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Visual Arts

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  4. High School Curriculum
  5. Visual Arts

Find out more about our Visual Arts program for grades nine through twelve.

9th Grade

Students are introduced to visual art as a means of communicating their ideas and emotions through a process of content selection, skills development, and use of formal properties. They are exposed to a variety of age appropriate media and techniques, while encouraged to explore a personal style in their use. Personal point of view plays a role in subject and aesthetic choices they make while producing work. 

Elements and Principles of Design are introduced and encouraged as a means of refining imagery. Cultural and historical influence are introduced to broaden student understanding of how process transcends time and distance. Two and three-dimensional work, using multiple techniques and practices, are respectively broken into semester long explorations.

10th Grade

Students expand their understanding of how the relationship between artist and viewer is impacted by their imagery. Originality and experimentation are learned through a focus on specialized skills used in painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography. 

Various genres and styles are explored in the interpretation of content, as are techniques common to the media taught, both formal and experimental in nature. Students produce original source material when developing work and build on previous skills acquired in foundation courses. 

11th Grade

Students transition into the IB Visual Arts program, and undertake various challenges that require a synthesis of ideas, visual communication, and art production—all researched and incorporated into student work in both their process portfolio and studio work. Students learn about art making practices across historical and cultural boundaries. Students use varied media and incorporate their historical and cultural knowledge while expressing their unique perspectives on a variety of themes. 

A comparative research paper about the works of several artists instructs students in areas of art criticism, aesthetics, and art history. Photography, art history, painting, and drawing, which explore similar themes, are taught as elective courses. 

12th Grade

Twelfth graders continue instruction based on the IB Visual Arts standards, with greater independence in content selection, emphasizing breadth of media and interpretation. Process portfolio documentation of idea development, historical and cultural research, media rationale, technical requirements, and refinement of studio work extends into the second year of the program. 

Students prepare an exhibition of their body of work, accompanied by a curatorial rationale, culminating in the submission of all work toward internal and external assessments.

High School Class picture

High School Curriculum

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