Tamara Duran

Amber Ward
September 7, 2016
Art 133
Unit 1 Paper
Big Idea in art has played a great importance by letting the artist express their
feelings about a particular subject. The Big Idea brings issues that are broad, important
human issues that are characterized by by complexity, ambiguity, contradiction, and
multiplicity (Walker p.1). These issues may consists of: Power, Identity, Community,
Nature, Conflict, and many more that can relate to the individual directly or indirectly.
There can be multiple big ideas in a piece of work though within a k-12 school setting
one big idea would be ideal to be the focus for students; especially when its being brought
into multiple subjects. Michael Parsons talks about integrated curriculum in art education
and how art can also be integrated into other subjects. He states that an integrated
curriculum is about meaning and understanding and that when it occurs that students
make sense of things for themselvesof their varied learning experience (Parsons p.112).
This would give students a better understanding of the world and help them develop their
own views about the issues in the world.
This content from Sydney R. Walker and Michael Parsons would be interesting to
applying in the classroom. In the classroom using both big idea and art and integrated
curriculum a teacher could use any sort of issue going on in the world and have it related
to the art project to the students. An example may be the lesson plan: using politics and
art by having the students look up/study different types of government and have them
make some sort of interpretive piece of art about government. Another idea may be about
culture and art and this may work by having students learn more about their own culture
and have them draw inspiration from the art of their culture and have it reflect in their
next art piece. The possibilities seem endless in how to use big ideas and how art can be
part of an integrated curriculum.
Work Cited
Walker, Sydney R., Teaching Meaning In Art Making. Text.
Parsons, Michael.Elementary School Art Education. Art and Integrated Curriculum. Text.