Welcome to the Visual Art Program
My name is Melissa Cruise. I am the visual arts teacher at HGMICS.
I am a mother of two girls and we live in Scranton. My degree is in Art Education from Keystone College with a focus in oil painting. I paint and cut hair in my free time as well as volunteer and work for many community-based organizations in the area. You can usually find me at Lackawanna River Fest, Lackawanna Arts Fest and others.
As an art educator, my goal is to teach skills to students to enhance their creativity and nurture confidence in self-expression. I will teach them about art movements throughout history as well as the major artists who contributed to those movements, famous artworks, and vocabulary while building the necessary skills to produce quality artworks.
I will continue to use Artsonia to share your student’s work and sometimes work in progress. Your child will have an online gallery page through the Artsonia Online Student Art Museum where artwork can be viewed, shared, and purchase products with selected artwork on them. Each purchase you make will send 20% into an account for the art program to use to purchase supplies for the classroom and students. This is a wonderful resource for you to not only see your child grow as an artist but also for the ongoing success of the HGMI art program. Thank you in advance for those contributions and purchases.
VISUAL ART AT HGMICS
| Outcome I: | Perceiving and Responding - Aesthetic Education
The student will demonstrate the ability to perceive, interpret, and respond to ideas, experiences, and the environment through the visual arts. |
| Outcome II: | Historical, Cultural and Social Contexts
The student will demonstrate an understanding of the visual arts as a basic aspect of history and human experience. |
| Outcome III: | Creative Expressions and Production
The student will demonstrate the ability to organize the Elements of Art; line, shape, texture, space, value, color, through knowledge of ideas for the production of original art. |
| Outcome IV: | Aesthetic Criticism
The student will demonstrate the ability to identify, analyze, interpret, and apply criteria in making visual aesthetic judgments. |
In Summary, The Visual Arts Program at Howard Gardner MI Charter School provides a curriculum that will challenge students to think about and respond to themselves and their world in creative and innovative ways. We recognize that children learn through different intelligences. The visual arts program will provide opportunities for a variety of approaches in creative production. We also encourage reflection of oneself and one’s own creations as an essential tool for personal and academic growth.
Through sequential experiences, students are offered opportunities to develop to the fullest extent of their capabilities. Students are encouraged to understand and reflect on their own cognitive and artistic growth, and to advance, according to identified expectancies at different instructional levels.
Critical and analytical thinking are integral components of the Visual Arts program. Students will develop skills that make connections to both the student’s own life and other subject areas. Art at HGMICS will not only include history but also math, science, and even literature. The visual arts curriculum encourages divergent thinking and creative exploration, which helps students make sense of our increasingly visual world.
Please don’t forget to visit Artsonia and check out the school gallery. Artsonia.com is a wonderful online tool to stay current with what we have been working on in class and new work is published frequently. Come check out our current Exhibition.
I am looking forward to great year with your child and thank you for all of your cooperation.
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
― Pablo Picasso