LAVC American Identity Curatorial Essay

A curator is an individual who organizes an exhibition byselecting works and placing them within a particular context orarrangement so as to create some kind of meaning. In any artexhibition, art is not randomly placed in a room. A curatorintentionally placed each art piece in a meaningful order. In addition,a curator will write a curatorial essay explaining the value, purposeand meaning of the exhibition. Developing a context for an exhibitioncan include the use of thematic, conceptual, or formal approaches.Curators also write exhibiton essays for publications such as exhibitioncatalogs as well as other material that will enhance the audience’sexperiences with the exhibition.For our unit assessment, the curatorial essay is a greatopportunity to help a student communicate a position to an inquiry – orin this case, addressing an essential question. A curatorial essay canguide the way readers perceives your idea/position when using acollection of work. It’s a chance to communicate directly with readers,help them understand your point of view when addressing the essentialquestion. In other words, the museum art pieces is all theunit content. And the student get’s to decide what is going to be in the essay that address the essential question.

When writing the curated essay for this assessment, it’s good to keep some general guidelines in mind.

The essay should be a minimum 3-5 paragraphs. Itcan be helpful to follow a basic essay structure—for example, using thefirst paragraph to establish the overall answer and explanation to theessential question.The following paragraph should provide the range of unitevidence that connect, and also should suggest the wider significance ofyour perspective of the essential question. If there’s a particularunit source that was especially instrumental in the way you thoughtabout the essential question, it might be interesting to describe thatwork in depth to draw the reader into your thought process. You should also think about the style of the curatorial essay.You want to be specific enough when articulating your answer to theessential question to engage the readers, but avoid using personalized,editorial opinions that might alienate a reader, for not everyone hasthe same experience or prior knowledge of the unit. For instance, ifthere is a specific term that’s essential to the theme of the unit, makesure to define it in your curatorial essay. As is the case in this example, a thoughtful consideration ofyour readers can often help you articulate your ideas more clearly.The most important element here is that you are addressing theessential question. Therefore, the chosen evidence must be addressingthe essential question. We are not summarizing. We are addressing theessential question.In general, you want an informative and persuasive tone,somewhere in between an academic paper and a newspaper article. Thatmeans no use of the word “I” or first-person observations. The samplesbelow should help you get a feel for the appropriate tone. Unit 1 Essential Question

According to the unit, why does the American master narrative limit the American identity?

Ideas?

• What connections do you draw between the unit content that can address the essential question?
• What shared ideas, themes, or positions can you bring our from the unit that address the essential question?
• Here is a basic example – Curate: Sample of Curatorial Statement

Criteria Checklist

Essential question is clearly addressed.

There is a balance between student voice and unit content

Multiple sources from the unit are used as evidence to substantiate the answer to the essential question.

A minimum of one featured author should be applied to your creative project📣

Sources are clearly cited and clear to a reader not from the class.There should be a minimum of three different sources from the unit.Different sources represent different pages, different authors,different media sources. We should not repeat our sources. This is a wayto diversify our evidence from the unit.

There should be a mimimum of 3 evidential sources from Unit 1. This includes content from both weeks of unit 1.

A minimum of one featured author should be applied to your creative project📣

The final project is cohesive. (A 5th grader would understand the answer to the essential question.)

Support

• Feel free to collaborate with your Learning Squad or ask for help to proof read your work.

I am here for you to attend to any submission assistance.

REDOIf you receive a

REDO

, it’s totally OK. Big deal. You get a secondchance to resubmit. We will work together to get this projectcompleted. Here is your process to REDOthe project:R-Reflect back at your process and think about how you can improve. Takenote at what you need to improve. If it requires my assistance, Prontome and we can set up a meeting via Pronto.E- Edit your work. Most of all academic work is editing. Getting rightthe first time is VERY rare. So Editing can be very rewarding, for itenables scholars to take time to augment the project, or establish moreclarity to the final curatorial statement.

D – Discover a new pathway, angle or approach to complete the progress forward. It’s your second chance.

O -Observe any patterns that might leverage your progress in the course.Observe any obstacles and let me know if I can help or your owncommunity of support. Observe your own learning opportunities.