Montague Township School District
Visual Arts Curriculum Guide
Grade 5
2025-2026
Melissa Neamand
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Description
The Grade 5 Media and Visual Arts curriculum develops students' artistic literacy and fluency across four interconnected processes: creating, producing/presenting, responding, and connecting. Students engage with visual and media arts as disciplines with creative, intellectual, and aesthetic dimensions. Throughout the year, students work with elements and principles of art, explore diverse artists and cultural movements, and develop skills in conceptualizing, developing, and refining artistic work. The curriculum emphasizes that the arts serve as vehicles for self-discovery, critical thinking, and communication of meaning. Students learn to analyze, evaluate, and interpret artworks while understanding how art reflects and shapes society, culture, and history.
Big Ideas
- Creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that develop through experimentation, practice, and constructive critique.
- Artists work through intentional processes to realize artistic intent and communicate meaning effectively to audiences.
- Analysis and interpretation of artworks provide insight into the experiences, perspectives, and values of different times, places, and cultures.
- Through creating and responding to art, people develop awareness of themselves, others, and the world around them.
Essential Questions
- How do artists and media artists generate ideas, develop artistic intent, and engage in the creative process?
- How do artists determine whether their work is effective and learn from trial, error, and constructive critique?
- How do people interpret, analyze, and evaluate artworks using various criteria and personal experience?
- How does art reflect and inform the values, beliefs, and cultures of individuals and societies?
- What role does the presentation and preservation of artworks play in cultivating appreciation and understanding?
Music - Connecting
Music - Creating
Music - Performing
Music - Responding
Media Arts - Connecting
Media Arts - Creating
Media Arts - Presenting
Media Arts - Responding
Students apply mathematical thinking and problem-solving strategies when creating artworks, measuring materials, analyzing proportions, and organizing visual elements using geometric principles and spatial reasoning.
Students engage in design thinking and engineering practices when creating artworks, investigating material properties, and solving visual problems through experimentation and iterative refinement.
Students examine how artworks reflect cultural traditions, historical contexts, and diverse perspectives from various communities and time periods, analyzing the role of art in society and its connections to human experience.
Students develop visual literacy and communication skills by discussing artworks using formal vocabulary, writing about artistic intent and meaning, and engaging in collaborative conversations about aesthetic and cultural analysis.
Students are assessed across all units throughout the year using multiple approaches aligned with formative, summative, alternative, and benchmark assessment types. Assessment strategies include group work, projects, discussions, teacher observations, rubrics, critiques, self and peer evaluations, and question-and-answer sessions. Teachers use digital rubrics on learning management systems for media arts tasks. Performance tasks require students to apply skills and knowledge from each unit, with artwork evaluated based on understanding of elements and principles of art, quality of execution, and ability to convey meaning. Assessment considers both process and product, individual and collaborative work, and alignment to New Jersey Student Learning Standards.
| Unit | Formative | Summative | Benchmark | Alternative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01Creating | ✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| 02Producing/Presenting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 03Responding | ✓ | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| 04Connecting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Coverage | 4/4 | 4/4 | 2/2 | 4/4 |
| Unit | IEP | 504 | MLL | At-Risk | Gifted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01Creating | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 02Producing/Presenting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 03Responding | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| 04Connecting | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Coverage | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 | 4/4 |