Analayzing Art

       I really like the PYP Transdiciplinary Skills and look for ways to explicitly integrate them into my instruction. It is a touchstone in helping me make student learning more "split screen", a term that I picked up from the fabulous, amazing and incredible Kath Murdoch in one of her workshops.  Not only do I want students to learn content, but I also want them to learn how to learn. Here is a picture that hopefully shows what I want to be going on in the minds of my students: 

     Anyway....one Transdiciplinary Skill I find not only important for students to learn but also a skill I feel increasingly confident in making explicit is analysis  which is:

taking knowledge or ideas apart; separating into component parts; seeing relationships; finding unique characteristics.

One way my class does this is when they analyse a piece of art. One of my aims for this year was to integrate art into my instruction more regularly.  The class worked together to analyse a Piet Mondrian painting....you can see below pretty clearly how we went about it:  

     Students really liked analysing other works of art. This has been a great activity to start art lessons and as the students learn more Elements of Art, they can expand their analysis. 
     I am explicitly teaching analysis when we look at writing too, just substitute the Elements of Art with the 6+1 Traits of Writing!