All of my art classes, regardless of grade or ability level, incorporate lessons, ideas, and themes from Sense, an interdisciplinary unit plan that combines visual art and social-emotional learning. Sense is modeled from The CASEL 5 and meets the MA Comprehensive Health Frameworks (1999) for Social-Emotional and Mental Health (9-12), and the MA Visual Art Curriculum Frameworks (2019) (9-12). (click here for written unit plan) 

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Students will develop their sensory intelligence by understanding their own emotions, thoughts, and personal beliefs, and how they influence human well-being across contexts. 

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Students will:

Empathize with the perspectives of others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts

Reflect upon sensory processing styles as well as emotions, thoughts, and behaviors in different situations

Be sensitive to their own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts

Make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations

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Students will gain social-emotional and artistic proficiency by evidence of:

Respect for themselves and their peers when sharing artwork and discussing sensitive topics

Managing emotions, thoughts, and behaviors nonjudgmentally 

Reflective and meaningful effort in translating thoughts and emotions into visual art

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Enduring Understandings:

Subconscious brain activity is responsible for 98% of our daily functioning

We have the power to transform neural pathways in our brains through nonjudgmental awareness of the subconscious 

Emotions, thoughts, and personal beliefs influence human health and behavior across contexts

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Essential Questions:

What is sensory intelligence and how does it benefit us?

How do artists express and convey emotion in their art?

What is meaningful to me and others?

How does our perception affect reality and our relationships with others?

How do our senses communicate information to us?

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Standards Addressed:

MA Comprehensive Health Frameworks (1999)

Social and Emotional Health | Mental Health (9-12)

 

• CH.SEH.05.11: Feelings and Emotions. Analyze healthy ways to express emotions and to cope with feelings, including the common causes of stress, its effects on the body, and managing stress.

• CH.SEH.05.14: Identity. Describe theories of personality development, including identity formation, and differentiate among the concepts of the ideal self, public self, and private self. 

• CH. SEH.05.18: Decision Making. Identify ways in which decision-making is influenced by sound character, family, and personal beliefs.

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MA Visual Art Curriculum Frameworks (2019)

 

• Practice 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work. Through observation, discussion, or research, students reflect on an artistic work to discern what it evokes, expresses, or communicates to them.

• Practice 10: Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art. Students draw from their personal and artistic experiences and their multi-disciplinary knowledge when envisioning and creating original artworks that reflect on their own artistic identity.

• Practice 3: Refine and complete artistic work. Through a variety of strategies (e.g., teacher or peer feedback, exploration, research, self-reflection), students conceive and revise their artistic ideas to better express, evoke, or communicate their artistic intent.

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