2020 Colorado Academic Standards Online
Use the options below to create customized views of the 2020 Colorado Academic Standards. For all standards resources, see the Office of Standards and Instructional Support.
Current selections are shown below (maximum of five)
clear Content Area: Visual Arts // Grade Level: High School // Standard Category: All Standards Categories
Visual Arts
High School, Standard 1. Observe and Learn to Comprehend
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Prepared Graduates:
- 1. See oneself as a participant in visual art and design by experiencing, viewing or making.
- 3. Practice critical and analytical skills by using academic language to discuss works of art and visual culture.
- 6. Create works of visual art and design that demonstrate increasing levels of mastery in skills and techniques.
Grade Level Expectation:
1. Utilize the inquiry method of observation and the language of visual art and design to gather information and determine meaning.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Develop observation skills to generate and synthesize ideas and interpret communicated meaning.
- Connect and compare information gathered through observation in order to articulate the human experience.
- Discern and interpret nuances of meaning and intention of visual art and design across cultural contexts.
- Critically analyze the origins of visual art and design across cultures.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Make connections between information gathered in visual art and design and personal experiences to broaden thinking. (Entrepreneurial Skills: Creativity/Innovation)
- Students can cite evidence from content-specific texts and works of art to demonstrate understanding and support an analysis of the text or work of art, conduct experiments and apply learning. (Entrepreneurial Skills; Professional Skills: Information Literacy)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students analyze and discuss works of art and design?
- How can students research personal questions, experiences outside the art classroom and interdisciplinary knowledge?
- How do students acknowledge multiple ways of knowing?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists synthesize information to make meaning.
- Artists utilize a process of questioning.
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Prepared Graduates:
- 1. See oneself as a participant in visual art and design by experiencing, viewing or making.
- 5. Interpret works of art and design in the contexts of varied traditions, histories and cultures.
- 6. Create works of visual art and design that demonstrate increasing levels of mastery in skills and techniques.
- 7. Allow imagination, curiosity and wonder to guide inquiry and research.
- 8. Participate in the reciprocal relationships between visual art and communities.
Grade Level Expectation:
2. Interpret, analyze and explain the influence of multiple contexts found in visual art and design.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Analyze visual art and design traditions to understand the influence of historical and cultural context on works of art and design.
- Identify unexplored ideas to gain understanding of works of art.
- Research and document visual art, design and architecture identifying various themes that communities experience across cultures and throughout time.
- Connect unexplored works of visual art and design to the lives of students.
- Identify and analyze innovations in visual art and design from diverse cultures to inform about the present and future works of art.
- Analyze and debate the consequences of replicating images or icons that are culturally or spiritually sensitive.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Look for and value different perspectives expressed by others in visual art and design. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills: Global/Cultural Awareness)
- Analyze and use information presented visually that support an argument. (Entrepreneurial Skills: Professional Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students contribute to their lives and the lives of their communities through artmaking?
- How can students give form and expression to their stories?
- How can students distinguish the difference between telling their story and telling the story of someone else?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists analyze social, cultural, historical and personal contexts.
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Prepared Graduates:
- 1. See oneself as a participant in visual art and design by experiencing, viewing or making.
- 6. Create works of visual art and design that demonstrate increasing levels of mastery in skills and techniques.
- 7. Allow imagination, curiosity and wonder to guide inquiry and research.
- 10. Develop new knowledge by actively doing and making (artistic praxis), acknowledging relationships between materials, objects, ideas and lived experience.
Grade Level Expectation:
3. Use artmaking processes as forms of inquiry to increase independent reasoning and perception skills to increase knowledge.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Examine how connotation and denotation are used in visual art and design to express multidimensional concepts.
- Compare personal work within the larger discourse of visual art and design practices to identify purpose and function.
- Critically analyze selection of materials that inform conceptualization and expression of ideas and aesthetic experience.
- Investigate and articulate the aims of disparate art practices to foster critical thinking about visual art and design.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Focus on learning goals in visual art and design by employing motivation and familiar strategies for engagement. (Personal Skills: Perseverance/Resilience)
- Evaluate progress in visual art and design making necessary changes to stay the course. (Personal Skills: Perseverance/Resilience)
- Students can analyze content-specific texts and works of art to distinguish the factual evidence offered, reasoned judgments made and conclusions drawn, and speculative ideas offered. (Entrepreneurial Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students document the process of building an enduring understanding from the early stages of uncovering thinking to fully realized knowledge?
- How can students become aware of how their perceptions and experiences influence their ideas?
- How can students use ideas to communicate meaning?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists and designers create with informed intention.
Visual Arts
High School, Standard 2. Envision and Critique to Reflect
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Prepared Graduates:
- 2. Visually and/or verbally articulate how visual art and design are a means for communication.
- 4. Critique connections between visual art and historic and contemporary philosophies.
- 6. Create works of visual art and design that demonstrate increasing levels of mastery in skills and techniques.
- 9. Persist in the creative process and innovate from failure.
Grade Level Expectation:
1. Use criteria and personal discernment to evaluate works of art and design, taking into consideration the variables that influence how the work is perceived.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Identify concepts, themes and viewpoints that are visible and suggested in a work of art.
- Communicate interpretive and evaluative conclusions that justify intention and purpose.
- Provide explanations that support critical judgments and discuss the value of competing opinions to support learning.
- Determine how knowledge gained from critique may affect the creation or modification of an existing or new work of art.
- Utilize critique to analyze and interpret existing or new works of art and apply new learning to the creation or modification of an artwork.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Interpret visual art and design information to draw conclusions based on the best analysis. (Entrepreneurial Skills: Critical Thinking/Problem Solving)
- Students can trace an argument in a content-specific text or work of art to understand how an author or artist organizes information, crafts an argument and uses domain-specific language to convey ideas. (Entrepreneurial Skills; Civic/Interpersonal Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students examine how they discern external criteria?
- How can students synthesize knowledge and critically evaluate works of art?
- How can students apply knowledge gained from critical analysis to inform the creation of their own artwork?
- How can students draw conclusions from their and others' perceptions?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists identify multiple perspectives.
- Artists establish and link background knowledge.
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Prepared Graduates:
- 1. See oneself as a participant in visual art and design by experiencing, viewing or making.
- 2. Visually and/or verbally articulate how visual art and design are a means for communication.
- 4. Critique connections between visual art and historic and contemporary philosophies.
- 6. Create works of visual art and design that demonstrate increasing levels of mastery in skills and techniques.
Grade Level Expectation:
2. Articulate a personal philosophy of art, understanding various philosophies that have come before.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Critically reflect on how artists work across time to form new patterns of insight.
- Document, investigate and synthesize a range of traditional and nontraditional studio practices to articulate intent.
- Synthesize research, theory and practice to envision the creation of an artwork.
- Develop and defend a personal philosophy of art using informed criteria.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Engage in inquiry-based questioning in order to synthesize art and design ideas in original and surprising ways. (Entrepreneurial Skills: Inquiry/Analysis)
- Students can compose content-specific arguments in which they state a claim, provide evidence from texts, works of art and design and other sources to support the claim, and organize the evidence in well-reasoned, meaningful ways. (Entrepreneurial Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students interpret the world through a range of artistic concepts and approaches?
- How can students develop a personal artistic philosophy?
- How can students use the process of inquiry to ask questions that stimulate imagination and envision ideas?
- How can students comprehend previous philosophies and transfer that knowledge to create their own philosophy of art?
- How can students transfer their personal philosophy of art to the creation of artwork?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists establish and link background knowledge.
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Prepared Graduates:
- 2. Visually and/or verbally articulate how visual art and design are a means for communication.
- 3. Practice critical and analytical skills by using academic language to discuss works of art and visual culture.
- 4. Critique connections between visual art and historic and contemporary philosophies.
- 5. Interpret works of art and design in the contexts of varied traditions, histories and cultures.
- 10. Develop new knowledge by actively doing and making (artistic praxis), acknowledging relationships between materials, objects, ideas and lived experience.
Grade Level Expectation:
3. Examine the nature of diverse aesthetic experiences to build a language of representation that can be used to respond to the world.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Analyze and interpret philosophies of Western and non-Western art, taking into consideration the role of the artist, art historian and art critic.
- Explore past and present aesthetic experiences to convey perceptions, share interpretations, critique and evaluate works of visual art and design.
- Interpret how meaning in works of art are related to the materials and process chosen by the artist.
- Recognize how different criteria create contexts that influence the evaluation and assessment of visual works of art and design.
- Discuss and debate how society has come to value some works of art over others.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Interpret visual information and draw conclusions based on the best analysis. (Entrepreneurial Skills: Critical Thinking/Problem Solving)
- Students can analyze different texts (including works of art, experiments, simulations, installations, videos or multimedia works) to compare and contrast competing theories, points of view and arguments within the discipline of visual art and other disciplines. (Entrepreneurial Skills: Civic/Interpersonal Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students become aware of and engage in multiple aesthetic modalities?
- How do students describe their own aesthetic experience?
- How do students establish their own criteria to interpret works of art?
- How do students reason through complex knowledge to support an informed opinion about artwork?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists use reflective discussion.
Visual Arts
High School, Standard 3. Invent and Discover to Create
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Prepared Graduates:
- 6. Create works of visual art and design that demonstrate increasing levels of mastery in skills and techniques.
Grade Level Expectation:
1. Establish a practice of planning and experimentation to advance concepts and technical skills.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Research and generate possible concepts that can be used to build deeper meaning in preparation for making.
- Research and consider various iterations of an idea and draft possible solutions using a variety of media.
- Practice techniques and improve skills by testing media to consider constraints and potential of materials.
- Create works of art representing personal narratives that use traditional and contemporary media.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Develop, plan and organize visual art and design ideas. (Personal skills: Personal Responsibility)
- Students can generate questions to guide their artmaking as a practice of research, gather information from various sources, determine biases and credibility of sources, cite sources as appropriate and use evidence to advance concepts and technical skills. (Entrepreneurial Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students demonstrate their thinking as they progress through the artistic process?
- How can students build upon ideas, skills and knowledge?
- How can students explain how they will represent a personal narrative?
- How can students explore and experiment with new materials and media?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists and designers use artistic vision.
- Artists and designers apply techniques and concepts.
- Artmaking involves exploration and discovery.
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Prepared Graduates:
- 6. Create works of visual art and design that demonstrate increasing levels of mastery in skills and techniques.
- 7. Allow imagination, curiosity and wonder to guide inquiry and research.
- 9. Persist in the creative process and innovate from failure.
Grade Level Expectation:
2. Ideate and build works of art and design to demonstrate growth and proficiency in traditional and new art media.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Examine and evolve potential meanings of an artwork.
- Master skills in a variety of media and techniques to create personally meaningful works of art.
- Interpret how meaning in works of art is related to the materials and process chosen by the artist.
- Resolve artmaking problems by persisting through failure and making revisions.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Act on creative ideas to make a tangible and useful contribution to visual art and design. (Entrepreneurial Skills: Informed Risk Taking)
- Students can integrate multimedia as effective tools for clarifying and presenting information. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills; Professional Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students demonstrate the ideation process?
- How can students learn from mistakes to improve upon current conceptual and technical skills?
- How can students build a collection of work that represents their skills and personal philosophy of art?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists use project-based questioning.
- Artists develop and refine work for presentation or display.
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Prepared Graduates:
- 1. See oneself as a participant in visual art and design by experiencing, viewing or making.
- 2. Visually and/or verbally articulate how visual art and design are a means for communication.
- 6. Create works of visual art and design that demonstrate increasing levels of mastery in skills and techniques.
- 7. Allow imagination, curiosity and wonder to guide inquiry and research.
- 9. Persist in the creative process and innovate from failure.
Grade Level Expectation:
3. Articulate and demonstrate that the making and study of art and design can be approached from a variety of perspectives.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Identify how interpretation can be an essential part of the artmaking process to evaluate progress.
- Receive and reflect upon feedback and integrate into artwork as needed.
- Use knowledge and developed skills to inform future works of visual art and design.
- Persevere through the progression of a work to explore and encourage alternative solutions.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Articulate a variety of thoughts, ideas and contexts in visual art and design. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills: Communication)
- Effectively use verbal, written and/or nonverbal communication skills in the making and study of art and design. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills: Communication)
- Students can delineate an artist's argument, identify specific claims and distinguish if claims are supported by reasons and evidence. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How do students use reflective strategies to understand the creative process?
- How do students draw from and explain the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender and class perspectives within works of art and design?
- How do students persevere through challenges and the iterative process to complete an idea?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists and designers create real-world and personal relevance.
- Artists and designers reflect on finished products.
Visual Arts
High School, Standard 4. Relate and Connect to Transfer
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Prepared Graduates:
- 1. See oneself as a participant in visual art and design by experiencing, viewing or making.
- 2. Visually and/or verbally articulate how visual art and design are a means for communication.
- 4. Critique connections between visual art and historic and contemporary philosophies.
- 5. Interpret works of art and design in the contexts of varied traditions, histories and cultures.
Grade Level Expectation:
1. Research and analyze the ways visual artists, designers and scholars express personal views and beliefs and how these perspectives have a social context that enlarges the meaning of an artwork beyond the individual maker.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Research and debate viewpoints found in a variety of resources that focus on and discuss visual art and design.
- Discern the complexity of visual art and design to interpret and articulate historical paradigms in cultural context.
- Analyze and evaluate how works of art previously created across time and culture can influence the work of practicing artists today.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Apply knowledge and skills in visual art and design to address complex problems and perspectives. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills: Global/Cultural Awareness)
- Students can synthesize information from multiple sources to demonstrate understanding of a topic through a work of art. (Entrepreneurial Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can a student identify relevant research that promotes analytical discourse about artists' personal views and beliefs?
- How can a student discern and articulate complex intersections between historical and cultural paradigms?
- How can students access paths to artistic and cultural histories that develop culturally humble perspectives?
- How can a student use art and design for personal agency and to develop an informed understanding of the world around them?
- How can students analyze traditions of visual art and design to understand the influence of historical narratives and contexts from perspectives of race, gender and class?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists identify multiple perspectives.
- Artmaking involves developing agency.
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Prepared Graduates:
- 8. Participate in the reciprocal relationships between visual art and communities.
- 10. Develop new knowledge by actively doing and making (artistic praxis), acknowledging relationships between materials, objects, ideas and lived experience.
Grade Level Expectation:
2. Develop proficiency in visual communication skills that extends learning to new contexts.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Use reasoning to identify problems and conceive solutions in artmaking that demonstrate independent judgment.
- Transfer and integrate concepts and skills to inform innovative ideas and solutions.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Apply a fundamental understanding of the issues in many contexts including visual art and design. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills: Character)
- Students can pose and respond to questions and contribute to the discussion about a topic or text, including a work of art, in order to advance the dialogue. (Personal Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students examine their reasoning abilities and demonstrate how it leads to independent thinking?
- How can students identify problems and create works of art that demonstrate integration of new learning?
- How can students use existing artworks to develop informed perspectives?
- How can students identify a problem and how it needs to be solved?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artists use inquiry-based questioning.
- Artmaking can involve identifying multiple perspectives.
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Prepared Graduates:
- 1. See oneself as a participant in visual art and design by experiencing, viewing or making.
- 8. Participate in the reciprocal relationships between visual art and communities.
Grade Level Expectation:
3. Utilize the practice of artmaking, and research historical and cultural contexts, to discern between different viewpoints, critique social problems and effect social change.
Evidence Outcomes:
Students Can:
- Demonstrate autonomous meaning-making and problem-solving skills to create works that reveal agency in thinking.
- Work collaboratively to share knowledge and apply learning in new and unexpected contexts.
- Engage in curating processes that invoke social, cultural and potential discourse.
Academic Contexts and Connections:
Colorado Essential Skills and Meaning Making:
- Use interpersonal skills and the practice of artmaking to learn and work with individuals from diverse backgrounds. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills: Collaboration/Teamwork)
- Students can present arguments or information in a logical sequence with a clear claim, supportive evidence and effective presence that builds credibility for their work or the work of others. (Civic/Interpersonal Skills)
Inquiry Questions:
- How can students analyze how context influences visual language and how visual language influences context?
- How can students explore multiple methods of using visual language and how it reveals context of ideas?
- How can students employ collaborative skills inclusive of individual and collective knowledge for the purpose of exploring new domains?
- How can students examine perspectives that impact social change?
Learning Experience and Transfer:
- Artmaking involves creating real-world and personal relevance.
- Artists and designers use cooperative and collaborative learning.
Need Help? Submit questions or requests for assistance to bruno_j@cde.state.co.us