Artstor and the Common Core State Curriculum Standards

Jacob A. Riis | East Side Public Schools 1; ca. 1890 | Museum of the City of New York

When I first joined Artstor, it was from the perspective of an art history and humanities teacher. In my own little niche, the Artstor Digital Library was what one friend called “the candy store for art historians.” As I familiarized myself with the wide array of candy available, I was also building my understanding of the way the Common Core State Curriculum Standards include visual resources in research, analytical, and presentation skills across the K-12 curriculum. It was then that I began to see the Digital Library as the candy store for all of us, including K-12.

Suitably inspired, I created a few teaching guides to help our K-12 colleagues to meaningfully meet Common Core State Curriculum Standards. The guides link Artstor images with reliable Internet resources to serve teachers in their quest to create lesson plans. Two of these free guides are now available for download: Imagery and the Founding of our National Parks and Analyzing J.M.W. Turner’s Slave Ship.

Use these guides in the creation of lessons within your own established curriculum, or create something totally new for your students. We hope you find these helpful, and we invite you to contact us with your own ideas for using the ARTstor Digital Library in meeting the Common Core State Curriculum Standards.

Dana Howard, Senior K-12 Relationship Manager