pages in a book taking flight

Visualizing Vocabulary – Idea File

Students create and display posters defining and illustrating essential arts vocabulary (from the Kentucky Core Content).
Grades: 6-8

Suggested Uses:

  • Arts and Humanities
  • adaptable for any assessed content area

Teaching Concepts:

  • Students need to understand essential arts vocabulary used in the Kentucky Core Content.
  • Student-created visual aids reinforce vocabulary and trigger concept memory.

Lesson Idea

  1. Lead a “student-friendly” discussion of one or more areas of the Core Content and its purpose in instruction/assessment.
  2. Provide a list of arts terms/definitions or have students go to the glossaries online at the Arts Toolkit web site.
  3. Review elements of art and principles of design prior to poster making.
  4. Choosing one or more terms from the Core Content area vocabulary, students develop large “flash cards” that use text and illustrations/graphics to define the terms.
  5. Use the flash cards in classrooms, the lunchroom, or other school common areas for practical use and review throughout the term.

Extend: For terms that indicate movement (e.g., some dance terms), have students define via a demonstration. Consider taping these “definitions.”

Author: Mary Henson

See more resources for:

Educators

See more resources about:

K-12English Language Arts and LiteracyThe Arts