Art History Timeline

Submitted by: Michele Hart, HS Art Teacher
Title of Lesson: Art History Timeline
Grade level: Middle or High School

Goals / Objectives:

Students will be able to understand that art has developed through time and can be placed into different art era categories.

Objective: Given a list of art eras students will be able to correctly list art styles, artists, and major world events that happened during each period with 80% accuracy.

Materials Needed:

1. Computers with internet and PowerPoint for each student

2. Worksheet

3. PowerPoint template

Lesson Description:

This lesson is meant as an introductory lesson into art history or as a follow-up lesson to a semester of art history. Art history is such a broad topic that I felt that my students weren't really grasping it in a "real" sense. They could answer test questions but as far as really putting things into context, I thought they were still weak.

This lesson is written to last two days but could easily be stretched to a week or two. I had to keep it short because computer lab time is almost impossible to get at my school.

Day 1.

1. Students pick a partner to work with.
2. Hand out worksheet, 1 per person.
3. Each student will have to collect facts for three art movements so each set of partners will have a total of 6 when done. (If using the lesson for a week you could easily do more than 6.)
4. Worksheets should take all class period to finish and it includes website for them to use to find material.

Day 2:

1. Student work with partners. You can either have them work alone to make their three art eras slides or you can have them share a computer and do all 6 together.
2. Students use the provided Power Point template slide show which includes web links and two possible examples that they can use. I'm allowing my students to create their own if they want!

All in all, this is pretty straight forward... worksheet on day one and PowerPoint on day 2.

Assessment(s):

Slide completeness: 5 points
Title, year, 4 facts, artists, world event, labeled image.

Overall look of slide show 5 points
Aesthetic design, information

Worksheet 5 Points
Complete worksheets from you and your partner

Effort 5 points
Use of class time, behavior, work-ethic