Brief Description Objectives Materials and Resources Activity Description

• Grade Level: Middle School, High School

• Subject Area: Art, Foreign Languages

Brief Description

    Comparing Observations. Students discuss the responses from their exchange classroom and compare similarities and differences in aesthetic and critical interpretations.
Objectives

    Students will:

• Compare and contrast others' responses to artworks with their own.
• Analyze the possible sources of differences in interpretations.

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 final class session. Review with students that they have developed aesthetic and critical inquiry skills, that they have practiced translating aesthetic discourse into a foreign language, and that they have written and exchanged analyses of images from an Internet site. Let students know that they will compare the collaborating students' responses with their own and analyze any similarities and differences.

• Ask students to express their expectations for the content of the collaborating students' responses.

• Distribute individual responses from the collaborating group to students in the class as evenly as possible.

• Have students read individual responses out loud and elaborate on perceived similarities or differences in interpretations. The following is a list of possible discussion questions:
  • What is surprising about the responses?
  • What is familiar about the responses?
  • If the responses of collaborating students are different from those of the class, what might be the source of those differences? Culture? Different aesthetic and critical art instruction?
  • Some of the responses of collaborating students should be similar to those of the class. What does this mean for the proposition that the visual arts can communicate across cultures and languages?

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