Students will examine a photograph and participate in a class discussion about their own experiences living in the urban landscape. They will create a collage from magazines that reflect life in the city as they have experienced it. They will then write about their collage of the city.

Students will study the pastel drawing "Waiting" by Edgar Degas and discuss the story Degas may be telling through the body language and clothing of the people in the work of art. They will then create a pastel drawing depicting a time when they had to wait for something and compose a brief narrative based on this memory.

Students will learn about the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter Reformation as related events. They will analyze works by the artists Rubens and Rembrandt, and use the artworks to illustrate the divergent beliefs and philosophies of the two movements.

Students will view three works of decorative arts and complete the accompanying activities to better understand the Age of Exploration and the Scientific Revolution, and how these "revolutions" and their discoveries influenced the new European world view.

Students will use visual analysis to examine two images of rocks. They will make their own observations of individual rocks through drawing, and understand how the same observation skills can be used in the study of geology.

Students explore the concept of a sacred place by looking at works of art representing sacred spaces, and studying the California missions. They explore perspective and point of view in both the visual and literary senses. Students create a project poster displaying photos, drawings, and journal writings that incorporate the major themes of California's missions, and use perspective and point of view both visually and in writing.

Students will learn how images have been used to persuade people in the past and present about a specific message or idea. They will research the 17th-century European Counter-Reformation and discuss how a sculpture of a saint might have been used as a persuasive image in a Catholic convent or monastery. Working in teams, students will then create sculptures commissioned by "patrons" and write press releases to promote their creations.

Students will examine the sculpture of the Greek hero Herakles (Hercules to the Romans) and discuss what it means to be a hero in ancient Greece and today. They will then choose a modern hero and create a sculpture that expresses the hero's identity and attributes.

Students discuss the unique considerations that artists creating site-specific outdoor sculpture have to take into account when planning their work. They then choose sites and create models for their own site-specific works. Finally, they create proposals to present to potential patrons - such as school administrators or grant committees.

Students generate new vocabulary by discussing descriptive words, or adjectives, and the names of shapes they see in a still life painting. Inspired by an object in the painting, students then use their new vocabulary to create a shape poem.

This is the first lesson in a sequential unit. Students consider the ways that sculptors have represented concepts and ideals as symbolic forms in three dimensions. They compare historical examples to those in contemporary culture, and begin sketching designs for their own symbolic sculpture.

This lesson is part of a sequential unit. Students use criteria developed in class to evaluate which of their own sketches would make the best symbolic sculpture. They choose a final design, techniques and materials, and create sculptures based on their designs.

This lesson is part of a sequential unit. Students participate in a class critique of the symbolic sculptures they created. They critique the work of their peers by responding to questions about the symbolic content and applying criteria for sculpture developed in Lesson 1.

In this lesson students learn about the important role of religious artworks in the early Renaissance in Italy. Through the visual analysis of an early Renaissance altarpiece, they learn about connections between new modes of visual representation and changing religious practice in the Catholic Church. Students research an early Renaissance artist working in Florence who created devotional, religious imagery and write a short paper.

Students will create their own work of art that serves as a social commentary. Students will make a moral or ethical statement in their work and use elements of the Neoclassical style to communicate their message.

This is the first lesson in a sequential unit. Students look at and discuss still-life paintings and develop a definition for the genre. They then further their understanding of this type of painting and practice watercolor techniques by painting their own still lifes from direct observation. Art production focuses on the tools used to create the illusion of three-dimensional space and convey texture in watercolors.

This lesson is part of a sequential unit. Students choose meaningful objects for a still-life arrangement and paint it using watercolors. After reflecting on their choice of objects and composition, students begin to write an artist's statement.

This lesson is part of a sequential unit. Students paint the same still-life arrangement from Lesson 2, but in an opaque medium. They compare similarities and differences of working with the transparent and opaque mediums and refine their artist's statements.

This lesson is part of a sequential unit. Students display the two still-life paintings that they created in previous lessons along with their artist's statements. They write a review of a peer's work and discuss all of the paintings in a group critique.

Students will plan and design a still life composition. When composing the still life, students will choose objects that emphasize a variety of shapes and textures, and arrange the objects to reflect balance. Next students will create a photographic still life and use it as inspiration to write a poem. Then students will present the still life photograph and poem to the class.