Questions for Understanding
How was it understood by the average person of its time?
and
How do my personal experiences and my cultural background affect how I understand this?

Activity Ideas for All Students
Ask students to think of a time when they shared their response to something (a movie, music, trip) and discovered others responded very differently. Show the DVD segment, “Group Think and My Two Cents,” asking students to notice some of the different ways people can be attracted to, or troubled by an artwork.  Give students practice and feedback by using some or all of the interactive “Group Think and My Two Cents” CD activities, which you can project for an entire class or which individual students can view in a computer lab. Students can use the CD to 1) review what they learned on the DVD, 2) apply what they learned to their everyday visual world, and 3) recognize how inquiry into personal and cultural responses applies to old and new art.

Ask students to make lists of favorites (animals, colors, music, movies, foods, etc.).  Explain that things we like are called our preferences and are an individual matter, including our preferences in art.  We can each like whatever artworks we want.  Next explain that judgments are different from preferences.  Judgments are conclusions about what is good about an artwork. Explain that judgments can be seen as invitations by experts to notice qualities they have found worthwhile.  Ask students to share occasions when they learned to like something after learning more about.  Share your own experience of coming to appreciate an artwork more than you did at first glance after learning more about it.

If your class is culturally diverse ask students to identify traditional favorite foods, music, events, etc.  Lead a discussion of any situations when students have experienced unfamiliar “favorites” from another culture that may have seemed strange to them. 

As possible, ask students to bring in and talk about objects (craft objects, embroideries, boxes, holiday decorations, etc.) that are traditional in their culture.

Activity Ideas for Art Students
Ask students to investigate an artist whose work they like and report on information and insight that helped them appreciate that artist’s work more fully.

Display an artwork from a culture that is unfamiliar to most students in the class. Ask students to imagine that visitors (other than the artist) from that culture were visiting their class.  Ask students to list questions they might ask of those visitors to help them better understand the artwork. 

Complementary Activities from Stories of Art
A K-12 curriculum resource from CRIZMAC
The theme, Spiritual Worlds, is based on “The Old Whistler,” a story of two brothers and a sister who find comfort through the teachings of their culture.

Supplementary Online Lessons