Explaining Art to First-Time Visitors to a Museum
After all the thinking, reading, writing, and arguing that you’ve been doing about what the word “art” actually means, you’ve become somewhat of an expert, or at least a “novice expert,” on art.
Assignment
For this assignment, you will need to imagine an art museum in your town whose collection includes the nine works that follow these instructions. The museum has told you that, in the past, first-time visitors to the museum have not responded well to the museum’s collection. They have asked, “What is this stuff doing in the art museum? This isn’t art.” The museum has asked you to compose a narrated Powerpoint presentation or video for first-time visitors who have never been to an art museum before. For this Powerpoint or video, select six of the possible nine works found on page 309-313 and explain to the visitors why they ARE art. Make sure to define “art” using the definition you created and revised throughout the past 2 weeks. Use all the ideas you have encountered in the essays you have read in this project and your own discussion posts and writing assignments to create this PowerPoint or video. Keep in mind that some of these pieces of art are pots, sculptures, quilts, a car with a rock on it, etc. and you are explaining the object (not a photograph). Remember your audience and our discussion post earlier this week- these are uneducated visitors so you will need to be detailed and provide lots of evidence and support for why you believe six of these items are “art”. Basically- you want to “sell” them on why 6 of these objects are “artistic” and should be valued. If you quote, paraphrase, or summarize form the articles you have read in our textbook or are using outside resources, then make sure to provide the appropriate citations and include a works-cited list. If you need help with this please refer to MLA Documentation (Topic 23, p. 650). Make sure to review Topic 11.3: Development, Support, or Evidence (page 362) if you need ways to find more reasons to support your argument.
Video Example
(make sure to have a friend film you and that you speak loudly/clearly)- dress up as a museum tour guide and print off copies of six of the nine pieces of art you want to evaluate and defend as “art” from pages 309-313. Make sure to enlarge the prints so that I may see them in the video. Tape these up on walls like you would see them in a museum. You can then walk from art piece to art piece in your video explaining to me (a first-time visitor to the museum) why these pieces are considered “art”. Make sure to define “art” using the definition you created and revised throughout the past 2 weeks. You can defend these art pieces with logic, facts, quotes, opinions, examples, etc. If you use a quotation or summarize an article (from our textbook or any other source), be sure to state, “That quote is from author ______ in an article called _____.” or “To summarize an article by John Canady, this piece of art is valued because of its ability to signify beauty in a dark world….”. Please be sure to explain your argument for 6 of the 9 pieces of art and to provide at least 2-3 reasons for each piece of art. Your video should be at least 5-8 minutes long (but can be longer). Feel free to have fun and be creative with this project! You can pretend that a family member or roomie is another visitor at the museum and asks you (as the tour guide) questions, which you can answer. Remember to speak loudly and clearly while talking- I may ask you to redo the project if I am unable to hear you since that is a major aspect on which you will be graded. Please note- I highly recommend you write an essay outline and then use this as “notes” during your tour guide so that you demonstrate effective arguments that are organized, well-developed, and demonstrate the appropriate language that should appeal to your specific audience. Feel free to read from your paper and have it in hand (you can pretend to be a tour guide on his first day of work- ha). If you are having issues trying to find support or reasons for why these pieces are art please refer back to 18.1 (pages 513-525) to think of ways to expand your project.
Powerpoint Example
Create a minimum of 10 slides in a PowerPoint project demonstrating 6 of the 9 pieces of art from your textbook on page 309 while narrating in the background like a tour guide in a museum- defending why each piece is a work of art. You can copy and paste the 6 pieces of art into your Powerpoint from the e-textbook. Then, using bullet points below the art piece on each PowerPoint page, list the reasons each piece of art is considered “art”. Make sure to define “art” using the definition you created and revised throughout the past 2 weeks. You can then defend these art pieces with logic, facts, quotes, opinions, examples, etc. If you use a quotation, summarize an article (from our textbook or any other source), or use any other source, be sure to use an in-text citation and include a works cited page at the end. Please be sure to explain your argument for 6 of the 9 pieces of art and to provide at least 2-3 reasons for each piece of art. Your PowerPoint should be at least 5-8 minutes long (but can be longer). Feel free to have fun and be creative with this project! You can include a Q and A section where “visitors” ask you questions about these art pieces, you can make jokes, talk about why art is an abstract theme, etc. Be sure to speak loudly and clearly throughout your PowerPoint project- I may ask you to redo the project if I am unable to hear you since that is a major aspect on which you will be graded. If you are having issues trying to find support or reasons for why these pieces are art please refer back to 18.1 (pages 513-525) to think of ways to expand your project.
This project is worth 120 points. It will be checked for plagiarism using “Unicheck” which is a program that will make sure words are not copied from anywhere online. Make sure to use proper and appropriate grammar with proper sentence structure. Make sure to define “art” using the definition you created and revised throughout the past 2 weeks (this is your thesis for the project so start the introduction of each video/PowerPoint with this). You must meet all requirements discussed in this post to get credit. Additionally, a grading rubric can be found here:
Aspects on which you will be graded-
- Length of your video/PowerPoint (minimum is 5 minutes)
- Speaking in a clear, loud voice so that I may hear your arguments
- Make sure to define “art” using the definition you created and revised throughout the past 2 weeks (this is your thesis so start your video or PowerPoint with this- “First of all, I define art as ……” ).
- Picking 6 of the 9 pieces of art with each piece demonstrating 2-3 reasons why you believe it is “art” and your ability to develop, support, and demonstrate evidence for why each of the 6 items should be considered “art”. The better you argue and support your statements/position, the better your grade will be on this!
- Proper grammar and sentence structure
- Creativity & Humor (surprise me- I love when students think “outside the box”).
- Demonstration that you know and recognize “your audience” for this assignment (me as a first-time visitor to the art museum).
