Arts & Aesthetics

Arts PROPEL: A Handbook for Visual Arts

In the Arts PROPEL approach to instruction and assessment, students write poems, and tackle other real-life projects as the starting point for exploring the works of practicing artists. 

Arts PROPEL: An Introductory Handbook

In the Arts PROPEL approach to instruction and assessment, students write poems, and tackle other real-life projects as the starting point for exploring the works of practicing artists. Prepared by Project Zero and the Educational Testing Service with the help of teachers and administrators from the Pittsburgh Public Schools, the Arts PROPEL handbooks: An Introductory Handbook, A Handbook for Imaginative Writing, A Handbook for Music, and A Handbook for Visual Arts, offer guidelines and models for creating a project-based curriculum and using portfolios to assess student work in the arts. 

Invented Worlds: The Psychology of the Arts

Unlike other human universals—language, tool use, the family—art makes no material contribution to mankind's survival. Dealing with the three major art forms: painting, music, and literature, Ellen Winner shows how the artist fashions a symbolic world that transforms the experience of the observer. She probes the adult's ability to create and respond to works of art. In addition, she examines children's art for what it can reveal about the artistic impulse before adult convention becomes a shaping force. Finally, in order to reach a better understanding of the biological bases of artistry, Winner discusses the art of the mentally disturbed and the neurologically impaired patient. ISBN: 978-0674463615

Languages of Art

This small but significant bookdrawing upon psychology, linguistics, theory of mind, technology, and the sciences presents an approach to a theory of symbols. It is foundational to a deeper understanding of art in its many forms: music, dance, literature, and the visual arts. ISBN-13: 978-0915144341

Cultures of Thinking Initiative

The Cultures of Thinking Project is a global initiative under the direction of Dr. Ron Ritchhart, a Principal Investigator and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The CoT initiative considers education to be a social and cultural endeavor whose goal is the development of both the individual and the group as effective learners and thinkers able to engage with and adapt to a changing world. Within this context the most important assessment question we can ask ourselves as educators is: Who are our students becoming as thinkers and learners as a result of their time with us?

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