NCAS.A.10National Core Arts StandardsArtsConnectingGrades 6-12
NCAS.A.10: Making Art From What You Know and What You Have Observed
In plain English: NCAS.A.10 is National Core Arts Standards anchor standard 10, in the Connecting process, which asks students to synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art. In grades 6-12 that means linking what an artist knows (facts, techniques, earlier works) with what the artist has seen and lived, and combining them into one new work in any art form.
Synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art.
NCAS.A.10 asks students to synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art. Artists draw on two kinds of source: what they know (facts, techniques, earlier works) and what they have experienced or observed. Relating links a source to an artistic idea; synthesizing combines several sources into one work in which they change each other. The anchor applies in every art form: a song, a dance, a scene, a drawing or a short animation.
Students read an 1821 letter in which the painter John Constable names his sources, trace them in a word description of his painting The Hay Wain, and study the notebook of an invented choreographer. Then they make a short sketch of their own from knowledge cards and an observation the class makes together. No one is asked to share private memories or feelings: experience on this page means invented artists' experience and shared observation.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Tell apart knowledge (facts, techniques, earlier works) and experience (what was seen, heard or done) as sources for art
Relate a single source to an artistic idea in a chosen art form
Synthesize two or more sources into one short work, and explain how they changed each other
Make and read a source map that shows where parts of a work came from
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
Generating artistic ideas from a prompt NCAS.A.1
Organizing and developing an idea into a draft NCAS.A.2
Interpreting intent and meaning in artistic work NCAS.A.8
"An invented composer is writing a piece about a thunderstorm. Name one thing she could KNOW that might help (a fact or a technique), and one thing she could have SEEN or HEARD that might help."
Collect answers in two columns on the board, Knowledge and Experience, without labeling them first. Students usually offer facts ("thunder follows lightning"), techniques ("drum rolls," "low notes") and observations ("rain getting louder on a roof"). Name the two columns, then ask: what would happen if the piece used only one column?
Direct Instruction15 minutes
Vocabulary.
Knowledge: what an artist has learned: facts about the world, the techniques of an art form, and earlier works and what others have said about them.
Personal experience: what an artist has seen, heard, done or felt. Careful observation of the world counts: watching a street, a sky or a crowd is experience.
Relate: link a source to an artistic idea ("the way the crowd stepped back could become a movement").
Synthesize: combine several sources into one new whole in which they change each other. A list of sources placed side by side is not yet a synthesis.
Source map: a sketch that shows which parts of a work came from which sources.
The Connecting process. The framework defines Connecting as "Relating artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context." Anchor 10 is the personal side: what the artist brings to the work. Anchor 11 is the outside side: society, culture and history. On this page nobody is asked to share private memories. Experience comes from invented artists, from a painter's letter and from what the class observes together in the room.
A painter explains his sources. John Constable (1776-1837) was an English landscape painter. He was born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, near the River Stour, where his father ran Flatford Mill. In October 1821 he wrote from Hampstead, near London, to his close friend John Fisher, a clergyman in Salisbury. Fisher had written about a fishing day by a river with mills. Notes before reading: "skying" is Constable's word for studying and painting skies; Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter who wrote about art; Titian, Salvator (Salvator Rosa) and Claude (Claude Lorrain) were earlier painters famous for landscapes; "poor Tom" is a character in Shakespeare's King Lear; in Constable's time a "pencil" could also mean a small paintbrush. Paragraphs are numbered.
1I have done a good deal of skying, for I am determined to conquer all difficulties, and that among the rest. And now talking of skies, it is amusing to us to see how admirably you fight my battles; you certainly take the best possible ground for getting your friend out of a scrape (the example of the old masters). That landscape painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his composition, neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids. Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of the landscapes of Titian, of Salvator, and of Claude, says: ‘Even their skies seem to sympathise with their subjects.’ I have often been advised to consider my sky as ‘a white sheet thrown behind the objects.’ Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is bad; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse; it must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition. It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. You may conceive, then, what a ‘white sheet’ would do for me, impressed as I am with these notions, and they cannot be erroneous. The sky is the source of light in nature, and governs everything; even our common observations on the weather of every day are altogether suggested by it. The difficulty of skies in painting is very great, both as to composition and execution; because, with all their brilliancy, they ought not to come forward, or, indeed, be hardly thought of any more than extreme distances are; but this does not apply to phenomena or accidental effects of sky, because they always attract particularly. I may say all this to you, though you do not want to be told that I know very well what I am about, and that my skies have not been neglected, though they have often failed in execution, no doubt, from an over-anxiety about them, which will alone destroy that easy appearance which nature always has in all her movements.
2How much I wish I had been with you on your fishing excursion in the New Forest! What river can it be? But the sound of water escaping from mill-dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things. Shakespeare could make everything poetical; he tells us of poor Tom’s haunts among ‘sheep cotes and mills.’ As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places. They have always been my delight, and I should indeed have been delighted in seeing what you describe, and in your company, ‘in the company of a man to whom nature does not spread her volume in vain.’ Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate ‘my careless boyhood’ with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful; that is, I had often thought of pictures of them before I ever touched a pencil, and your picture is the strongest instance of it I can recollect; but I will say no more, for I am a great egotist in whatever relates to painting.
John Constable, in C. R. Leslie, Letter to John Fisher, Hampstead, October 23, 1821 (excerpt: the opening greeting and first sentence are omitted), in Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843; this edition 1912). Public domain (published 1912). Source text.
Knowledge in the letter
In paragraph 1, which sentences show Constable using knowledge of earlier art, not only his own eyes?
Result: He quotes Sir Joshua Reynolds on the landscapes of Titian, Salvator and Claude: "Even their skies seem to sympathise with their subjects." He knows what earlier painters did and what a writer said about them, and he uses it to defend his own skies.
Experience in the letter
In paragraph 2, what does Constable say his childhood by the Stour gave him?
Result: He writes, "those scenes made me a painter," and says he "had often thought of pictures of them before I ever touched a pencil." His experience of one place came before his training and stayed with him as a subject.
Connect the letter to Diagram 1. Constable relates sources one at a time (Reynolds to his skies, his boyhood to the Stour), and he says the sky must "make an effectual part of the composition," which is a synthesis: the sky is not added on top but works with everything under it. Ask: which line in the letter shows that knowledge and experience pulled together for him? (Paragraph 1 joins what Reynolds wrote with his own long work on skies.)
Guided Practice15 minutes
From letter to painting. The text below describes Constable's painting The Hay Wain in words. It was written for this page; the facts in it come from the National Gallery, London, which owns the painting. Read it with the letter beside it. Paragraphs are numbered.
1A description in words, written for this page, of a painting in the public domain: The Hay Wain by the English painter John Constable (1776-1837), painted in 1821, the same year as his letter. It is an oil painting on canvas, about 130 by 185 cm (about 51 by 73 inches), and it hangs in the National Gallery in London.
2The scene is the millpond at Flatford on the River Stour in Suffolk, about a mile from East Bergholt, the village where Constable was born. His father ran Flatford Mill. On the left, among trees, stands the small house of a tenant farmer named Willy Lott; near it, a woman collects water at the river's edge. In the middle, an empty hay wagon (a "wain") pulled by three dark horses stands in the shallow water, with two men on it. A dog on the bank watches. Far off on the right, beyond the trees, small figures make hay in a sunny meadow.
3The sky fills the upper half of the canvas. Large white and gray clouds move across patches of blue, with one darker cloud that suggests rain may be coming. Sunlight from breaks in the clouds falls on the far meadow. The colors are mostly greens, browns and the white and blue of the sky, with small touches of red on the horses' collars.
4Constable showed the painting at the Royal Academy in London in 1821 under the title Landscape: Noon. In 1824 it was shown at the Paris Salon, where it won a gold medal from the French king, Charles X.
SVHS (description of a public-domain painting), The Hay Wain by John Constable (1821), described in words. Original passage written for this page.
Source map table (students fill in the empty cells)
Part of the painting
Source in the letter
Knowledge or experience?
The millpond and the water
Students fill in
Students fill in
The large, changing sky
Students fill in
Students fill in
The trees and the water's edge by the house
Students fill in
Students fill in
The way the sky ties the scene together
Students fill in
Students fill in
Relate or synthesize?
Using the description of The Hay Wain, is the painting a list of things Constable loved, or a synthesis?
Result: A synthesis. The mill water, the trees, the house and the wagon are arranged into one scene under one sky, and the light from the clouds ties them together. The sources (a known place, years of watching skies, lessons from earlier landscapes) are combined, not shown one by one.
Fill the table. Pairs complete one row at a time and cite a paragraph of the letter for each source.
Check the timing. Point out that the letter was written in October 1821, after the painting was shown earlier that year. Ask what the letter can and cannot prove about how the painting was made.
Compare with Diagram 2. Pairs add one arrow the diagram does not show, or argue that one of its arrows is weak.
Independent Practice15 minutes
An artist's notebook. Rosa Lind is an invented choreographer, and her notebook was written for this lesson. Students read it alone and sort each entry: observation, knowledge, memory, plan or cut. Paragraphs are numbered.
1Process notebook of Rosa Lind, an invented choreographer, written for this lesson. Rosa is making a dance for eight dancers. These are five entries from her notebook.
2Entry 1, observed. Tuesday, 8:10 a.m., in the rain, at the bus stop on Pine Street. When the bus pulled in, about a dozen people stepped back at once, then forward. Umbrellas tilted toward the street as the bus splashed by. One man moved his umbrella to cover a stranger's stroller.
3Entry 2, knowledge. A canon in dance is a phrase that dancers start one after another, like a round in music, where singers start the same tune at different times. I studied canons in two older dances last month and practiced counting them.
4Entry 3, memory. When I was seven, I waited for the school bus with my older brother. When it rained, he held his coat over my head.
5Entry 4, plan. "Bus Stop, Rain," about 3 minutes. The eight dancers step back and forward in canon, so the step-back ripples down the line the way it did on Pine Street. In the middle, one dancer lifts an arm over another's head and holds it there; the gesture comes from the man with the umbrella and from my brother's coat. The canon ends when all eight dancers finish the step-back together.
6Entry 5, cut. My first plan had the dancers mime opening umbrellas, checking watches and splashing, one after another. In rehearsal it looked like a list of things I saw. I kept only the step-back and the sheltering arm, and I let the canon carry the rest.
SVHS (original model text; invented artist), Rosa Lind's process notebook (invented choreographer). Original passage written for this page.
Spot the synthesis in a plan
In Rosa Lind's Entry 4, which single gesture combines two different sources?
Result: The arm held over another dancer's head. Rosa says it "comes from the man with the umbrella and from my brother's coat": an observation and a memory fused into one movement.
Grades 6-8: label each of Entries 1-3 as knowledge or experience, and draw a three-box source map for "Bus Stop, Rain."
Grades 9-12: explain in one paragraph why Rosa's cut in Entry 5 turned a list into a synthesis, and name one more source she could add without turning the dance back into a list.
Closure5-10 minutes
Exit ticket: Look out of the window or around the classroom for one minute. Write one thing you observed, one thing you know (a fact or a technique from your art form), and one sentence describing a short work that combines them. Use only what is in the room or outside; nothing private is needed.
Teacher note on the Constable excerpt: the letter comes from a biography by Constable's friend, the painter C. R. Leslie, first published in 1843. The text is copied from a 1912 edition. The 1912 edition's spelling ("sympathise"), italics and punctuation are kept.
For homework: students use the three proposals below. They were written for this lesson, and the students in them are invented. Paragraphs are numbered.
1Three project proposals from invented students, written for this lesson. Each student was asked to make a short work that uses both knowledge and experience.
2Proposal A, music, by Malik (grade 8). "My piece is called 'Lunch Line.' I stood in the cafeteria line for a week and wrote down every sound: trays sliding, a cash register beeping, people laughing, a chair scraping. My piece plays these sounds one after another on desks, cups and paper, in the order I heard them."
3Proposal B, media arts, by Hana (grade 10). "I watched the birch tree outside the art room for nine school days in October and photographed it every morning. In science I learned that leaves contain yellow and orange pigments all year, but green chlorophyll usually hides them; in autumn the chlorophyll breaks down and the yellow shows. My stop-motion animation is made of paper leaves with a green paper layer on top of a yellow one. Frame by frame, the green layer is peeled away, at the same speed I saw the tree change."
4Proposal C, theatre, by Jonah (grade 11). "My scene is about a lighthouse keeper. I read a long encyclopedia article about how lighthouses were kept. In the scene, the keeper stands at the front of the stage and tells the audience the facts from the article, one by one, for four minutes."
SVHS (original model text; invented students), Three project proposals (invented students). Original passage written for this page.
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give a two-column organizer (Knowledge | Experience) to fill while reading the letter, with the first row done
Read paragraph 2 of the letter aloud in short chunks, and stop at "those scenes made me a painter" to paraphrase together
Offer sentence frames: "The ___ in the painting may come from ___, which is knowledge/experience because ___."
For Advanced Students
Find the sentence in paragraph 1 where Constable admits a weakness, and explain how a weakness can also be a source
Make a source map for a public-domain work in another art form, using only what the work itself shows, and mark which arrows are guesses
Write a short argument: is a work that uses only knowledge, with no experience at all, possible?
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Strong work separates knowledge from experience correctly, cites the letter or notebook for each source, and explains how sources changed each other in the final work. Watch for students who list sources without showing how they combine, who treat every source as experience, or who offer private details: redirect them to invented artists and shared observation.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Observation and Knowledge Cards
15 minIndividual, then groups of 3
The class makes a shared observation, then relates single sources to artistic ideas. The observation is public: everyone looks at the same place, so nobody needs to share anything private.
Observe Together (5 min)
Everyone observes the same place for three minutes in silence: the view from a window, the hallway during a class change, or the classroom itself. Each student writes three observation cards, one detail each (a sound, a movement, a color or shape, a pattern of people).
Knowledge Cards (one set per group)
Copy these eight cards for each group, or write your own from what the class has studied:
Canon: the same phrase started by performers one after another (dance, music)
Call and response: one voice or group offers a phrase and another answers it (music, dance, theatre)
Complementary colors: colors opposite each other on a color wheel, such as blue and orange, look stronger side by side (visual arts, media arts)
Close-up: a shot in which a face or an object fills the frame (media arts)
Soliloquy: a speech in which a character alone on stage thinks aloud (theatre)
Constable's sky: the sky as "the key note" of a landscape, from the letter (any art form)
Autumn leaves: yellow pigments are in leaves all year, hidden by green chlorophyll until it breaks down in autumn (any art form)
Repetition with change: a pattern repeated with one thing altered each time (any art form)
Grades 6-8 Version
Draw one observation card and one knowledge card
Write one sentence for each that relates it to an artistic idea in your art form ("The hallway rush could become a canon in which the dancers start one after another")
Share one idea with the group
Grades 9-12 Version
Draw two observation cards and two knowledge cards
Relate each card to an idea, then rank the four ideas by how much each could change the others
Keep the top two for Activity 2 and write one sentence on why
2
Choose Your Art Form: A Three-Source Sketch
20 minPairs or groups of 3
Groups combine sources from Activity 1 into one short sketch. The test is Rosa Lind's: if each source can still be pointed to on its own, one after another, the sketch is still a list. Change sources so they work together.
Options by Art Form
Music: a 30-second piece for desks, pencils, paper and a plastic cup, or for voices
Dance: a phrase of four counts of eight for two to four dancers, in a cleared space
Theatre: a 30-second scene or a short soliloquy, read or acted at desks
Visual arts: a pencil or colored-pencil drawing on one sheet of paper
Media arts: a six-frame paper storyboard, with a note on each frame's shot and sound
Grades 6-8 Version
Use one observation and one knowledge card
Make the sketch, then write two sentences: what each card added, and one place where the two cards meet in a single moment, shape or sound
Grades 9-12 Version
Use three sources, with at least one of each kind
Before you finish, cut one thing, as Rosa did, and write what you cut and why
Write a one-paragraph statement that explains how the sources changed each other
3
Source Map Swap
10-15 minPairs of groups
Each group shows or performs its sketch for another group, which draws a source map of it without seeing the cards. Then the groups compare the map with the cards.
Draw the Map
The watching group draws boxes for the sources it can detect and arrows to the parts of the sketch, as in Diagram 2. A dashed arrow marks a guess.
Grades 6-8 Version
Compare the map with the cards and write one sentence: which source was easiest to detect, and which was hidden?
Grades 9-12 Version
Write a short paragraph: a source that is hard to detect may be the best synthesized. Agree or disagree, using your sketch as evidence.
Ground Rules
Comments describe the work and its sources, never the people in the group
Nobody is asked where an idea "really" came from in their own life
Nothing is recorded or posted
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
2 diagrams
Diagram 1: Two Kinds of Source, Two Moves
Anchor 10 names two kinds of source, knowledge and personal experiences, and two moves. To relate is to link a source to an artistic idea. To synthesize is to combine several sources so that they change one another and become one work. On this page, experience comes from invented artists and from what the class observes together.
Diagram 2: A Source Map for The Hay Wain
Four sources that Constable's 1821 letter names or praises, each linked to the painting. The letter was written months after the painting was first shown; Guided Practice asks what that timing means for a map like this one.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
NCAS.A.10 Homework: Three Proposals, Three Revisions
Directions: Use the three project proposals at the end of the lesson plan (in Closure). Their paragraphs are numbered 1-4. Answer in complete sentences. Problem 6 has a grades 6-8 version and a grades 9-12 version; answer the one for your grade. Use only invented sources or things anyone could observe; do not write about your own private life.
Part 1: Read the Proposals (Problems 1-3)
For each proposal (paragraphs 2, 3 and 4), name the knowledge it uses and the experience it uses. Write "none" where a kind of source is missing.
Which proposal synthesizes its sources into one work? Quote the sentence that shows the combination, and explain how one source changes the other.
Proposal A uses many observations. Explain why it is still closer to a list than to a synthesis.
Part 2: Revise and Make (Problems 4-6)
Revise Proposal A by adding one piece of knowledge about music (a technique or a form) and describe how it would change the order or shape of the sounds.
Revise Proposal C by adding one observation that anyone could make (for example, of light, weather or a crowd), and describe one moment in the scene where the fact and the observation meet.
Grades 6-8: Make a source map with two boxes and arrows for a short work in your art form, built from one knowledge card from class and one thing you can observe from a window. Grades 9-12: Write a 150-word proposal for a work in your art form that synthesizes three sources, then draw its source map and mark one arrow as a guess a viewer might make.
Rubric
Criterion
Strong (3)
Developing (2)
Beginning (1)
Identifying sources
Knowledge and experience correctly named for all three proposals, with "none" where a kind is missing
One proposal misread
Sources confused or missing
Explaining synthesis
Quotes the combining sentence and explains how one source changes the other
Picks the right proposal but the explanation is thin
Picks a list as a synthesis
Revisions
Each added source changes the work, not just adds to it
Added sources sit beside the old ones
Revisions missing or unrelated
Own proposal and map
Sources combine into one work and the map matches the proposal
Map and proposal partly match
Map or proposal missing
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
Questions 2-6 and 15 use the Constable letter (Direct Instruction). Questions 7-9 and 16 use the description of The Hay Wain (Guided Practice). Questions 10-12, 17 and 20 use Rosa Lind's notebook (Independent Practice). Choose the best answer for each multiple-choice question; write 3-5 sentences for each short-answer question. No question asks about your own life.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which of these is a source of knowledge for an artist, rather than a personal experience?
Answer: B
Learning a technique or form, such as a canon, is knowledge. Choices A, C and D are things seen or heard, which count as experience; a common slip is to call any fact-like detail "knowledge" even when it was observed.
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In paragraph 1, what does Constable say about a sky that is "evaded" (left out of the composition)?
Answer: A
He writes, "if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is bad; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse." Choice B reverses the comparison, and choice D applies his praise of skies that work in a composition to skies that are left out.
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to paragraph 1, what has Constable often been advised to do with his skies?
Answer: C
He writes, "I have often been advised to consider my sky as 'a white sheet thrown behind the objects.'" He rejects this advice. Choice B confuses the painters Reynolds praised with advice given to Constable.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Constable calls the sky "the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment." What does this suggest?
Answer: D
"Chief organ of sentiment" means the main carrier of feeling, so the sky sets the mood. Choice A contradicts his line that "the difficulty of skies in painting is very great," and choice C reverses his point.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which list of things does Constable say, in paragraph 2, that he loves?
Answer: A
He writes, "willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things." These are the plain details of a river with mills. The other choices are subjects the letter does not name.
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In paragraph 2, Constable writes, "I should paint my own places best." What does this sentence show about how he relates experience to art?
Answer: B
He goes on: "I associate 'my careless boyhood' with all that lies on the banks of the Stour." Places from his own life are his best subject. Choice C misreads his praise of Fisher's company as a judgment about places.
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Paragraph 4 of the description says The Hay Wain was shown in London in 1821, and the letter is dated October 23, 1821. What can the letter reliably show about the painting?
Answer: B
The letter states his views on skies and on "my own places," so it shows what he valued around the time of the painting. It never names the painting, so it cannot give the order of work (choice A) or its sketches (choice D); choice C mixes in the 1824 Paris showing, which the letter does not mention.
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to paragraph 2 of the description, where is the scene of The Hay Wain?
Answer: D
The description says the scene "is the millpond at Flatford on the River Stour in Suffolk, about a mile from East Bergholt, the village where Constable was born." Choice C mixes up Fisher's home, Salisbury, with the painting's place.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which detail of The Hay Wain links most directly to Constable's love of "the sound of water escaping from mill-dams"?
Answer: B
The wagon stands in the water of the millpond by Flatford Mill, the kind of place the letter loves. Choice D is about the painting's reception, not a part of the painting at all.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which entry in Rosa Lind's notebook is a source of knowledge?
Answer: C
Entry 2 is a technique she studied: "A canon in dance is a phrase that dancers start one after another." Entries 1 and 3 are experience (an observation and a memory), and Entry 5 is a decision, not a source.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Why did Rosa cut the mime of opening umbrellas, checking watches and splashing?
Answer: D
Entry 5 says, "In rehearsal it looked like a list of things I saw." A list relates sources one by one; cutting it let the canon carry them together. Choices A, B and C name reasons the notebook never gives.
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Entry 4, how does the canon connect the dance to Rosa's observation on Pine Street?
Answer: A
She writes that the dancers "step back and forward in canon, so the step-back ripples down the line the way it did on Pine Street." Choice C turns the dancers into characters in costume, which the notebook never plans, and choice D brings back the umbrellas that her final plan leaves out.
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which plan synthesizes knowledge and experience, instead of only relating them?
Answer: D
In D the technique (canon) changes how the observed crowd is shown, so the two sources work as one. Choice A uses knowledge only, and choice B copies a single source without combining anything.
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
A student says, "The way my classmates shuffled in the lunch line could become a slow walking phrase." What is the student doing?
Answer: C
One source, an observation, is linked to one idea for a dance: that is relating. Choice A overstates it, since only one source is used and nothing is made yet. Choices B and D belong to other anchors (9 and 6).
Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer
In paragraph 1, Constable admits that his skies "have often failed in execution." Explain how a failure like this can become knowledge an artist uses, and connect it to his "skying."
Model answer: A failed sky teaches what does not work, for example a sky that comes "forward" and fights the land, so it becomes knowledge about technique. Constable says he has "done a good deal of skying" because he is "determined to conquer all difficulties": the practice turns past failures into knowledge, which he then joins with what he observes. Rubric: full credit for linking failure to learning, quoting the letter twice, and connecting skying to both knowledge and observation.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
Choose one part of The Hay Wain from the description and trace it to a source in Constable's letter. Say whether the source is knowledge or experience, and quote the letter.
Model answer: The dark cloud and the broken light over the meadow connect to the letter's claim that the sky is "the source of light in nature, and governs everything." That is both: years of watching weather (experience) and an idea about composition, supported by Reynolds (knowledge). Rubric: one part of the painting, one quotation, a correct label, and a link that explains how the source shows up.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
Rosa's notebook includes an observation, a piece of knowledge and a memory. Which of the three would be hardest for an audience to detect in the finished dance? Explain why it might still matter to the work.
Model answer: The memory of her brother's coat would be hardest to detect, because the audience never sees him; they see only an arm held over a dancer's head. It still matters because it gives the sheltering gesture its care and its place in the middle of the dance. A source does not have to be visible to shape a work. Rubric: a clear choice, a reason based on what the audience can see, and a point about why hidden sources still count.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
An invented composer has two sources: she knows the technique of call and response, and she watched a basketball practice where the coach blew a whistle and the players answered by changing drills. Describe a 30-second piece that synthesizes both sources.
Model answer: One player taps a sharp, high pattern on a desk (the whistle), and the group answers with a new rhythm each time (the drill changes). The answers get faster and closer to the call, the way the drills tightened, until call and answer overlap at the end. The technique decides the form and the observation decides the sounds and the build. Rubric: both sources used, the form shaped by call and response, and at least one detail showing that one source changed the other.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Explain the difference between relating and synthesizing, with an example from visual arts or media arts.
Model answer: Relating links one source to one idea; synthesizing combines several sources into one work in which they change each other. Relating: "the long shadows at the bus stop could be a drawing." Synthesizing: a six-frame storyboard in which the shadows grow longer frame by frame while a close-up, a technique from film, moves in on one person waiting, so that time and loneliness are shown together. Rubric: both terms defined accurately, and the example shows sources changing each other, not sitting side by side.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
Rosa Lind's dance "Bus Stop, Rain" was planned from knowledge and experience, as anchor 10 asks. Write one question about the dance that NCAS.A.11 would ask instead, and explain why it belongs to anchor 11 and not to anchor 10.
Model answer: "What did waiting for a city bus in the rain mean to people in the town where the dance is performed, and how would an audience there read the sheltering arm?" This question belongs to anchor 11 because it asks about the work's societal and cultural context, the world around the dance and its audience. Anchor 10 asks what Rosa brought to the work: the canon she studied, the crowd she watched and her memory of her brother's coat. Rubric: a question that looks outward to a societal, cultural or historical context, a correct reason, and an accurate contrast with what anchor 10 covers.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
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Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does NCAS.A.10 mean?
It means students should be able to synthesize and relate knowledge and personal experiences to make art. An artist links what she knows, such as facts, techniques and earlier works, with what she has seen or done, and combines them into a new work. It is anchor standard 10 of the National Core Arts Standards, in the Connecting process.
Is NCAS.A.10 only for visual art?
No. The anchor applies to dance, media arts, music, theatre and visual arts. On this page every activity offers a version for each art form, and the examples include a painter, a choreographer, a composer and a playwright.
Do students have to share their personal experiences for NCAS.A.10?
No. Observation of the world is experience too, and this lesson uses observations the whole class makes together, plus invented artists' experiences. Teachers can meet the anchor without asking any student about private life, family or feelings.
What is the difference between relating and synthesizing?
Relating links one source to an idea; synthesizing combines several sources so that they change each other. A drawing that shows one observed detail after another relates; a drawing in which a studied color technique changes how an observed street looks synthesizes.
How is anchor 10 different from anchor 11?
Anchor 10 looks at what the artist brings: knowledge and personal experience. Anchor 11 looks outward, to the societal, cultural and historical context of artistic ideas and works. The two together make up the Connecting process.
Does research count as knowledge?
Yes. Facts learned in science or history, a technique practiced in class, and works studied in a museum or a concert all count. The anchor asks students to do something with that knowledge in a work, not just report it.
How can a teacher grade synthesis?
Ask for a source map with the work. Look for sources that can be traced, and for at least one place where two sources meet in a single moment, shape or sound. The rubric on this page scores the reasoning and the work, not the student's private life.
Why does the lesson use a letter from 1821?
John Constable's letter to John Fisher names his sources in his own words: his study of skies, a writer on earlier painters, and his boyhood by the River Stour. It is in the public domain, and it shows an artist describing knowledge and experience together.
Does NCAS.A.10 look different in middle school and high school?
Yes, in this lesson the 6-8 tasks combine two sources and explain the link; the 9-12 tasks combine three, cut something, and explain how the sources changed each other. Both bands work on the same anchor.
How does NCAS.A.10 connect to English class?
Students cite a text to support a claim about an artist's sources, and they gather information before making a work. SVHS editors link these skills to the ELA anchors on research and evidence; the link is a teaching suggestion, not an official alignment.
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Related Standards
5 standards
SVHS editors suggest these links for NCAS.A.10: the last anchor of the Responding process before it, the other Connecting anchor, two Creating anchors where connected ideas become new work, and an ELA anchor about research.
Before this lesson
NCAS.A.9Prerequisite
Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work
Lesson coming soon
Alongside
NCAS.A.11Parallel
Relate artistic ideas and works to societal, cultural and historical context
