Arts

Photography students with teacher at Res

Music

Middle School music classes introduce students to sight singing, rhythms, vocal production, ensemble performance, music theory, and history. Students learn key signatures, time signatures, and an in depth musical vocabulary. Emphasis is placed on exposing the student to a variety of music and encouraging an appreciation of all styles of music.

Theatre Arts

Middle School theatre introduces students to the exciting world of the stage. By using improvisation, collaboration, theatre games, and other fun activities, students learn to perform and to support others while they are performing.

Visual Arts

Learning self-expression through the visual arts is an important part of the curriculum at SAS. The middle school art courses allow students to experiment with a variety of media including drawing, painting, printing, photography, digital design, architecture, sculpture, and clay.

Middle School Music Courses

Music 6

Music 7

Music 8 (Fall/Spring)

Middle School Theater Arts Courses

Theater 6

Theatre 6 focuses on introducing basic elements of theatre, such as vocal projection and stage movement. Students investigate the balance between personal needs and social responsibility through individual, small- and large-group theatre games and characterization exercises. Students create and develop characters, maintain points of view, learn how to justify physical action, sustain focus onstage, explore genuine human reactions, and investigate status and the influence it holds in the control of a scene. Classroom projects include the basic elements of improvisation, storytelling, and playwriting.

Theater 7

Theatre 7 students explore improvisational theatre through different forms, such as Playback Theatre, Commedia dell’arte, and Viewpoints. The purpose of Playback Theatre, in addition to enhancing performing skills, is to provide an opportunity for students to examine the story of the human experience and reflect on their own ethical beliefs or unbeliefs through the practice of improvisational theatre. Students will also study the origins of stock characters in Commedia dell’arte, and embody these characters through movement and vocal exercises.

Theater 8 (Fall/Spring)

Theatre 8 students learn to demonstrate the ability to prepare and execute a role, and to gain the necessary vocabulary to clearly and artfully express their beliefs to an audience. By the end of the course students will demonstrate their understanding of theatre by working collaboratively to create original work, and to present a scene for performance; developing an approach for creating theatre; constructing scripts and collaborating with actors so that story and meaning are conveyed to an audience; analyzing the physical, emotional and social dimensions of characters; interpreting theatre; researching, evaluating and applying cultural and historical information to make artistic choices; constructing social meanings from informal and formal productions and from a variety of cultures and historical periods, and relating them to current personal, national and international issues; collaborating and interacting with members of an ensemble.

Middle School Visual Arts Courses

Visual Arts 6

Through experimentation with a variety of processes, techniques, and different materials, Visual Arts 6 students gain confidence and skill in their creative endeavors. Projects include collaboration on large scale murals, painting the campus landscape, and investigating color, line, and shape through portraiture and still life drawings. The outline listed for the year is organic and will evolve as we cross disciplinary lines and generate enthusiasm in specific directions. Students maintain a process sketchbook and create multiple pieces for a portfolio throughout the class.

Visual Arts 7

Visual Arts 7 investigates the elements of form and design in 2D and 3D through two distinct semester courses: Art + Design and Clay. Seventh grade students will take one semester of Art + Design and one semester of Clay 7. Art + Design explores the relationships between art, design, and everyday life. Building on the seventh grade advisory themes of “empathy” and “design” project work is geared towards architectural, graphic, and product design that relates to the needs of a community. In Clay 7, students learn how to make pottery, exploring how form and design relate to the purpose and function of a piece. Students develop confidence in their ability to engage in an artistic endeavor.

Photography & Architecture 8 (Spring)

Eighth grade students who choose to take this semester course will work in two main creative processes: photography and architecture. In the first quarter, students will learn to use a digital camera and editing software to create expressive photographic images, resulting in a photographic portfolio. In the second quarter, technical drawing skills, architectural aesthetics, and analytical thought will be developed through a series of architectural design assignments. To culminate the semester, each student will design and build a scale model of a residence.

Clay 8 (Spring)

In this semester course, students learn how to throw clay on the potter’s wheel. Projects give students structure but also latitude for self-expression. During class, the teacher introduces new techniques with demonstrations and assists students in their own artistic expression. Students conceive of and execute work, using imagination and self-discipline to follow through with all the steps necessary to complete a project successfully.