Learning to talk about works of art requires opportunities and encouragement to use language in expressive ways in grades K-4. Students in grades 5-8 develop a degree in learning to make informed aesthetic responses. They should work in greater detail with questions of meaning as they interact with their own art and works of art by professional artists. In grades 9-12, students' interest in individual artists and their art forms should be encouraged and shared so that insights into aesthetic responses are broadened and enhanced. The arts are a way of knowing.
Students grow in their ability to appreciate their world when they learn the arts.
As they create dances, music, theatrical productions, and visual artworks, they learn how to express themselves and how to communicate with others. This, in part, involves the development of skills to express, produce, and communicate through the arts, and particularly, it involves ways to develop manipulative and organizational skills through active engagement in the fine arts. Younger elementary students who are engaged in the fine arts are actually involved in the process of selecting, arranging, and decision making. Students, therefore, need a variety of experiences with fine arts media. Older elementary students, as they continue to work with a variety of media, increase their skills in expressing their ideas, feelings, and concepts.