Drawing on History Frequently Asked Questions

That depends on your student. Some of the lessons do require engaging family or friends to discuss art, but for the most part the book is written to be the teacher. A student could certainly read through the Overview and the Activity, do the suggested internet and book research, answer the Guiding Research Questions, and then begin the Activity completely on their own. However, I find that art is a little more difficult without the interaction of others. I highly suggest that if you want your student to complete this book without your help, that you strive to provide a supportive environment for feedback, accountability, encouragement, and technical support.

Many of the Guiding Research Questions are open ended questions to engage higher level thinking and discussion. Many of the questions are answered in the Overview or you will find the answers as you look at the Suggested Web Links, books, or movies. I do not provide an answer guide for these questions.

Grading is a tricky subject for homeschoolers, but something that is important to cover. From my personal experience I set my objectives for the course at the beginning of the school year. I assign a percentage value to those objectives, totaling 100% and break down each letter grade with a percentage (A= 90% - 100%, B= 89% - 70%, etc...) Then I keep track of how my student did meeting my objectives. In the side bar of each lesson I have outlined the Learning Objectives for that lesson. You can use those suggestions to determine how well your student accomplished that lesson and grade based on that. Grading based on the quality of each completed activity is very subjective and not a good idea for this book since they are not being given formal art training. If they complete an activity to the best of their ability they should be rewarded with a high percentage for that objective.

You will need to check what your State’s high school fine art requirements are and determine how many units or credits they need for graduation, but in most cases this course will cover one year of fine arts credits.

5 credits minimum. Depending how in depth your student goes into each lesson you could award more credits. Rule of thumb is 1 credit = 15 hrs of work, 5 credits = 75 hrs. of work, 10 credits = 150 hrs of work.

I would love to see your student’s art work, however I may not be able to give feedback on all the artwork I receive. Please do not send me original works of art. Please email only digital files with permission to post it on our website. Include student’s name, age, and assignment.

In the world of art, nudity is unavoidable. As a parent, you will need to discern what you want your student to view. Most nudity appearing in art before 1900 can be considered discrete, however, some may still find it offensive. The recommended accompanying text, ART by DK, does contain nudity but to a lesser degree than most art history books. We must realize that the uncovered human body, especially that of women, has always held a fascination for artists. For most artists, “the nude” is a masterpiece all on its own. The European artists never considered anything wrong with painting the nude. Today, however, many of us have concerns about exposing our children to nude figures in paintings. As an artist, as well as a Christian mom, I have these same concerns. I chose to limit the exposure of nude art to my own children as much as possible and found that in almost all cases is wasn’t necessary to view a nude painting in order to understand the artist or the movement. There were always plenty of other paintings that we could study. This text will not use any examples of nude men or women to teach the art movements. There are, however, many recommended websites, books, and movies that may contain nude figures. It is important to express to your student that God created the human body as a masterpiece and man, because of sin, has corrupted our view of it. If your student chooses to go on to study art in college, nudity will be unavoidable and you will have hopefully set a firm foundation for how God wants us to view the human body.

No it is not required to complete this course, but it will be very helpful. The works of art in this book are beautifully presented and it contains very informative information on almost every lesson in this course. This book will also be helpful for studying more art than Drawing on History: Pre Civil War–Vietnam covers. You will be able to use this book for many years of art study.

Please Note: This book has been revised by the publisher and is now available under the name ART: The Definitive Visual Guide by Andrew Graham Dixon and Ross King (ISBN: 978-1-4654-7475-9). Please download the ADDENDUM for page number changes and book information.

You will find this book through larger online booksellers.

No it is not required to complete this course, but this course was designed and written with this curriculum in mind. Using Modern U.S. and World History by Beautiful Feet in conjunction with Drawing on History: Pre Civil War–Vietnam helps give the student a rich, well rounded historical picture of the world at that particular time. This course can easily stand alone or be used with your own history curriculum that covers the same time frame.

Please contact us via email at: EMAIL US! and attach your file to the email. The file should be rgb, jpg format @ 72 dpi, 500w x 360h min.

Each lesson will take any where from 3 - 8 hrs. per week. Some may take a bit more time or take several weeks to accomplish.

Besides the obvious differences between a printed book and an digital book, the digital (PDF) book is be hyper-linked to all recommended web resources, fully searchable and indexed for easy navigation.

Not at this time. We are currently working on the Renaissance and Reformation though.

Drawing on History: Pre Civil War –Vietnam was written for High School students, just as was the U.S. and World History. Most of the activities in this book require high school level skills although you may find that your Jr. High student could handle the reading, research, and activities.