Before commencing Year 10 Art, students should have developed key skills outlined at Levels 5 and 6 of the learning continuum (ACARA, 2025). This includes the ability to identify and clarify significant information and opinions from a variety of sources, including visual and digital media. By Year 9, they should also be able to evaluate these sources for bias and reliability.

Additionally, students are expected to recognise both objective and subjective aspects of complex concepts or problems with sensitivity to context. These foundational skills support deeper analysis, critical thinking, and more sophisticated engagement with art practices and meanings in Year 10.

This unit builds on this prior knowledge, with the students creating mixed-media artwork- an accumulation of mediums they have previously worked with. This enables them to revise their theoretical and practical skills in drawing, painting and ceramics whilst learning new skills in sculpture. Most students should feel confident in creating 2D art, therefore this unit aims to take on a new challenge of learning 3D forms.

Tomlinson & McTighe (2006) found that learners are willing to invest in learning if the teacher consistently made efforts to ensure the content or skill was not remote from their funds of knowledge. Furthermore, Noddings (2003) contends that “moving beyond biological needs” (p.58) provides a more holistic view that what is necessary can inform one’s identity and welfare. Rogoff, (2003), uses the terms ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ to express the divides between communities and interpersonal relationships.

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As the students explore the art element of ‘form’ as a fundamental COMPOSITION building block; they too are forming their own identity as a young adult through THE POWER OF visual arts

By drawing on the powerful connection between academic learning and emotional engagement, this unit enables teachers to foster meaningful learning through a sociocultural lens (Abawi, 2013, p. 91). Stone (2014) describes abstract art as ‘self-based art’ and emphasizes its goal to express more than represent. The art classroom naturally supports identity-based learning by encouraging students to reflect on themselves, their culture, and society through visual expression. Artmaking allows for personal expression and helps students understand their place in the world. The theme of ‘constructing identity through abstract forms’ reflects the professional teaching standard (1.3), teachers may utilise the potential of learners who may have ‘diverse linguistic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds’ within the classroom (AITSL,).“ Abstract art as well as abstract feelings help us get in touch with our vastness and our universal belonging to life as a whole. Abstraction is in a very real sense the actual context of our existence. From this viewpoint, the true purpose of art can be seen as the empowerment of the individual and the elevation and clarification of the consciousness of that individual.” (Stone, 2014) READ MORE HERE

Exploring identity offers students rich opportunities for social, psychological, and personal inquiry—especially relevant for Year 10 adolescents, who are navigating a key stage of self-discovery. Approaching this theme through non-representational artmaking provides powerful tools for expressing emotion, reflecting on lived experience, and examining cultural and social influences. Within the Australian Curriculum: The Arts, developing Intercultural Understanding allows students to explore how cultural identities, languages, beliefs, and traditions shape both artists and audiences (ACARA, n.d.). The unit exposes students to a diverse range of artists whose beliefs and backgrounds influence their artistic practice and convey messages in their work. This approach fosters student agency, emotional wellbeing, and critical thinking, while also promoting empathy and inclusivity through engagement with diverse perspectives.

The unit also draws on principles of Dialogic Pedagogy, which supports the development of metacognition, creativity, and critical thinking through collaborative dialogue and purposeful questioning (Lin, 2011). Through discussion and reflection, students are encouraged to move beyond surface-level responses and engage with complex ideas in meaningful ways. Teachers can reference exhibitions such as ‘FATHOM’, that aim to engage students with abstract work “as more than just a sum of its formal qualities” and allude to concepts of identity (Biondo, 2017). Attending an excursion such as ‘Hard Edge: Abstract Sculpture 1960s-1970s’ (Ian Potter Center, NGV Australia ) aligns strongly with the Achievement Standards for Level 9-10 band – “students evaluate how visual arts are used to celebrate and challenge perspectives of Australian identity” (ACARA, 2025).

Hard Edge explores one of the most significant periods in the development of contemporary Australian sculpture, the 1960s and 1970s. In this period Australian artists began to embrace a new style of abstraction, with the most adventurous sculptors’ work tending towards the minimal style seen in New York City. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/hard-edge/