Sweden Grundskola Visual Arts Curriculum: Year 9

Visual Arts

Pictures play a significant role in how individuals think, learn, and experience themselves and the world. Visual culture, including film, photography, design, art, architecture, and various environments, surrounds us constantly, aiming to inform, persuade, entertain, and evoke aesthetic and emotional responses. Understanding images and visual communication is crucial for expressing viewpoints and actively participating in society. Working with different types of images allows individuals to develop their creativity and image-making abilities.

Aim

Visual arts education aims to develop students' knowledge of image creation and interpretation. Students explore visual cultures encompassing film, photography, design, art, architecture, and diverse environments. They develop skills in producing and presenting their own images using various methods, materials, and forms of expression. The curriculum fosters creativity, encourages student initiative, and promotes an investigative and problem-solving approach. Students learn to analyze the construction of visual messages in different media, critically examine visual communication, and develop knowledge of images in diverse cultures, both historically and in contemporary contexts. This knowledge then informs their own creative work. The curriculum aims to develop students' ability to:

• Communicate messages through images.
• Create images using digital and traditional techniques, tools, and materials.
• Explore and present different subject matter through images.
• Analyze the content and function of historical and contemporary images and artifacts.

Core Content (Years 7-9)

• Producing Pictures:
• Creating narrative, informative, and socially oriented pictures expressing personal experiences and viewpoints.
• Combining images, sound, and text in image creation.
• Repurposing images, materials, and objects in personal artwork, such as installations.
• Digitally processing photographs and other images.
• Presenting their own artwork.
• Understanding rights, obligations, ethics, and values related to image use, including freedom of speech and integrity in media and other contexts.
• Tools for Producing Pictures:
• Understanding the meaning and properties of forms, colors, and pictorial compositions, and how they can be used in image creation.
• Understanding materials and tools for two- and three-dimensional work and their specific uses.
• Analyzing Pictures:
• Analyzing images addressing identity, sexuality, ethnicity, and power relations, and how these perspectives are constructed and communicated.
• Examining the communication and influence of mass media and interpreting them critically.
• Studying contemporary art, documentary images, artworks, and architectural works from various periods and cultures in Sweden, Europe, and other parts of the world, analyzing their design and the messages they convey.
• Using appropriate vocabulary to interpret, write, and discuss the design and message of images.

Knowledge Requirements (Year 9)

• Grade E: Students can produce some types of narrative and informative pictures that communicate experiences and views using a simple visual language and somewhat developed forms of expression. They can use various techniques, tools, and materials in a basic way and explore how to combine them for different expressions. They can combine forms, colors, and pictorial compositions in a basic way. Students can contribute to developing ideas in different subject areas by reusing existing images and materials. They can contribute to formulating and choosing actions for improvement and present their pictures with some adaptation to purpose and context. Students can make simple assessments of work processes and show simple relationships between expression, content, function, and quality. They can interpret contemporary and historical pictures and visual culture, applying simple and somewhat informed reasoning. They can describe pictures and their expression, content, and function in a simple way, using some subject-specific terminology.
• Grade D: Meets the requirements of Grade E and mostly Grade C.
• Grade C: Students can produce different types of narrative and informative pictures that communicate experiences and views using a developed visual language and relatively well-developed forms of expression. They can use various techniques, tools, and materials in a relatively well-functioning and varied way, experimenting with combinations. They combine form, color, and composition relatively well. Students can develop their own ideas in different subject areas by reusing existing images and materials. They formulate and choose actions for improvement, adapting them as needed. They present their pictures with relatively good adaptation to purpose and context. Students can make developed assessments of work processes and show relatively complex relationships between expression, content, function, and quality. They can interpret contemporary and historical pictures and visual culture, applying developed and relatively well-informed reasoning. They describe pictures and their expression, content, and function in a developed way, using subject-specific terminology relatively well.
• Grade B: Meets the requirements of Grade C and mostly Grade A.
• Grade A: Students can produce various types of narrative and informative pictures that communicate experiences and views using a well-developed visual language and forms of expression. They can use various techniques, tools, and materials in a well-functioning, varied, and creative way, systematically experimenting with combinations. They combine form, color, and composition effectively. Students can develop their own ideas in different subject areas by reusing existing images and materials. They formulate and choose actions for improvement and present their pictures effectively, adapting them to purpose and context. Students can make well-developed assessments of work processes and show complex relationships between expression, content, function, and quality. They can interpret contemporary and historical pictures and visual culture, applying well-developed and well-informed reasoning. They describe pictures and their expression, content, and function in a well-developed way, using subject-specific terminology effectively.