Getting Started
What this course is about, how it works, and what counts as your own work
Read through this page before doing anything else in the course. It covers what we will study, how each unit is organized, how to look and listen well, and the rules of academic integrity.
The humanities are the fields of study that explore what it means to be human: how people have made sense of their lives, what they have cared about, and how they have expressed it. This course approaches that question through the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, theater, music, dance, photography, film, and television.
We will not be studying the arts the way an art history course would, as a march of names and dates. We will be asking what the arts reveal about human values, and learning a set of tools for looking at, listening to, and thinking about creative works with real attention. That is more demanding than it sounds, and more rewarding.
The course has thirteen units. The first three build the foundation: what the humanities are, what makes something a work of art, and how a critic describes, interprets, and evaluates. The next ten take one art form each, from painting to television and video art.
No experience required. You do not need any background in the arts to do well here. You need a willingness to look carefully and think honestly about what you see and hear.
What to expect
This is a self-paced online course. There are no scheduled meeting times and no fixed deadlines. You move through the material at your own speed, but that freedom comes with responsibility. Plan on several hours of looking, listening, reading, and writing per week, roughly what any three-credit course asks of you.
Work through the units in order. Within each unit the flow is the same: read the Overview, explore the Gallery (or Watch & Listen) and the lesson, try the Experience It activity, write your reflection, then take the quiz. The page How This Course Works explains each of these in detail.
A few habits that will serve you well
- Set a regular schedule for yourself; even 30 minutes a day keeps you moving forward
- Spend real time with each work before you read what is said about it
- Take notes on what you notice, not just what you conclude
- Return to a work after you have finished the lesson; you will see more the second time
- Try explaining a work to someone who has not seen it; if you cannot, look again
- Email your instructor if you have questions or run into problems
Technical skills you'll need
- Navigating a website with a browser (you're already doing this)
- Playing video and audio in your browser
- Creating and saving a document in a word processor such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs
- Using a search engine for basic research
Don't skip Start Here
Every page in this section explains something you will use throughout the course. Read all five before moving on to Unit 1.
How to approach the arts
Works of art are not puzzles with a hidden answer, and they are not simply matters of taste. They reward attention. Looking at a painting for ten seconds gives you an impression; looking for ten minutes gives you understanding. The same is true of a piece of music, a poem, or a film.
A few things that help: look or listen once without taking notes, then again with a pencil in hand. Notice what your eye or ear goes to first, and ask why. When you finish with a work, try to say in one sentence what it is about and in one more what makes it work. If you cannot, go back.
The lessons will ask you to look closely at many works. Give each your full attention. The more carefully you look, the more you will see.
How to approach the writing
Writing about the arts is a skill, and it improves with practice. The most common mistake is vagueness: saying a painting is "beautiful" or "interesting" without saying what specifically makes it so. This course will teach you to be precise about what you see and to link your observations to larger ideas about values, form, and meaning.
- Read your draft aloud; if a sentence is hard to say, it is probably hard to read
- Be specific. Instead of "the painting is powerful," say what makes it powerful: the composition, the color, the subject matter
- Make sure each paragraph has a clear purpose and supports your central point
Keep a journal
Many students find it useful to keep an informal running journal of their reactions to the works they meet, not for a grade, just for themselves. Writing about what you notice trains your eye and your mind at the same time.
What academic honesty means in this course
Academic dishonesty is, broadly speaking, a form of misrepresentation. When you present work that is not genuinely yours, you misrepresent your own understanding, which defeats the purpose of being here. The goal of this course is for you to develop the ability to think critically about the arts and what they reveal about human experience. That cannot happen if someone or something else does the thinking for you.
Forms of academic dishonesty
- Cheating includes copying another person's answers or work, or helping others do so.
- Fabrication includes making up sources, quotations, or citations.
- Plagiarism includes presenting someone else's work as your own and copying text from any source without credit.
If you are unsure whether something is acceptable, ask before you rely on it, not after.
Further reading
Your agreement
By continuing past this page, you confirm that you have read and understood the academic integrity policy above and agree to follow it throughout this course.