Summer Reading……

May 20, 2014

AHTR continues to grow and flourish. We have been blessed with receiving a second grant, which has enabled us to hire three copy editors who will assist with getting the lesson plans for lectures on Ancient to Baroque up and loaded onto the site. A big thanks to all who submitted these lectures. They look fabulous and we are excited to make them available to the AHTR community. We were also very pleased with the first Google Hangout and look forward to the second, “Teaching Summer School,” on June 4. We hope that those who need to compress a semester’s worth of art history into four weeks will join in the discussion.

In addition, since the entire platform for AHTR is based on a collaborative model, I’d like to draw attention to a recent CfP by Renee McGarry, an AHTR editor. Renee is co-editing an issue of the Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy with a special section on collaboration and mentorship. The journal is looking for personal reflections and stories about collaboration and mentorship. While the journal has previously only been concerned with higher ed (and we expect that trend to continue), this addition will discuss K-12, continuing ed, museum education, and public programs as well.

For many of us, the end of the semester has arrived and the illusion of free time. We are all swamped with exams and grading so this week’s post is a short one providing a list of books and websites that focus on teaching techniques, writing ideas and websites with great art history content. Some of these sources have been addressed in blog posts on the site. Others will be a part of a book and on-line resources review series that we hope to premier in the fall when we launch the new website. Please send any sources you have found helpful so that this section of AHTR can continue to grow.

[Thanks to Jenn Ball for contributing many of the titles to this list.]

Teaching Writing/Research

Jesse Day, Line Color Form: The Language of Art and Design. Allworth Press, 2013.

Diana Hacker. A Writer’s Reference, Bedford Books –in its 7^th edition. (CUNY’s Writing Across the Curriculum program chose this for its handbook for student writing.)

Sylvan Barnet. A Short Guide to Writing About Art. Pearson, 2010.

Annde D’Alleva. Look! Art History Fundamentals. Pearson, 2008.

——————. Methods and Theory of Art History. Lawrence King Publishing, 2012.

Marjorie Munsterberg. Writing About Art. CreateSpace, 2009

Henry Sayre. Writing About Art. Pearson, 2008.

Online Writing Lab, Purdue University

Teaching Techniques

Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do? Harvard, 2004.

John C. Bean, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. Jossey-Bass, 2011.

CAA resources: Beginning in 1995 CAA turned its attention toward pedagogy and dedicated issues of both Art Bulletin and Art Journal that year to the pedagogy of art history, with the intention of doing regular featured articles on pedagogy. There was one further attempt in the late 90s, smaller in scale, and in the mid-00’s the CAA newsletter took up pedagogy. In recent years the CAA conference has incorporated pedagogy sessions. Many of the readings in the syllabus are from these attempts, but not all are included. I recommend browsing further in CAA’s materials at some point. (Summary by Jenn Ball.)

The Chronicle of Higher Education (online or in print) has whole sections and several blogs devoted to teaching.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed Forums. This is a great resource for mine for ideas on teaching (as well as how to cope with being a parent or other real-life issues while teaching).

Robert Nelson, “The Slide Lecture, or the Work of Art ‘History’ in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” in Critical Inquiry 26:3 (Spring 2000), pp. 414-434.

Jennifer Roberts “The Power of Patience,” Harvard Magazine Nov-Dec 2013 http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/11/the-power-of-patience

Smarthistory the Blog

Online sources