Year 8 Visual Arts – Term 3 (WA Curriculum): Responding to Artists and Places

What this unit covers

In Term 3, Year 8 Visual Arts in the WA Curriculum centres on the unit “Responding to Artists and Places”.

Students develop critical thinking skills by analyzing artwork through various documentation methods and exploring how artists respond to different places and environments.

Lesson sequence (10 lessons)

The unit breaks down into the following lesson-by-lesson sequence — each title below is a teachable lesson, in order:

1. Brainstorming Visual Responses: Exploring How Artists See the World
2. Mind Mapping Artistic Connections: Linking Ideas, Themes and Techniques
3. Sketching and Annotating: Recording Visual Analysis of Artworks
4. Exploring Media Choices: How Artists Select Materials to Express Ideas
5. Justifying Opinions: Building Arguments About Artistic Merit and Impact
6. Documenting Creative Processes: Photography as Visual Evidence
7. Building a Portfolio: Organizing and Presenting Visual Research
8. Sketchbook Investigations: Recording Responses to Place-Based Art
9. Analyzing Artists Who Respond to Place: Landscape and Environment
10. Comparing Art Styles: How Different Artists Interpret Similar Places

Curriculum codes in this unit

Content codes:

Reading the codes: WA codes (the ones starting with WA) pack the year level, learning area, strand and content number into one string, while the national Australian Curriculum v9 uses a different anatomy that starts with AC9 — same content family, different labels. Our complete WA Curriculum guide decodes both, character by character.

Planning notes for Term 3

WA terms run roughly 9–11 weeks, and in 2026 Term 3 runs from Monday 20 July to Friday 25 September — 10 weeks for WA public schools. With 10 lessons in this unit, that leaves breathing room for assessment, moderation and the weeks that disappear to carnivals, camps and public holidays — plan the assessable work to land two to three weeks before the end of term rather than in the final week.