Understanding the 'Arts'

Available Courses

• Introduction to analysis

  As you work your way through this course, you tackle several activities.

  These will give you:

  • the opportunity to reflect on and understand what you have been reading.
  • guidance in recording and working with your own viewpoints and reactions to ideas.
  • valuable practice in reading, analysing and writing.

  You will need to give yourself time to do all the activities thoroughly. The estimated time that you can expect to spend on an activity is indicated next to it.

  The discussions that follow the activities offer examples or possible answers. However, it is most important that you always try to record your own responses to the tasks set in activities before you turn to those discussions. Activities are designed to help you focus on and think through key aspects of what you are studying, and to reflect on and better understand them, but don’t worry if your responses differ from those in the discussions. Often in the arts there is no one right answer to a question.

• Understanding poetry

  In studying poetry you wll gain insigts into how words can be used to fire the imagination and to communicate feelings and ideas aross a widerange of sbjects. This will be done by focusing in particular on the 'effects' and 'techniques' points in the Study Diamond. You will also start to do some work relating to the 'context' and 'meaning' points of the diamond.

  Studying a form of Japanese poetry known as haiku will enable you to develope the skills needed to read this very distinctive form of poetry, and to gain some insights into Japanese writing while continuing to learn about how poetry works. Since poems studied here (particularly haku) are quite short, you will have the opportunity to examine a number of varied eamples.

  After completing this section you should be able to:

  • acquire a basic understanding of what poetry is
  • identify key techniques in poetry
  • see how techniques are used in poetry to create effects
  • begin working on interpreting the meaning of texts
  • develope expertise in the study of Japanese haiku poetry.
• Understanding history

  In this part of the course you will have the opportunity to investigate the recent history of the struggle for democracy in Burma. This will help you to develop your understanding of history as a discipline in the arts. You will look at a variety of sources of information about Burma, and learn how to study and interpret these, as well as encounter a variety of opinions about the nature and value of the struggle for democracy. Finally, you will work towards developing your own informed interpretation of recent Burmese history.

  By the end of this section you should be able to achieve:

  • some understanding of the struggle towards democracy in modern Burma
  • a familiarity with the tools and materials used by historians to make sense of the past
  • an understanding of how to apply the Study Diamond to history texts
  • confidence in using some new skills, such as handling evidence, comparing interpretations and essay writing.

• Understanding art history
• Conclusion