Brief Description Objectives Materials and Resources Activity Description

• Grade Level: Middle School, High School

• Subject Area: Art, Foreign Languages

Brief Description

    Students translate their aesthetic and critical knowledge into a foreign language they are studying.
Objectives

    Students will:

• Learn to translate vocabulary words into a foreign language.
• Learn to translate their aesthetic and critical questions and observations into a foreign language.

Materials and Resources

    In developing our lessons and activities, we made some assumptions about the hardware and software that would be available in the classroom for teachers who visit the LETSNet Website. We assume that teachers using our Internet-based lessons or activities have a computer with the necessary hardware components (mouse, keyboard, and monitor) as well as a World Wide Web browser. In the section below, we specify any "special" hardware or software requirements for a lesson or activity (in addition to those described above) and the level of Internet access required to do the activity.

1. Special hardware requirements: None.
2. Special software requirements: None.
3. Internet access: A medium-speed or higher connection.
4. Human resources: The foreign language instructor or a volunteer with expertise in the second language.

Activity Description

• Introduce the lesson by outlining for students the plans for the next few class sessions. Review with students that in Lesson One, they developed skills that will enable them to analyze artworks from the perspectives of aesthetics and art criticism. Let students know that they will translate their aesthetic and critical questions and observations into the foreign that they are studying, that they will establish a connection with another group of students who are studying the same foreign language or have the reverse complement of first and second languages, that they will propose and select common images from an Internet site with the collaborating group of students, that they will write aesthetic and critical responses to those images and that they will exchange those responses with the collaborating class.

• Divide students into pairs. Ask students to practice translating the answers to the aesthetic and critical questions that were posed in Lesson One and recorded in their notes. Students should imagine that they are writing aesthetic and critical observations about artworks that a person might make in a foreign language.

• About halfway through the class, assemble students for a large group discussion in which they share their answers, successes and difficulties. This is an opportunity for the foreign language instructor or volunteer to critique students' translations and guide them through troublesome phrases.