3 Steps for Using Art Prints to Rigorously Address Standards and Meet Goals

I’ve received a lot of questions from fellow educators about how to use art to help their students meet learning goals.

Most teachers further ask about how to incorporate art prints into their lessons. They’re not sure which art prints are appropriate for their classrooms and offer the most impact on learning goals.

If you have the same challenge, you’ve come to the right place. 

Using art prints can be tricky for teachers because our training is not always open-ended in the way that is required for meeting learning goals this way. Arts integration training gives teachers insight into art forms they could use in the classroom and how they can use them.

Ultimately, this benefits the students because it provides a well-rounded, joyful education. 

Arts integration ensures that students can apply their knowledge. Beginning your arts integration journey with art prints will require a lot of goal-setting and articulation. If you can articulate your goals and explain how your work meets those goals, you can get your administrator’s support. Knowing your goals will also make it easier to choose art prints. It’s win-win-win!

Here are 3 steps to picking the ideal art print to meet learning goals for your classroom: 

1. Identify Your Goals

You need to know the standard that you're trying to address first. In addition, you need to figure out what skills from that standard you want to teach to your students. Then, determine what your students need to understand within that standard. You must also figure out the background your students will need to ensure the success of your plans.  

Knowing the necessary standard for your lesson plan will help you understand what arts standard would go well with it. 

Once you’ve determined all the above, you can write down your goals. 

2. Locate the Art Prints

Once you fully understand the standard and skills required to fulfill that standard, you can locate an art print. But this is not as easy as it sounds. You always need to ensure that what you’re looking for in an art print matches your goals. 

Do you need an art print with patterns? Would a print with text suit your goals better? After answering these questions, you can make a list of things you’ll need to find a suitable art print for your lesson. Once you’ve identified what you need from a print, the rest of these steps will be a walk in the park. 

You can find artworks on Google, WikiArt, and My Modern Met. Even as an experienced teaching artist, I don’t always know artworks to use off the top of my head, so these sites have been lifesavers. 

WikiArt allows you to save images to private boards as you would on Pinterest. Most importantly, it has a comprehensive list of artists from different eras. It’ll even give you copyright information about the artwork. 

Through My Modern Met, you can learn about more contemporary artists. The website features a lot of non-traditional art forms. Once you get comfortable looking for artworks, you'll enjoy it because it's fun to look at art and dream up potential lessons.  

3. Determine the Strategies

You need to find the best strategies to use with your art print. These need to be strategies that will help you meet your goals. Think about strategies and skills you’re already familiar with and write them down. Find out HOW those skills could help you meet your goals. 

You must also determine if the research behind the strategy applies to your goals. You can use my graphic organizer in the workshop (linked below) to work through these steps. It’ll help you think through what you need to get started. Don’t think about these steps as a hierarchy; they’re more of a Venn diagram because they’re interconnected.

Bonus step: Be patient with yourself and with your students

I understand that this may be a lot to process. But keep in mind that you need to start where you are and give yourself some grace.

Seamless use of art prints will come with practice, so don't let fear keep you from trying this with your students. 

Make time for your students to engage in discussion, so you’ll know how they feel about the lesson plan. In the beginning, you may want to try a five-minute dialog with your class or a small group. As you develop, you'll get better at keeping those goals in mind. Your discussions will also grow, and you will be amazed at the things your kids can articulate. Remember that you don't always have to start an arts-integrated lesson with an art print. You can find an art form that works better for you and your students. 

Next Steps

If you need more help, you are in luck. Check out this mini-professional development course I developed to help you better use art prints in your classroom. This course is perfect for any general education classroom teacher in any subject or grade. Art teachers would benefit as well. Be sure to read the reviews from teachers like you!