ABSTRACT
History, politics, and art have always been intertwined. Art helps everyone see each student more fully as not just a student, but a person. Contemporary artists break through barriers, opening up a wide array of possibilities for students. Their works, and social critiques, often bridge fine art, pop culture, and the political, providing a sense of the fluid nature of the contemporary artist and the multi-genre nature of much art. Painting and illustration serve as key outlets for integrating art into authentic assessment in social studies. One of the best ways to get students to produce high-quality historical art is to take the time to show them some of the aforementioned examples of how painters build argument into their works. Visual art has often been a medium through which artists have acted as historians. Art should intrinsically make an argument about the subject matter through its aesthetic.
