
Students must learn to synthesize their thoughts and learn ways of producing art via that synthesis. This can be done through a variety of mediums: painting, video, photography, sculpting, etc. They are expressing their thoughts and feelings through different formats.
3. Historical and Cultural Context
History and cultural context can be learned about through visual art to present what things where like during various periods. One can learn what was important and what was considered beautiful via art. Students also learn about how culture has affected them and how their art fits into a cultural context.
4. Aesthetic Valuing
Students learn various ways to analyze and critique art through written, oral, and electronic forms of communication. This is developed over time and with others. Vocabulary, art forms, and philosophies must be learned for this to be very structured.
5. Connections, Relationships, Applications
Students realize that visual arts are all around them and in everything that exists. They realize that this affects their lives daily. Many jobs are available in the creation of visual arts. Students can learn how to make sense of what is around them via the understanding of visual arts. The can learn history, literature, science, and math with various forms of visual art, but they can also learn a whole host of other things as well.
Chapter 5
Purpose of Assessment
Explain Purpose
Types of Assessment
Entry Level
Progress Monitoring
Summative Evaluation
· Vocabulary pretests
· Open ended conceptual questions
· Performance opportunity to show current mastery of theory or technique
· Use material or prompt to show current level of skill
· Provide opportunities for internal monitoring
· External monitoring
· Informal or formal monitoring
· Sum up a unit or lesson
· Used to determine if they mastered what the standard described
· Test of skill
· Oral test
· Ability to perform objective
Assessment tools
Rubrics
Portfolios
Media
Rubrics allow the student to know exactly what it is that they are being graded on. They know what skills they must master and they can work on those skills until they feel they have accomplished what is required of them, and then they can perform the skill for the teacher.
Portfolios show a couple of things depending on what type of portfolio it is. Sometimes they show growth of skill over long periods of time. Other portfolios show mastery of certain skills. Other portfolios show the students’ best works. Lastly, other portfolios show only the best of the students work and are used for competitive or high-stakes purposes like entrance to a university.
Portfolios can be made digital. Art can be shown on a variety of mediums of technology. Technology can be used to critique art work and allows for teacher to assess students on various artistic objectives.
Chapter 6
Read and reflect: How might you develop your knowledge and ability to teach the VAPA?
I will develop my ability to teach the visual and performing arts by working alongside our schools VAPA teachers. I will attempt to teach similar topics via social science when they are being taught in the VAPA classes. I will also see if other teachers can work with the social science pacing guide. Either way there can be n effort to collaborate what is being taught so that there are certain themes being taught congruently. I will also try to mild some of my lessons around the VAPA more. I have noticed that students typically really enjoy themselves when these lessons are taught and they seem to learn the most because they are physically doing something. I will also continue to attend the Teaching American History classes that my district offers because there is usually an effort made to teach VAPA material. I must continue to hone in my craft of teaching social science at the junior high school and high school levels.
Chapter 7
Explain the Instructional Approaches mentioned in the Category 5 paragraph on Instructional Planning and Support.
Page 193.
The instructional approaches are geared towards teaching students in ways that will be standards based first and foremost. There are a variety of suggested ways to do this including the use of technology. The text suggests that teachers use direct instruction, reading, writing, demonstrations, creation of artwork, and internet use and inquiry. There are other areas described as well including: making sure that all lessons are given background information, using a variety of teaching strategies to reach all students, making sure that lessons are properly sequenced, and guidelines for making sure there are safety protocols for all situations and lessons. The use of technology has also opened up doors to teaching different formats of are including graphic imagining, video editing, etc. This is another medium in which the VAPA can be taught and learned.
Personal Philosophy on Teaching the Visual and Performing Arts
My personal philosophy concerning the teaching of the visual and performing arts in a U.S. History is that it fits right alongside this academic content. Many teachers do not implement these standards or teaching practices because it may seem daunting to take on another task, but when teaching the visual and performing art standards alongside the content standards students usually are able to better process the content.
If the visual and performing art content does anything in a classroom it provides another medium for students to learn content in meaningful ways. These are the lessons where students learn the most because they are able to create, develop, manipulate, evaluate, critique, synthesize, etc. These are all higher level thinking skills that students need to possess. These higher order thinking skills also allow the students to learn more than if they were sitting and being taught with direct teaching methods. Many times U.S. History is taught in a format that is mostly direct instruction, but with teaching U.S. History alongside the visual and performing arts standards it makes the content come to life. Students are required to get out of their seats and do things. They have to apply logical thinking to the U.S. History content and make sense of it. They also must obtain a mastery of the content because they are required to do something with it once it has been learned.
The visual and performing art content is also what makes a classroom something that children enjoy participating in. When children begin to develop skills that they enjoy, like visual art, dance, music, theatre, etc., they are more likely to have more buy in to other topics that are taught alongside those lessons. Teachers need to understand this concept and run with it. Children have great talents that need to be tapped into and this usually comes alongside teaching them the visual and performing arts content.
The visual and performing art content is also something that is required by all different levels of education. Teachers are to implement these content standards in ways that allow students to reach a level of mastery. This is not a suggestion but a requirement. Knowing this I have made it a part of my personal teaching philosophy that these content standards will be implemented into my U.S. History lessons. I am not doing this solely based on the requirement, but also because I know how much these content standards will benefit my students and their overall classroom experiences.
If the visual and performing art content does anything in a classroom it provides another medium for students to learn content in meaningful ways. These are the lessons where students learn the most because they are able to create, develop, manipulate, evaluate, critique, synthesize, etc. These are all higher level thinking skills that students need to possess. These higher order thinking skills also allow the students to learn more than if they were sitting and being taught with direct teaching methods. Many times U.S. History is taught in a format that is mostly direct instruction, but with teaching U.S. History alongside the visual and performing arts standards it makes the content come to life. Students are required to get out of their seats and do things. They have to apply logical thinking to the U.S. History content and make sense of it. They also must obtain a mastery of the content because they are required to do something with it once it has been learned.
The visual and performing art content is also what makes a classroom something that children enjoy participating in. When children begin to develop skills that they enjoy, like visual art, dance, music, theatre, etc., they are more likely to have more buy in to other topics that are taught alongside those lessons. Teachers need to understand this concept and run with it. Children have great talents that need to be tapped into and this usually comes alongside teaching them the visual and performing arts content.
The visual and performing art content is also something that is required by all different levels of education. Teachers are to implement these content standards in ways that allow students to reach a level of mastery. This is not a suggestion but a requirement. Knowing this I have made it a part of my personal teaching philosophy that these content standards will be implemented into my U.S. History lessons. I am not doing this solely based on the requirement, but also because I know how much these content standards will benefit my students and their overall classroom experiences.