AP Art History
March 24, 2018
DeNoma is slated to teach AP Art History next year, which covers information dating back to over 20,000 years ago and teaches “the entirety of humans making art so from caves to galleries today” and “the conditions that the art was made in and what it was responding to.”
Art is part of our inheritances as human beings and so being able to understand how that has evolved and changed throughout all of these years and how you look around at the world today, how you see it impacting things, it can be powerful.
— Michael DeNoma
Contrary to DeNoma’s other classes, AP Art History is not a studio arts class and is academically based, meaning students will learn about art but not produce it. As the class is geared toward taking the AP test in May, students will not participate in big projects in AP Art History.
Rather, students will learn the styles and motives behind different art forms and develop opinions based from that information.
“I like the idea that you got this knowledge base and you can check your own preferences at times. I think that’s really important,” DeNoma said. “Honestly, making arguments for things that I didn’t initially like has caused me to get a greater appreciation for them over the years. Making arguments for art that’s not my personal style really helped broaden me as a person.”
DeNoma previously taught the class for one year when he lived in Texas. This time around, DeNoma wants to incorporate more usage of technology in the class because his students in Texas did not have personal computers as MTHS students do.
He aims for his students to come out of AP Art History with a changed worldview like his students in Texas did.
“My experience with [art history] is that it informs how you view the world and that’s a wonderful thing and so I hope [students] can away a fraction of what it means to me in my life and being able to see the world in that lens, I would consider that a success,” DeNoma said.
DeNoma believes taking AP Art History can leave an everlasting impact on students once they create connections between art and the world.
“Art is part of our inheritances as human beings and so being able to understand how that has evolved and changed throughout all of these years and how you look around at the world today, how you see it impacting things, it can be powerful. I hope some part of that will strike my students and stay with them,” he said.
Across his two classrooms, DeNoma created posters in various styles that comedically and artfully promote AP Art History.
“[I was] trying to be specific in the appeal,” he said. “It was a nice challenge for me to think about different times in art history and try to have posters represent those different things and try to make them amusing.”
