Learning Outcomes
Arts and Humanities
Courses in the Arts & Humanities area of Common Ground in General Education explore expressions and artifacts of human experience from past and present cultures throughout the world. The 6 credit hours required in A&H introduce the student to a range of knowledge, analytical frameworks, and critical perspectives, and are intended to contribute to any or all of these learning outcomes:
1. Knowledge of origins, varieties, and meanings of the expressions and artifacts of human experience, including (a)original written texts in various literary forms, (b)works of visual art and design, (c) musical compositions, and (d) dramatic performance (live theater, dance, film, video, digital, etc.)
2. Knowledge of the cultural, intellectual, and historical contexts through which these expressions and artifacts are interpreted
3. Knowledge of the modes of symbolic expression and aesthetic and/or literary conventions that are used in these expressions and artifacts
4. Ability to develop arguments, ideas, and opinions about forms of human expression, grounded in rational analysis and in an understanding of and respect for the historical context of expressions and artifacts, and to express these ideas in written and/or oral form
5. Ability to create or reinterpret artistic works, as performer or as critic, through the development of skills of performance or skills of analysis and criticism
6. Ability to explain and assess the changing perspectives on the meanings of arts and humanities traditions, and to explore one's own identity within prior and current intellectual, aesthetic, and cultural frameworks