Cave paintings of our prehistoric ancestors, elaborate ritual dances of preliterate tribesmen, long lines at the movies, earnest scribbles of the three-year-old next door--evidence of human preoccupation with art is everywhere, and it is overwhelming. But unlike other human universals--language, tool use, the family--art makes no material contribution to mankind's survival. What impels the artist to the lonely effort at self-expression? What moves the audience to resonate to the work of a master? What accounts for the child's inherent fascination with pictures and stories and songs? These questions are among the deepest we can ask about human nature. Freud deemed some of them forever unanswerable, but modern psychology has made new inroads into these old mysteries. Invented Worlds provides a complete, authoritative account of this progress. Dealing with the three major art forms--painting, music, and literature--Ellen Winner shows how the artist fashions a symbolic world that transforms the experience of the observer. She probes the adult's ability to create and respond to works of art. In addition, she examines children's art for what it can reveal about the artistic impulse before adult convention becomes a shaping force. Finally, in order to reach a better understanding of the biological bases of artistry, Winner discusses the art of the mentally disturbed and the neurologically impaired patient. The sum of these discussions is more than an up-to-date handbook to the field; it is nothing less than a new synthesis of our understanding of man's artistic nature. Written with admirable clarity, Invented Worlds is a book that can be used by professionals and students in psychology, education, and the arts, as well as anyone with reason to be curious about the processes that underlie the creation and enjoyment of art.

"How Art Works explores puzzles that have preoccupied philosophers as well as the general public: Can art be defined? How do we decide what is good art? Why do we gravitate to sadness in art? Why do we devalue a perfect fake? Could 'my kid have done that'? Does reading fiction enhance empathy? Drawing on careful observations, probing interviews, and clever experiments, Ellen Winner reveals surprising answers to these and other artistic mysteries. We may come away with a new understanding of how art works on us."--Jacket.

An Uneasy Guest in the Schoolhouse recounts how art education has been conceptualized, taught, and advocated for in the United States in the face of its persistent marginalization in the education system. Tracing various rationales offered from the 19th century onward, Winner argues that art education has failed to be justified as a good in and of itself--and this failure has affected both the status of visual art education in our schools and the quality of its teaching. Winner's comprehensive book maps recurrent pendulum swings between "traditional" and "progressive" approaches to art education in the United States, supplemented by her firsthand experiences observing art teaching in schools in China and Italy. Despite this problematic and uncertain past, 21st century art education in the United States and abroad has exploded with a wealth of new ideas aligned with the progressivism of the early 20th century and informed by the practices of contemporary art. As Winner details, an understanding of the history of art education, along with a focus on current challenges and opportunities, is essential for arts researchers, educators, and advocates, as well as anyone in the general public who cares about quality education in the 21st century.

Psychologist Ellen Winner studies the creative, nonliteral discourse of children's spontaneous speech, examining how their abilities to use and interpret figurative language change as they grow older, and what such language shows us about the changing features of children's minds.

In this fascinating book, Ellen Winner uncovers and explores nine myths about giftedness, and shows us what gifted children are really like.Using vivid case studies, Winner paints a complex picture of the gifted child. Here we meet David, a three-year-old who learned to read in two weeks; KyLee, a five-year-old who mastered on his own all of the math concepts expected by the end of elementary school; and Nadia, an autistic and retarded “savant” who nevertheless could draw like a Renaissance master.Winner uses her research with these and several other extraordinary children, as well as the latest biological and psychological evidence, to debunk the many myths about academic, musical, and artistic giftedness.Gifted Children also looks at the role played by schools in fostering exceptional abilities. Winner castigates schools for wasting resources on weak educational programs for the moderately gifted. Instead, she advocates elevating standards for all children, and focusing our resources for gifted education on those with extreme abilities—children who are left untouched by the kinds of minimal programs we have today.

Students of all ages can learn to think like artists! Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education changed the conversation about quality arts education. Now this new publication shows how the eight Studio Habits of Mind and four Studio Structures can be used successfully with younger students in a range of school environments. The book includes classroom examples, visual artist exemplars, templates for talking about works of art, mini-posters, and more. “If we want our students to think, if we want them to learn, we must engage them in habits of the mind that cultivate their innate abilities.” —From the Foreword by David P. Nelson, president, MassArt “Studio Thinking from the Start is a needed addition to teacher resources for improving the quality of elementary art education.” —Olivia Gude, School of the Art Institute of Chicago “Starting young with studio thinking is a fabulous idea supported by this fine resource. After all, studio thinking thrives on art but applies to everything.”

Arts education is often said to be a means of developing critical and creative thinking. This report examines the state of empirical knowledge about the impact of arts education on these kinds of outcomes.

This Element focuses on the development of drawing (and painting) in childhood. The author begins by examining children's representational drawing, a topic that has received quite wide attention from the nineteenth century on. The author then turns to issues that have received far less attention and discusses the aesthetic property of expression, weighing the claim that young children's highly expressive drawings bear an affinity to twentieth century modernist art. The author then examines the function of drawing for children's emotional development. Next, looking at art prodigies, the author turns to the how of drawing, considering the relation of drawing talent to IQ and to visual-spatial skills. Finally, the author considers the relation between development and education in art and how educators can best nurture children's artistic development.

Studio Thinking 3 is a new edition of a now-classic text, a research-based account of teaching and learning in high school studio arts classes. It poses a framework that identifies eight habits of mind taught in visual arts and four studio structures by which they are taught. This edition includes new material about how the framework has been used since the original study, with new perspectives from artist-teachers who currently apply the Studio Thinking Framework in their own practice. It also reviews how contemporary organizations, educators, and researchers outside the arts have utilized the framework, highlighting its flexibility to inform teaching and learning. The authors have added a new chapter on assessment to introduce the practical and thoughtful ways that teachers are using Studio Thinking to assess and evaluate students’ work, working processes, and thinking in the arts. Praise for Previous Editions of Studio Thinking― “Winner and Hetland have set out to show what it means to take education in the arts seriously, in its own right.” —The New York Times “This book is very educational and would be helpful to art teachers in promoting quality teaching in their classrooms.” —School Arts Magazine “Studio Thinking is a major contribution to the field.” —Arts & Learning Review “The research in Studio Thinking is groundbreaking and important because it is anchored in the actual practice of teaching artists …The ideas in Studio Thinking continue to provide a vehicle with which to navigate and understand the complex work in which we are all engaged.” —Teaching Artists Journal

Arts education is often said to be a means of developing critical and creative thinking. This report examines the state of empirical knowledge about the impact of arts education on these kinds of outcomes.