Mrs. Erin Stesch
[email protected] or [email protected]
Durham School of the Arts
Welcome to APAH
Welcome to AP Art History! I look forward to this upcoming year. If you have any questions about the
class or the summer assignment, don’t hesitate to e-mail me at the above e-mail address. For a faster
response, e-mail my personal account at [email protected].
Breakdown of the Class
We will begin with man’s first artistic efforts in the Prehistoric Era and travel all the way to modern
day. It will be fast paced and demanding but if you have good study habits, a good visual and factual
memory, and you look over your notes for 30 minutes daily, you should easily be able to keep up.
Website
You will utilize my teacher website on a regular basis. There I will post PowerPoints with lecture notes,
images for flash cards, and links to helpful sites. My website is stesch.weebly.com.
*Note: my website is currently set up for the old AP Art History course design. The course has been
redesigned by the College Board and will be implemented this Fall 2015. My website will change
accordingly over the summer.
Materials Needed
You will take a lot of notes this coming year. You will need a 1” binder for the current unit and a 3”
binder for the yearlong organization of information that you will keep at home. For the 3” binder, make
sure you have twenty tabbed dividers. Inside the 1” binder you will need either a spiral bound notebook
with hole punches or loose leaf paper. The notebook paper is for general information note taking. You
will need a pencil pouch with hole punches that fits inside your 1” binder for your image flashcards and
rubber bands to bind them together. You will make many, many image flashcards this coming year.
The image will be on the front and information will be on the back, along with notes you take in class.
So…stock up on index cards if you want to cut and paste images to the front and write notes on the
back or stock up on card stock if you want to print out the images directly on your computer and cut
them yourself. Your image flashcards will always be due the day before we start a new unit.
Textbooks
Your textbook will be Marilyn Stokstad’s Art History. It is a wonderful book and much easier to read
than many of the other art history books out there. You will be assigned textbooks on the first day of
class.
If you would like to purchase supplemental books to help you with this class, make sure you order them
from Amazon for the used book options so you can save some money. I have three recommendations:
The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern by Carol
Strickland, Ph.D.
The Annotated Arch: A Crash Course in the History of Architecture by Carol Strickland, Ph.D
Barron’s AP Art History (with CD-Rom) by John Nici, M.A.
What to Expect
This class is primarily teacher lecture oriented but I like to keep things diverse and entertaining so be
prepared for anything. You will create and act out skits, play relays and study games, give
presentations, engage in group work, and plan activities for your classmates that help them learn the
information and familiarize them with customs of different cultures.
I’m glad that you have decided to be a part of this class for several reasons:
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There is a tremendous amount of value to be found in discovering the relationship between art
and the society in which it is made, throughout various cultures, and from ancient times up to
the present age.
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There will be opportunities to make connections between history, geography, politics, religion,
languages, literature and the visual arts that will increase your understanding of all of these
subjects.
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There is a possibility that you will earn college credit if you receive a qualifying score on the
AP Art History exam at the end of the year. Check with the colleges you are applying to!
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The study of art history is not only interesting; it is fun!
As you will come to learn, the College Board wants you to know and be able to write about artwork
from an informed and completely objective point of view. You will write many essays on your tests
this year but you will not be able to use the noun “I” in any of them…as in “I think” or “I believe” or “I
like/don’t like.” What matters for the exam is that you stick to the facts and present them as succinctly
as possible.
HOWEVER…
I believe that you need to have opportunities in this class to express how you feel about the art that you
see. This class is about a lot more than the exam. It is about the fun we have as a group, the friendships
we make, the inside jokes we share, and the way the artwork we see every day in class changes us and
makes us think about things differently than we used to.
Therefore, your summer assignment is meant to give you the opportunity to look at art, react to it, and
record your reactions.
Summer Assignment
Your assignment is composed of two parts-each part is 50 points and will be
totaled out of 100 points for your first test grade.
You must bring the papers from Part I and the Personal Aesthetic
Compilation from Part II to the first day of class.
Part I. Museum Visits
Explore two art museums (not galleries) and document your experiences. This would be a great group
outing-make sure you bring a camera to document yourself actually at the museum.
1. After visiting each museum, write a minimum one-page paper about what you saw. That means
a minimum total of two one-page papers. This may be handwritten if you don’t have a
computer, although I would prefer it to be typed, 12pt, Times New Roman, double-spaced. You
may address particular artworks that stood out to you, specific styles of art that you liked, or
even the layout of the museum and how it compared to another museum you visited.
2. Be sure to name specific artists and artworks and be as descriptive as possible.
3. Include a brochure from each museum you visited and a photograph of you at the museum.
4. Assemble your materials in a folder (any type) with your name on the front and bring it to
turn in on the first day of class.
Possible museums to visit are listed below. Check their websites for hours and any costs for entry or
special exhibitions.
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North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh
The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham
The Ackland Art Museum at UNC-CH
Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh
Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC-G
Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem
Part II. Finding Your Personal Aesthetic
A. The second part of your summer project is to compile a set of eight artworks that move your spirit,
stay in your thoughts, and appeal to some essential “likes” that are part of your nature. In other words,
find eight artworks to which you react strongly in a positive way. Once you have found the artworks,
make a creative PowerPoint, Prezi, or YouTube video incorporating those images along with the slides
listed below.
B. Have the following slides:
1. Intro/Title Slide
2. Artist, title, year, and medium slide before each of the 8 images. It should be formatted like
this:
Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Saint-Bernard, 1800-1801, oil on canvas.
3. Image slide for each of the eight images. Images should be high quality (not pixelated/blurry)
and fill the slide as much as possible without distorting or cropping the images.
4. A final slide with the heading “My Personal Aesthetic is…” and list 3 or more adjectives or
short phrases that describe the types of artworks you are drawn to the most.
C. Send your completed presentation or link to your presentation to me at [email protected] no
later than August 15th. Students who do not send me their presentation by 8/15 will receive an
automatic 20 point deduction. Presentations will not be accepted after 8/24.
D. I will select five random people to present these the first day of class so look over your presentation
the day before and be prepared to start the year off right.