Curriculum: Art Criticism

This lesson introduces students to the work of Keith Haring, focusing on his semiotic messages. Students have to create their own semiotic symbols to communicate a positive message that is important in their lives.

Students transform unique shaped bottles in clever Haring Art designs.

Reflecting on Text and Context in Art

What does art tell us about the time and place of its creation, and what does the context tell us about an artwork? In this lesson, students consider the work of Keith Haring in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which can be used as a framework for studying any artist and era. Students research historically and culturally significant events as a potential means to understand artists and their works. They create and present slide shows that incorporate images of the work with commentary that place the pieces in their historical and cultural context. Finally, they trace the legacy of their chosen artist via the work of artists who came later or their effect on culture.

This lesson was designed to parallel The Tampa Museum's survey: "Keith Haring: Art & Commerce," on view March 18 through June 11, 2006.

Local children were presented with a slide presentation of Haring's work, with a particular emphasis on Haring's large scale steel sculptures and accompanying sculptural macquettes. Students then participated in a workshop where they too could design and construct their own scaled down models of imaginary, mythic sculptures.

A joint effort between the University of Arizona's Education division and a local public school summer program, this lesson explores how some Apache students responded to Keith Haring's art using their computers as art-making tools.

This lesson, sent in by an 8th grade class took their art outside, and painted bus shelters throughout the city of Zell in Germany. One is inspired by our favorite artist, Keith Haring.

Offering students the possibilities to express their thoughts and concerns, this project outlines a structure to help students make public posters with important messages in a bold and straightforward manner, similar to some of the work Haring did during his lifetime.

Using the "Posters with a Message" Lesson as a starting point, this project allows students to exhibit their work publicly and address the related concerns of presentation and observation.

A wonderful lesson sent in by a school in England that helps students examine and discuss art while developing their own fun and silly essays.

Similar to the book, I WISH I DIDN'T HAVE TO SLEEP, containing children's responses to Haring's work, students are encouraged to look at Haring's work, and create their own stories.

This collaborative project, inspired by a set of prints Haring made titled, RED AND BLUE, asks children to interpret classmates' abstract shapes and write or tell a story about them.

A writing lesson that asks children to determine questions to elicit interesting and revealing biographies of other children.