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Resources for Teachers

Through its grant program the Terra Foundation supports the development and/or dissemination of American art instructional materials for the classroom. A selection of foundation-supported resources is described below.

American Art

American Art (2008) is a curriculum manual from the Art Institute of Chicago that highlights 45 works dating from the Colonial era to the 20th century in the museum's collection, including a selection of works on long-term loan from the Terra Foundation. The manual contains: extended texts discussing 26 primary works of art and brief texts discussing 19 secondary and related works of art; 14 lesson plans correlating to Illinois State Learning Standards; a timeline and overview of American art and cultural history; maps showing the development of the United States; 8.5-x-11-inch color posters of the primary works; and a CD containing the manual's full text and images and live links to additional internet resources.

For a PDF of the American Art Manual, please click here. For information about how to acquire the American Art manual, please contact the Crown Family Educator Resource Center at the Art Institute at 312 443 3719.

Picturing America

Picturing America (2007), developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is a resource for teaching American history and other humanities subjects. It includes 40 large, high-quality color posters of a diverse selection of American artworks and an Educators Resource Book containing teaching ideas and background information to support the use of the posters in core subjects. With support from the Terra Foundation, a Picturing America set was provided to nearly every CPS school in the fall of 2008. Additional information about Picturing America is available at http://picturingamerica.neh.gov/. Download the complete Picturing America Educators Resource Book.

Chicago Humanities Festival American Art Lectures On-line

See and hear the annual Terra Foundation Lecture on American Art. These fascinating slide talks are presented by leading historians of American art. Topics appear below. Downloadable study guides are available for each as well.

2006 David Lubin, "Art for War's Sake"

2007 Angela Miller, "American Landscape Art and Environmental Thinking"

2008 Erika Doss, "Picturing New Deal American Art"

2009 Jennifer Greenhill, "Terra Foundation Lecture on American Art"

2010 Sarah Burns, "Corruptible Flesh: Art and Necrophilia in Chicago"

"Artbeat" American Art Segments

Learn about notable Chicago artists, collections, and places of artistic significance by viewing a series of "Artbeat" segments about American art, produced for WTTW11's nighly news magazine Chicago Tonight. Topics range from Progressive-era murals at Lane Tech High School to Chicago artist and collector Roger Brown, and from Tiffany stained glass and mosaics at the Chicago Cultural Center to the art and work space of outsider artist Henry Darger.

Visual Thinking Strategies Video

Watch master teacher Philip Yenawine demonstrate Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), a learner-centered instructional technique, in a 2003 teacher workshop. Yenawine engages participants in an extended examination and discussion of the painting Gallery of the Louvre in the Terra collection.