This unit has been written to assist the teacher of a second language. It uses art as a medium to explore and learn while at the same time getting the students to write without making it a chore. Its purpose is also to facilitate the planning involved in a field trip. The unit has been set up so that any level or group of students can benefit from it. It provides the teacher with an audiovisual list as well as a bibliography. It stresses the same vocabulary employed in the unit for lower groups while leaving it up to the teacher for the higher levels. A trip to the Yale Art Gallery is the culminating point for the students. Its long-range goal would be that students would be learning about other civilizations and art styles and writing about them.
The periods covered in this unit are: The Primitive or Pre-Columbian, the Greek, the Egyptian, the Roman, the Byzantine, the Medieval, the Renaissance, the Spanish, the English, the American, and finally the new impressions or Modern Art. The teacher need not use the whole unit; certain sections of the unit can be lifted out and implemented depending on what the teacher desires to cover. Each period of art tries to introduce the more important artists of the period along with some historical as well as biographical background. Concurrently, its purpose is to facilitate the planning involved in a field trip, while it tries to provide the works of art available at Yale from each period belonging to these artists. Of course this was not possible with all the artists which include Michelangelo, Leonardo DaVinci, Raphael, etc. The teachers must improvise here by using some of the slides or motion pictures listed as well as the lists in the appendixes which include vocabulary, mythological figures, etc. I hope that this unit turns out to be as enlightening and rewarding for the teacher who uses it as it was for me while working on it.
(Recommended for 9th—12th grade ESOL B, C, and D, Spanish I, II, III, IV, Italian I, II, III, IV, and French I, II, III, and IV.)
Key Words
General Art History Foreign Language Instruction Writing
