Grade 8 - Arts Education

Big Ideas

Exploring and creating

Reasoning and reflecting

Communicating and documenting

Content

Creative growth requires patience, readiness to take risks, and willingness to try new approaches.

Individual and collective expression can be achieved through the arts.

Dance, drama, music, and visual arts are each unique languages for creating and communicating.

Artists often challenge the status quo and open us to new perspectives and experiences.

Intentionally select and apply materials, movements, technologies, environments, tools, and techniques by combining and arranging artistic elements, processes, and principles in art making

Create artistic works collaboratively and as an individual using ideas inspired by imagination, inquiry, experimentation, and purposeful play

Explore relationships between identity, place, culture, society, and belonging through arts activities and experiences

Demonstrate an understanding and appreciation of personal, social, cultural, historical, and environmental contexts in relation to the arts

Describe, interpret and evaluate how artists (dancers, actors, musicians, and visual artists) use processes, materials, movements, technologies, tools, techniques, and environments to create and communicate ideas

Develop, refine ideas, and critically appraise ideas, processes, and technical skills in a variety of art forms to improve the quality of artistic creations

Reflect on works of art and creative processes to understand artists motivations and meanings

Interpret works of art using knowledge and skills from various areas of learning

Respond to works of art using one's knowledge of the world

Adapt learned skills, understandings, and processes for use in new contexts and for different purposes and audiences

Interpret and communicate ideas using symbols and elements to express meaning through the arts

Take creative risks to express feelings, ideas, and experiences

Describe, interpret and respond to works of art

Experience, document, choreograph, perform, and share creative works in a variety of ways

Use the arts to communicate, respond to and understand environmental and global issues

Demonstrate increasingly sophisticated application and/or engagement of curricular content

manipulation of elements, principles, and design strategies to create mood and convey ideas in the arts, including but not limited to:

processes, materials, movements, technologies, tools, strategies, and techniques to support creative works

choregoraphic devices

drama forms and drama conventions

notation in music and dance to represent sounds, ideas, movement, elements, and actions

image developments strategies

symbolism and metaphor to explore ideas and perspective

traditional and contemporary Aboriginal arts and arts-making processes

a variety of regional and national works of art and artistic traditions from diverse cultures, communities, times, and places

ethical considerations and cultural appropriation related to the arts

personal and collective responsibility associated with creating, experiencing, or presenting in a safe learning environment

dance: body, space, dynamics (dance), time, relationships, form and movement principles

drama: character, time, place, plot, tension, mood, focus, contrast, balance

music: beat/pulse, metre, duration, rhythm (music), tempo, pitch, timbre, dynamics (music), form (music), texture, notation

visual arts: elements of design: line, shape, space, texture, colour, form (visual arts), value; principles of design: pattern, repetition, balance, contrast, emphasis, rhythm (visual arts), variety, unity, harmony