7/14/16 Art History II

Today's Class- Review day for our first exam as we approach the halfway point of our summer class.  We opened with some students presenting their latest current events articles, with brief discussions about each topic.  Then we moved on to the review.  I had prepared review sheets, which are basically the information that is found on this blog, but just organized a little differently.  

What I tried to make clear was that the key to answering the short essays would be having some general knowledge of art and the cultures in question, all of which is available in the textbook.  Nothing will be on the test that isn't in the book, and wasn't talked about in the lecture.  And though the list of important artworks and art vocabulary may seem daunting, it's actually shorter than the lists I provided to students I had taught in fall and spring classes, and most of them did fine.  I suggested that any piece I talked about a lot, any subject or concept that came up multiple times, was more likely to be the subject of an essay.  There are no diagrams to label, no ID questions, though some students requested that I show images of the works to be written about, so they can see the elements for themselves.  I will consider the possibilities of doing so as I start putting the test together tomorrow.  In class I quickly went through the list of important works, giving one or two sentence summaries of why the works were important.  It seemed that many of the students knew some of these items already, so with a few days of studying, confidence will come up.  The general questions on the review sheet can be a guide, and the introductory summaries on this blog provide clues to the important items, things likely to be on the test.

This test is just the first points of the class.  There will be a second test in a few weeks, all the written assignments, and optional extra credit.

Homework- The third current events article should be done for next Thursday, the 21st.

For next class- our first exam.