1. Knowledge of the Content Focus and Standards !

After four different content map drafts I nally settled on this one and I am very

pleased with how it turned out. Art standards by nature are more vague so they are able to cover broad content areas. My challenge was to give a substantial and concrete base from which I could connect my content. After brainstorming in class with a fellow classmate I determined that the concrete concepts should be the dening aspects of art: the elements and principles of art. Once I decided that these elements and principles would be my base everything that seemed to elude connection nally started working together. One of the criterion for this project is to unpack the standard but the standards are built from the elements and principles of art so I realized what I really needed to unpack were the elements and principles, and the standard would just naturally ow from the elements and standards. Now that Ive structured my map this way I cant think of any other way that I will connect my standards and the elements and principles. ! ! In my planning I have struggled to focus my lessons in a way that I felt was

relevant to the students, meeting the standards, rich in content, and focused. The standards were so seemingly vague that you felt you could almost do anything and it would meet the standard. Now that I have mapped out the elements and principles and their characteristics I feel that my lessons will be so much more focused. With a concrete denition for the elements and principles I really want to focus on those will be the anchor for all of my lessons. Before, I knew what all of them were and why they

were important to my teaching but Id never actually sat down and dened them in a way that would be relevant to how I would frame them to students. ! ! The way Ive broken the concepts down in this map makes it a much more

attainable goal to get all of these concepts in my lessons. I also used to struggle with deciding on whether to focus on art history, materials, or elements/principles. Now that I have broken down the elements/principles I plan on breaking down my art history curriculum in a separate map as well as different materials. If I have a map broken down into the essential parts then it will be so much easier to remember the important information to deliver to students. Art can be a sea of concepts and understandings that is overwhelming to try breaking down for small children and many times the lessons turn into crafts that focus on making something cute but I feel now that my goals are much more attainable now that Ive started my rst map.

2. Knowledge of Students Relative to the Content ! My idea for this map is that for each standard I will break it down into the project

and what elements and principles they connect to. For this map the learning standard is Visual Goal 25A/ Benchmark A- Identify the elements, principles, and expressive qualities of art. When I was planning this lesson for 2nd grade I thought about the projects we have already done this year. This second grade class has done tracing, patterns, painting, primary colors, shapes, and drawing. So I knew I wanted to do a painting project and during my planning research I thought it would be good to get a science connection in by doing a bird lesson. I also wanted to connect the lesson to

elements and principles so I decided that a pattern bird would be a good focus for the content. ! ! Students pre-understandings going into the project will have prepared them to do

well on the bird. They have already painted several times, traced, and drawn. All of the skills necessary for the project have been practiced previously. When I was making the project I also needed to think about the motivation of my students. Students are naturally very excited and motivated when there is a painting project. Its a challenge to make the lesson the correct length and break it up in a way to promote stamina and keep the motivation up. There are many times where a project just goes too long a students loose interest. I knew it was my job not to exhaust my students motivation. The important target or take aways from this lesson are connected in my map: repetition of shapes, how form impacts their bird composition, and how the shapes they choose impact each other. The main objective was to draw a patterned bird but those understandings and skills are imbedded in the lesson. ! ! I also needed to think about the retention of the information we taught earlier in

the year. I have a lot of CFUs built into my lessons so that I can gauge where the classes understanding of the content is at before I move on. Every time we get out the paint we have to review the procedures for how to use the paint. Usually most students are able to answer all of the CFUs about the procedures pretty quickly. The other content presented that I knew I would need to review was tracing and drawing a pattern to ll a space. 2nd graders are usually pretty good tracers by then but a lot of them

need a review. They need to be reminded that they need to hold down the circle while they trace it. Some of them need to be reminded that they draw right next to the tracer, now just around it. Some students also need clarication on what a pattern is. A pattern is different from a design and some students need that language claried again.

3. Knowledge of Instruction and Assessment Relative to Content ! One strategy from the reading that I used in this lesson was mediated

scaffolding. This lesson was heavily structured in the beginning to get them started and them they were turned loose to create their own product. But the supports in the beginning were necessary for students to be able to manage on their own and be successful. That structure helps with the internal motivation we also read and talked about. The motivation for the project starts with me and the way it is presented and scaffolded turns that motivation to their intrinsic motivation that will carry them to nishing the project. Getting the buy in sometimes is difcult, especially with middle school. They need to see that they arent wasting their time when they come to art. They like seeing the transparency and the purpose. The type of assessment I used for this project was a visual assessment. I use this type of assessment every time I grade. I take a look at the projects nal result and look at how the student interpreted what was put in front of them. Sometimes I do take into account a students understanding evident in class. CFUs are very important to make sure a student is on the right track with a particular project. In closing, I would like to say that I am very excited about the future direction of my lesson planning based on what I have planned on this C-Map. It isnt perfect but I feel that it will be very useful to use as a planning tool in the future.