Consider the benefits of art portfolios so you can intentionally integrate portfolios into your teaching practice.

Portfolios help students in K-12 and beyond.

Students of all ages benefit from building their own portfolios. Younger learners gain confidence by witnessing their progress and revisiting past lessons. It’s a fun way to make them feel like an artist! As students advance, portfolios become essential tools for high school courses like AP Art and Design or IB Visual Art where they demonstrate skill development and conceptual exploration. For all students, portfolios can serve as an inventory of their artwork and ideas over time. 

Furthermore, portfolios cultivate essential reflection and presentation skills relevant to all aspects of life. Whether applying for jobs, pitching ideas to clients, preparing for college or competitions, or even crafting a compelling social media presence, the ability to effectively showcase one’s accomplishments is crucial. Introducing portfolio development early helps students cultivate these skills incrementally, avoiding the last-minute scramble.

Portfolios reveal effective teaching.

Portfolio reviews offer a valuable opportunity for assessment and reflection, allowing you to evaluate your own teaching practice. By examining your students’ collected works, you gain insight into how your curriculum shapes their artistic development and reflects your own artistic viewpoint. Consider getting a fresh perspective by doing a portfolio swap with a colleague. Seeing work collected in another art teacher’s classroom can help you discover concepts, techniques, or approaches to explore in the future.

Portfolios reflect a strong curriculum.

Starting with a robust K-12 curriculum like FLEX Curriculum will make it easier to develop strong portfolios students will be proud of! A strong curriculum will meet your students’ needs and your state and district standards. It can be time-consuming to make or find resources to meet the varying levels of your students. FLEX helps you differentiate support for students with organized, sequenced content and filters to find instructional materials that meet state and district standards. The FLEX library is always growing so you can continue to add and change materials based on your students’ needs.

A solid curriculum will keep you and your students’ artwork focused because you’ll have clear concepts, terminology, techniques, mediums, and standards to follow. FLEX has well-composed learning objectives ready to copy and paste into any document or presentation. There are several options for each lesson for you to pick and choose from and then customize as needed. Additionally, FLEX has grade-level and media-based curricula to ensure your students are learning at a steady pace with a logical progression of skills. This directly translates into consistent growth which in turn results in more compelling portfolios!

Portfolios are a great advocacy tool for your art program.

Anything that art teachers are already doing in their art room that can promote their program and the visual arts is a win-win! Administrators love to see art portfolios because they capture the vibrant learning that happens in your art program. When tied to objectives and standards already provided in FLEX, it shows relevance. Because they capture growth over time, it can be a great way to demonstrate student learning objectives.

For secondary students who submit their portfolios for outside evaluation, the scores can highlight the strengths and successes of your program, school, and district. Leverage high scores to showcase the power of the visual arts and advocate for more funding for your program.

Gain resources to build better art portfolios so you can level up your students’ artmaking practice.

Set goals for a focused portfolio. 

A portfolio is not everything an artist created. Instead, it is a showcase of an artist’s best work. To determine what belongs in a portfolio, start by thinking about the goal. Are you trying to showcase expertise across a variety of media and subject matter or focus on mastery of a particular skill? Is it about the student’s personal growth and self-expression or the curricular standards? Do you want pieces that show a deep exploration of a concept or pieces that show technical proficiency? 

A strong collection will have a balance of commonality and variety. What unifies the collection will depend on your students’ age and your curriculum. Younger students’ portfolios tend to be more about exploring a variety of materials and methods. Older students’ portfolios are usually more conceptually driven.

Choose a route to success.

As creative professionals, we know there is no single solution to fit all learners and all circumstances. The same is true for portfolios! There are many formats to choose from, depending on your goals, student needs, and resources. In addition to the suggestions below, watch the Student Portfolio Basics Pack in PRO Learning for even more portfolio options!

Traditional Portfolio

Students fold a large sheet of construction paper and then glue or tape the sides to build a pocket to hold their collection of masterpieces. Check out the Personal Portfolios Lesson in FLEX for a simple plan to help students make beautiful custom portfolios tied to objectives and standards. If your budget allows, upgrade the paper portfolio by investing in hanging file folders.

Student Curated Exhibition Portfolio

Give students a large poster-sized sheet of paper or a yard of bulletin board paper to affix their best pieces on. Write brief artist statements using FLEX’s ready-made student-facing guides about why they are proud of these particular works to prompt reflection. This method gets pieces ready to hang for your art show ahead of time—all you need to do is hang one large sheet per student instead of thousands of artworks. 

DIY Photobook Portfolio

Fold and cut a large sheet of paper to make a small booklet. Students select their most prized artworks from the year. Take photos of students holding each artwork. Print the photographs for students to glue in their booklet, along with short artist statements about why they are proud of each work. Don’t forget to check FLEX for student-facing resources to guide students as they write about their work.

Process Journal Portfolio

Document the creative process with sketches, experimentation, and reflection. Journals provide valuable insight into artistic development and showcase problem-solving skills and a growth mindset. This is a more informal way to capture the “behind-the-scenes” work over a long period of time. The Reflect and Select Growth Portfolio Lesson in FLEX gives a step-by-step plan to build a portfolio documenting processes with artifacts.

Interactive Hyperdoc Portfolio

Slides are great for portfolios because students can embed more than just photographs. Students can include audio recordings of artist statements, as well as video or animation work. Students can also link to other resources such as artists who inspired them!

Career Portfolio

Challenge students to think about an art-related career that interests them. Brainstorm a list of skills that their career requires. Put together a portfolio of their artwork that demonstrates those skills. This method also points out any gaps in their skill set, which can direct future work. 

Continue developing portfolios.

A portfolio is a living document. As lifelong learners, students will grow and their portfolios should grow along with them. Encourage students to continue developing their portfolios beyond the classroom. They can add new pieces, reflect on their growth, and explore different mediums and styles. This ongoing process fosters a lifelong love of art and provides a valuable tool to highlight their skills and accomplishments in future endeavors.

Portfolios offer tremendous benefits to both you and your students. They help everyone reflect on the artwork and process and pinpoint strengths and areas of improvement. Strong student portfolios are indicative of a strong art curriculum and can be an invaluable advocacy tool for your art program. There are many portfolio options so choose one that meets your classroom needs. Support your students now with FLEX Curriculum’s download-ready portfolio resources so you can build better portfolios and watch your students’ artistic growth and your art program thrive!

How do you use portfolios in your classroom and beyond?

What is one thing you will implement this year to level up your portfolio practice?

To continue the conversation, join us in The Art of Ed Community!

The post How to Build a Better Art Portfolio with Your Students appeared first on The Art of Education University.

What’s the difference between assessing and grading?

Both assessment and grading gather information about students’ knowledge and progress. Assessment provides insight into the skills, understanding, and creativity students demonstrate. Grading assigns a simplified score to complex learning. Both are extremely important in the art room for your students’ growth as artists and your growth as an art teacher. 

What are your goals?

The first step in solid assessment practices is to determine your goals. What do you want your students to learn? Oftentimes, these goals are predetermined by national or state standards or district scope and sequences. You may also have your own goals you want students to achieve while they’re in your class. Whatever your goals are, ensure they are clear and specific. The goals should be about the skills and concepts students will learn and not just the finished product or how students behave.

For example, in a clay unit, your learning goals may include:

1. Understand the importance of planning before creating.
2. Demonstrate the coil technique and use the slip-and-score method to build structurally sound pieces.
3. Explore 3D design principles through hands-on creation.

What is the evidence of learning?

Now that you have your goals, it’s time to make them measurable. For each goal, think about the evidence you’d need to see to know the students’ learned and achieved mastery. Students may need to turn in a final artwork, show their process, or articulate their choices.

Let’s tie the same clay goals to evidence of learning:

1. Understand the importance of planning before creating.
   Sketchbook pages with three brainstorm thumbnail sketches, one detailed final sketch from three different angles, and a timeline of due dates for each clay stage.
2. Demonstrate the coil technique and use the slip-and-score method to build structurally sound pieces.
   8-inch sturdy ceramic coil vase with decorative coils and smooth areas.
3. Explore 3D design principles through hands-on creation.
   6×6 inch ceramic tile with a surface design that emphasizes one element and one principle of art.

How will you let students respond?

Student learning and assessment are not “one size fits all.” Each student artist is unique, with different learning styles and preferences. There are multiple ways to assess students and gather feedback and data on their learning. Offer students multiple ways to show their learning. Flexibility in assessment can make a massive difference in student engagement, communication, and final work.

Here are some ways to offer varied responses for a finished artwork:

• Verbal Sharing
  Present their work to the class (or the teacher in a one-on-one conference), explaining their process and reflecting on their challenges and successes.
• Written Reflections
  Offer the option of writing about their work, including explanations about their decisions and reflections on the artmaking process.
• Project Displays
  Display the final artwork and consider how the viewer will interact with their piece. Accompany the artwork with a curatorial rationale explaining the exhibit choices and how those choices support the artwork.

Do you need to rethink the grade book?

Number or letter grades are a way to systematize the abstract concept and process of learning. Grades are also helpful to provide measurable data over time for individual students or a class as a whole. For some families and students, grades can be a very motivational factor in learning and pursuing post-secondary education.

Specific feedback can be just as helpful as a number or letter grade. Meaningful feedback provides concrete takeaways for students to apply to future learning. It can also be more encouraging and gentler when a student is feeling discouraged or anxious.

Try pairing grades with feedback for a balanced approach. For example, jot down notes on a project rubric for areas the student excelled at and a skill they can refine. They’ll end up with a final rubric grade plus examples from the artwork that exemplify their score.

Whatever form of assessment you implement, remember to make it regular, timely, and relevant. When you give feedback on a consistent basis, it encourages students to get into a reflective habit and gives them many chances to practice receiving constructive criticism. When grades and feedback are immediate and relevant, it provides students with an opportunity to make changes before the next assignment or project is due. When grading and assessment are a two-way open conversation, students are more likely to be honest and ask for help as well as more motivated to apply themselves to their work.

Do we really need to grade everything?

After this dive into assessment versus grades, the new question is, Do we need to assess everything? At the end of the day, you probably don’t need to grade every single assignment. However, your district or school policy may indicate how many grades you are required to enter per week. As far as assessing, art teachers naturally assess everything! We are continually observing, providing feedback, reflecting on how a demonstration or assignment went, and having chats with students to check in. We have a good handle on where learning is in the art room—including ours!

If you want to grow in your assessment practices or you’re just an art teacher who geeks out about assessment, check out the following resources:

• How to Take Letter Grades Out of Your Art Room to Refocus on Learning
• How to Motivate Your Students Beyond Grades
• Designing Effective Assessment Practices Pack in PRO Learning
• Assessment in Art Education Graduate Course

Whatever your district or school grading policies are, you have the power to make a culture shift in your art studio that prioritizes artistic growth. Actively assess your students and their work by setting clear, measurable goals tied to standards and evidence of learning. Provide multiple ways for students to demonstrate their learning so you get their best work. Consider how you can pair customizable feedback with grades to spur motivation and improvement. With these methods, your students will not only produce beautiful artwork but will also blossom into strong artists who value reflection and constructive criticism.

Do you grade everything in your art room? 

How do you provide regular, timely, and relevant feedback to each of your students?

To continue the conversation, join us in The Art of Ed Community!

The post Back to Basics: Do We Need to Grade Everything in the Art Room? appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Leverage rubrics in 11 unexpected ways to enhance student learning, foster meaningful dialogue, and refine your teaching practice.

There are many ways to use rubrics but where do you start if you don’t know how to write a solid rubric? The first resource you won’t want to miss is the Plug n’ Play Rubric from FLEX Curriculum. This rubric is customizable to any art project and will create consistency in your curriculum. Save more time with the many other rubrics and assessments in FLEX—simply select the Assessment tab and filter by grade level and medium to find what you need.

1. Guide parent-teacher conferences.

A rubric provides a clear framework for discussing student progress with parents. It moves conversations beyond letter grades and highlights specific areas of strength and growth tied to learning objectives. This shared understanding helps you collaborate effectively with parents to support students’ artistic development.

2. Support reflection, self-assessment, and artist statements.

Rubrics provide a structured format for students to reflect on their creative process and articulate their artistic goals. Turn the rubric criteria into prompts to kickstart reflection. This will result in more thoughtful self-assessments and more insightful artist statements.

3. Focus critiques.

Similarly, structure critiques around the rubric to provide students with focused feedback. Tying feedback to the rubric criteria helps students provide constructive comments based on the artwork. It pulls the attention off the artist and onto the work. This approach also encourages students to more deeply analyze artwork and develop their critical thinking skills in a supportive environment.

4. Check in with students.

Integrate rubrics into student check-ins to foster a sense of ownership and encourage self-reflection. Students can use the rubric to monitor their own progress and identify areas where they excel or need additional support. This process promotes self-awareness and empowers students to take an active role in their learning. Using rubrics in this way also guides the feedback conversation in a way that feels predictable and comfortable for students.

5. Plan future projects.

Analyze rubric data to identify trends in student performance and areas where students consistently succeed or struggle. This information informs future lesson planning and helps you tailor instruction to meet the specific needs of your students. By using rubrics to identify knowledge gaps, you can differentiate instruction more effectively.

6. Build research skills.

Provide students with rubrics designed to evaluate the credibility and relevance of research sources. Students will gain critical research skills as they identify reliable websites, videos, and other resources. It will help them to assess the accuracy, authority, and objectivity of information, which is crucial in an age of digital media.

7. Decrease student questions.

We’ve all heard the question a thousand times—”Am I done yet?” Create a rubric for students to reference to determine if their work is complete. List hallmarks of completion, such as filling in negative space and putting their name on the work. Laminate the rubric and hang it where students put their completed work. This way, they can check it before turning their project in.

8. Monitor studio habits.

Establish clear expectations for studio habits and encourage responsible behavior with a studio rubric. Be sure to outline specific criteria for maintaining a clean and organized workspace. This promotes a productive learning environment and instills ownership in the art room. It develops organizational skills, attention to detail, time management strategies, and respect for shared resources.

9. Evaluate your lessons.

A rubric can also assist you with assessing your teaching strategies and identifying areas for improvement. This reflective practice encourages continuous growth and helps you refine your instructional approach to better meet the needs of your students. The specificity of a rubric will clearly tell you if it’s the clarity of learning objectives, the engagement of activities, or the overall impact of your lessons. You can even give your students a rubric for scoring your lessons to tell you which are the most interesting and impactful!

10. Encourage engagement.

Rubrics can assess how students work and conduct themselves in the classroom. Think about the skills you want students to demonstrate, such as listening quietly when others speak, asking good questions, sharing relevant connections, revising work, and seeking feedback for improvement. Make a rubric with examples to define these soft skills.

11. Prompt deeper discussions.

Rubrics equip students with a shared vocabulary and a common framework for discussing art. This shared understanding facilitates more meaningful conversations about artistic choices, techniques, and the creative process. Using a rubric, students can engage in more focused and productive critiques of their work and the work of others.

Ultimately, rubrics empower both teachers and students beyond grading art projects. Clear and specific rubrics foster transparency, encourage self-reflection, maintain an orderly classroom, and promote meaningful dialogue about art. By embracing these unexpected rubric applications, you can cultivate a more engaging and enriching learning environment. Watch teaching and learning flourish and students develop a deeper understanding of their artistic potential!

How else do you use rubrics in your classroom?

What other tools are helpful for student feedback?

To continue the conversation, join us in The Art of Ed Community!

The post Beyond Grading: 11 Unexpected Ways Art Teachers Can Use Rubrics appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Grading practices vary widely across states, districts, and schools. It often sparks debate among teachers, parents, and students because grades can carry a lot of weight. The impact of grades can extend beyond report cards and influence student motivation, teacher effectiveness, and parental perceptions of education. Traditional approaches to grading have long-standing roots in educational systems. However, there is growing interest in finding new methods that better reflect student learning and foster equity and consistency. This is especially true in the art room where assessing artistic growth can sometimes be challenging to capture with a numeric grade or through an established grading ritual.

Let’s investigate common grading scenarios to refine our assessment practice in the art room.

Extra Credit: Boost Engagement or Inflate Grades?

Benefits

Extra credit can motivate students to engage more deeply with the material, offering them a chance to go beyond basic requirements and improve their grades. For students who struggle with formal tests or assignments, extra credit can provide an opportunity to recover and demonstrate their learning. If you’re collecting supplies or need tasks completed, it can be a huge help to your budget and classroom and build ownership in the art room.

Considerations

Extra credit may also pose equity concerns, as students with more resources, such as time or finances, are better positioned to complete extra assignments. It can also be tricky to be consistent across classes and grade levels, creating possible misunderstandings. There’s a risk of artificially inflating grades and potentially masking the true level of student understanding.

Further Investigation

Align extra credit with meaningful enrichment activities connected to learning objectives to keep grades more reflective of content proficiency. Also, remember that extra credit should not be extra work for you, the art teacher! Challenge your students to take ownership of their learning and come up with their own extra credit assignments.

Open-Note Tests: Promote Real Understanding or Encourage Laziness?

Benefits

Open-note tests can mirror real-world scenarios where individuals use resources to solve problems. It can shift the focus from rote memorization to the application of knowledge. Open-note tests reduce test anxiety, allowing students to demonstrate understanding without the pressure of cramming.

Considerations

Open-note tests may lead students to rely too much on their notes, neglecting thorough preparation. In subjects where critical thinking and recall are essential, open-note assessments may not fully capture students’ mastery of content.

Further Investigation

Combine open-note questions with analytical tasks that require deeper engagement. Let’s say you just finished a unit on the elements and principles of art and guided your students through art analysis. It’s their turn to show what they’ve learned! Give students an artwork they’ve never seen before. Allow them to use their notes to reference the definitions of each element and principle. Ask them to apply the information to identify examples in the artwork.

Pop Quizzes: Grow Consistent Study Habits or Cause Unnecessary Stress?

Benefits

Pop quizzes can motivate students to stay up-to-date with the material and learning objectives. It can encourage regular review and preparation and keep students on their toes. Pop quizzes provide teachers with immediate feedback, allowing for adjustments in instruction.

Considerations

The unpredictability of pop quizzes can cause significant stress, especially for students who already experience test anxiety. There is also the potential to penalize students who may have valid reasons for being unprepared on a given day, such as an excused absence.

Further Investigation

A more low pressure way to capture real-time feedback is to build a habit of doing exit tickets before students leave. Students will appreciate the consistency in routine and the accountability in learning that period. Switch up the activity by doing questions, games, drawings, or tasks!

Participation Grades: Foster Engagement or Penalize Introverts?

Benefits

Grading participation is often used to encourage active engagement in class. Participation can take many forms, such as attending classes, contributing to discussions, being on time, and demonstrating attentiveness. It aims to foster a dynamic learning environment and build communication skills.

Considerations

However, grading participation can be subjective and favor more visible contributions over substantial ones. It may disadvantage introverted students, absent students, or those with anxiety. If participation is not explicitly linked to a learning objective, it may not accurately reflect a student’s understanding. 

Further Investigation

Offer multiple ways students can participate. Students can write or type responses and submit them for you to read aloud anonymously. Break the class into smaller groups or pairs with guiding prompts for more comfortable discussions. If you do have a required whole class discussion or large presentation, give students advance notice so they can prepare and ask questions ahead of time.

Homework: Reinforce Learning or Burden Students?

Benefits

Homework provides an opportunity for students to practice and reinforce skills learned in class. It also teaches life skills like time management and responsibility. Depending on the assignment, it can invite families to participate in their student’s learning. It can also provide a way for students to catch up if they don’t have enough time during class. 

Considerations

Homework can present equity issues, as not all students have access to resources like a quiet workspace or internet at home. Many students may not have the time, energy, or attention to adequately focus on homework at home due to other responsibilities. Excessive homework can lead to burnout and take away from quality family time.

Further Investigation

Use homework as a formative tool for practice and offer flexible completion options. Adjust deadlines or try a “ketchup” day in class for students to catch up on any assignment. Additionally, try optional assignments to do at home that are fun and foster a love for creativity!

Curved Grading: Level the Playing Field or Mask Performance Gaps?

Benefits

Curved grading can be helpful for adjusting scores on challenging tests, ensuring fairness in assessment. It may also create a sense of competition that motivates students to perform well. 

Considerations

It can foster an unfair comparison among students, where one student’s performance impacts another’s grade. Curving may also obscure gaps in understanding and give a false sense of achievement.

Further Investigation

Try curved grading if you give an assessment that ends up being more difficult than expected for your students. Alternatively, focus on creating fair assessments that measure learning objectives. If you’re looking to level up your assessment practice, enroll in Assessment in Art Education or watch the Designing Effective Assessment Practices Pack in PRO Learning.

Grading practices are essential to the educational system but come with inherent challenges. There may be many common grading rituals that we’ve done for years without thinking much about them. It’s important to keep evaluating why we do things and refining how we do them so we will continue to grow as art educators. From pop quizzes to curved grading, each practice has benefits and considerations for our students. With the guidance of your district and school administration, investigate your grading practices and take steps to find a solid balance between tradition and innovation in your art room. 

Which grading practice are you investigating further in your art room?

Is there a common grading practice you’d add to this list?

To continue the conversation, join us in The Art of Ed Community!

The post Balance Tradition & Innovation: A Deeper Look at Common Grading Practices appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Shift your mindset from grading to assessment and tackle how to use assessments as a tool for artistic growth.

What are the different types of assessment?

Assessments generally fall into two categories: formative and summative. A formative assessment gathers data to determine current skill levels. Use it to help you gauge where students are at and when they’re ready to move on. Formative assessments tend to be lower stakes and are often carried out during a lesson. For example, while your students are studying value, a formative assessment would be a bellringer requiring students to create a value scale or shade a sphere. Their level of success in these quick drawing activities will indicate whether they are ready to tackle more complex forms or if they need some guided practice to review the basics.

Summative assessments come at the conclusion of a lesson or unit. The purpose of the summative assessment is to determine the student’s level of mastery. Summative assessments can take many forms, including tests, artist’s statements, and portfolio reviews. Summative assessments can often feel higher stakes as they are often more heavily weighted in the grade book. 

What should I put in my rubric?

Rubrics aren’t just for art projects! You can use rubrics to evaluate any objective or standard, including activities like bellringers, drawing exercises, small group discussions, or presentations of artwork. Whatever the purpose, a good rubric provides clear and specific criteria for success. Focus on observable skills aligned to your curriculum and state or national standards. 

Rubrics can take a good amount of time to make if you’re starting from scratch. Save time and mental energy by using any of the numerous assessment tools in FLEX Curriculum. FLEX offers hundreds of student-facing resources including checklists, compare and contrast graphic organizers, reflections, project rubrics, and feedback sentence stems. One of the most flexible and customizable rubrics is the Plug n’ Play rubric. Click the Assessment tab on the lefthand navigation bar and filter by Grade Level, Medium, or Assessment Type—it’s seriously that simple!

How can I keep my assessment data organized?

There are a lot of ways to track student progress. Many districts provide an online grade book which may have features to track data and grades. For those without a digital grade book platform, digital spreadsheets can work just as well. Still, the most valuable data is the evidence you observe in student artwork, reflections, and skill demonstrations—not just the number from a rubric. 

Consider photographing student projects in a digital portfolio or virtual gallery. It may sound time consuming, but even elementary students can handle it by themselves. A class gallery is a wonderful tool to see learning trends across the board and provide you with insights about your teaching. 

Creating digital portfolios and virtual galleries is simple. For a class-wide gallery, create a slide deck and number each slide. Share the slide deck with your students. They will snap a photo of their artwork and post it to their numbered slide. Individual portfolios allow for student privacy and show students their growth over time. Similarly, create a slide deck to use as a template. Notate spots on each slide for their artwork and artist statement. Share the slides using a forced copy link. Encourage students to have fun customizing their slide decks and share them with you! Consider linking each student’s deck in one spot so it’s easier to access.

What do I do with the assessments?

If the goal of assessment is to help students grow, you must share the assessment data with your students. This will look different depending on your grade level. Young students won’t benefit from looking at a bunch of numbers on a rubric, but they will learn a lot if you give them each a one-minute “glow and grow” mini-conference. The important thing is that you provide students with timely feedback in words and a format they can understand.

What is my students’ experience with assessment? 

Sometimes assessments can create pressure and anxiety for students. Many students get nervous thinking about everyone looking at and judging their work! Give students a voice in the assessment process to reduce anxiety. Talk to them about your goals as a teacher and ask them about their goals as artists and learners. When you are assessing students or discussing your observations with them, give students the opportunity to self-assess first with a rubric, artist statement, or conversation prompts. Often, they will be harder on themselves than you and it will provide space to give plenty of encouragement. 

Assessment has a negative reputation but it can be a helpful tool for artistic growth and student connection. It’s important to assess students regularly to check for understanding of current concepts, determine what students are ready to learn next, and pinpoint areas of mastery. Shift the culture from grades to open feedback to relieve pressure and anxiety and promote excitement around discovery and development. Use ready-made resources from FLEX Curriculum to keep your rubrics clear, observable, and objective, while saving so much time. Embrace your newfound view on assessment to create a supportive learning environment that celebrates each stage in the artmaking process!

How do you track your students’ artistic growth?

What’s a successful way you share feedback with your students?

To continue the conversation, join us in The Art of Ed Community!

The post How to Assess for Growth and Transform Your Art Classroom appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Unlock WIDA levels to support ELL students, build language skills, and communicate complex ideas through powerful artist statements.

There are six categories of skill levels for English Language Learners. Educating yourself on the skills expected for each level can help you tailor your support for students when they read and write in your art room. WIDA is a consortium of state education departments that provide research-based tools and resources for K-12 multilingual learners. WIDA provides standardized frameworks so learning outcomes are consistent across adopting states, districts, and schools. Ask your administrator, mentor teacher, or professional counselor to show you where to access your students’ levels.

Understand the six levels below to unlock key strategies for helping your ELL students:

• Level 1: Entering
  Students at this level are beginning to use English in very basic ways. They may understand and use a few common words and phrases. They often rely on visual aids and gestures for comprehension. Focus on building foundational vocabulary and simple sentence structures.
• Level 2: Emerging
  Students in this category are starting to form simple sentences and understand basic English. They still struggle with complex language structures and vocabulary. They can participate in conversations but may need additional support to grasp content.
• Level 3: Developing
  These students can create more complex sentences and understand basic English. They may still struggle with academic language and more abstract concepts. They can engage in discussions and express ideas, but they may make errors when it comes to more sophisticated language.
• Level 4: Expanding
  Students at this level demonstrate a good command of English and can use it in various contexts. They may still need support with specialized academic language and idiomatic expressions. They can engage in detailed discussions and write more complex texts.
• Level 5/6: Bridging/Reaching
  These students are nearly proficient in English. They can perform most tasks and understand most content in English. They may still need occasional support with very specialized or advanced language but can function effectively in an English-speaking environment.

Even if you don’t know the specific levels of each of your students, knowing different ways to scaffold reading and writing is helpful. Plus, it can be beneficial for all students—even those who know English but struggle with literacy. We’ll look at some prompts and activities below and break them down by level with examples.

Another helpful tip when assessing reading and writing is to remember what’s most important. Are you assessing reading and writing, such as pronunciation, grammar, spelling, and sentence structure? Or, are you assessing the art content they are trying to communicate, such as vocabulary terms, art materials, techniques, processes, and ideas? Prioritize your learning objectives and ensure they match your assessment outcomes.

Focus on these five areas with your ELL students to write artist statements with ease!

1. Home Language Expression

You are most comfortable when you’re in your own home—and so are your students! Make your classroom feel like their “home away from home” by allowing them to speak in their home language. This can be a great first step in writing an artist statement. Much like a “brain dump,” it provides a crucial foundation for processing and articulating their raw, honest thoughts. From here, students can take key information and incorporate it into their final statement, either in their home language or in English.

Prompt: I made… 

• Level 1: Entering
  Students use simple phrases or words in their home language. For example, they may say, “I made a house” in their home language while pointing to their drawing.
• Level 2: Emerging
  Students compose 1-2 basic sentences in their home language. They may share, “I made a tree because I like nature.”
• Level 3: Developing
  Students write a few basic sentences in their home language. For instance, “I made a painting of a sunset. I used bright colors to show how happy I feel when the sun sets.”
• Level 4: Expanding
  Students provide a short paragraph in their home language and emerging English. They may write, “I made different shades of blue and orange to represent the transition from day to night.”
• Level 5/6: Bridging/Reaching
  Students compare and contrast their artwork with other works in their home language and in English. They may share, “I made abstract shapes like Picasso but I used a different color palette of blue and orange.”

2. Vocabulary

Vocabulary acquisition is an important building block in forming and comprehending sentences. Just like with all of your students, it is your job to teach key art vocabulary, like the Elements and Principles. In addition, students will need to learn other art terms most students already know, such as pencil, scissors, fold, and sculpture. Introduce vocabulary and repeatedly reinforce it with a variety of visual aids.

Activity: Show me an example of…

• Level 1: Entering
  Use labeled pictures with key vocabulary words, such as the colors yellow, orange, and red with the text “warm colors.” Students match a label to the correct corresponding spot on their artwork and practice saying the words aloud.
• Level 2: Emerging
  Provide cards with images, vocabulary words, and simple definitions. Students match cards to the correct corresponding spot on their artwork and practice reading the cards aloud.
• Level 3: Developing
  Introduce vocabulary with a word bank and encourage students to use them in sentences. For example, for Show me an example of warm colors, the student may write, “My clothes are warm colors to match the sun.”
  
• Level 4: Expanding
  Continue to provide a word bank with more complex terms and descriptive language. They may write, “I used warm colors for my outfit to match the sun. It contrasts with the cool colors in the background. It helps me stand out!”
  
• Level 5/6: Bridging/Reaching
  Students use advanced vocabulary and art terminology in their statements. For example, “I used warm colors on the subject matter to contrast with the cool, dark background. I wanted the person to stand out and look like they were running away from the background which is eerie and moody.”

3. Sentence Structure

Take the bulk of the guesswork out of writing so students can focus on the content. Set up sentence stems and prompts so all students have to do is fill in the blank. These also help students organize their thoughts and provide immediate structure for final artist statements.

Activity: Pick a prompt and fill in the blank.

• Level 1: Entering
  I drew a… or This is a…
• Level 2: Emerging
  I used… colors to show…
• Level 3: Developing
  The… in my artwork represents… because…
• Level 4: Expanding
  In my artwork, I used… materials to illustrate… or I used… technique to create…
  
• Level 5/6: Bridging/Reaching
  In this piece, I used… technique because… and It supports my concept of… by… 
  

4. Sharing & Labels

Sharing artwork is scary, especially in front of the whole class and especially when you aren’t confident with speaking the same language as everyone else. Build up to sharing in front of the whole class by starting small. Allow students to select their partner or assign partners based on who you see students comfortable with. Provide labels with key vocabulary words and blank sticky notes to support communication.

Activity: Select a partner and share your artwork with them using labels.

• Level 1: Entering
  Students share their artwork with a partner using gestures and simple words. They can label their artwork with sticky notes that have pictures and basic words.
• Level 2: Emerging
  Students can share their artwork with a partner using short sentences. They label their work with sticky notes that include pictures, vocabulary words, and simple phrases.
• Level 3: Developing
  Students describe their artwork to a partner using complete sentences and labels. Encourage them to write a few sentences on sticky notes about specific elements of their work.
• Level 4: Expanding
  Students provide detailed explanations to their peers and use sticky notes to label their artwork with more complex terms and descriptions.
• Level 5/6: Bridging/Reaching
  Encourage students to engage in in-depth discussions about their artwork with peers, using sticky notes for detailed labels and explanations that reflect their advanced understanding.

5. Scaffolding

You can also scaffold support by breaking down the artist statement structure. Take sections of the artist statement and do each of them together as a class or group. Within each of the five steps below, provide prompts based on each skill level for students to expand on. Feel free to tie in other previously mentioned tips, such as word banks, labels, and sticky notes, to maximize student success.

Activity: Write an artist statement step-by-step.

1. Identify the subject matter.

• Level 1: Students match images with words.
• Level 2: My art is…
• Level 3: My artwork is about…
• Level 4: My painting captures…
• Level 5/6: The… represents…
  

2. Describe the inspiration.

• Level 1: Students select and name picture cards that illustrate their sources of inspiration. 
• Level 2: My idea is from… 
• Level 3: I was inspired by… 
• Level 4: The… inspired me because…
• Level 5/6: The… inspired me and it evokes… 
  

3. Explain the meaning.

• Level 1: My art is about…
• Level 2: My art means…
• Level 3: The… in my artwork shows…
• Level 4: The use of… in my artwork symbolizes…
• Level 5/6: The… in this piece represents… 

4. Discuss art techniques.

• Level 1: Students point to or name materials, techniques, or processes used.
• Level 2: I used… 
• Level 3: I used… to make…
• Level 4: I used… to create…
• Level 5: The use of… emphasizes…

5. Reflect on the artistic process.

• Level 1: It was easy/hard to…
• Level 2: I learned…
• Level 3: It was hard to… but I learned…
  
• Level 4: When making my artwork, I struggled with… but I learned…
• Level 5/6: Through this process, I faced challenges such as… and successes such as…

Tackling reading and writing in the art room with English Language Learners doesn’t have to be scary for anyone! Use this toolkit of strategies and prompts to best support your students at any level of language acquisition. Understanding what to expect from each WIDA level will help you manage your expectations for learning so all students can succeed. Plus, having a repertoire of ways to break down the artist statement process will benefit all budding artists. Before you know it, students will feel safe and confident to discuss, read, and write about their artwork in no time!

Discover more resources to support your English Language Learners in the art room:

1. How to Support ELL Students to Thrive in the Classroom
2. 5 Strategies to Help Your English Langauge Learners
3. Strategies to Help ELL Students (Ep. 234)
4. What You Need to Know About ELLs in the Art Room

How do you support ELL students with writing artist statements?

What are some challenges you’ve faced when helping ELL students articulate their artistic ideas?

The post How to Support English Language Learners In Writing Powerful Artist Statements appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Processing your students’ artistic growth with them is essential in building up their growth mindset. Students need to see that their brains can learn from failure and change accordingly. The belief in failure as a necessary component for learning is foundational to a growth mindset, and art class is the perfect place to cement this. You can instill a growth mindset in your students and make their learning evident by reviewing their artistic journeys from the beginning of the year until now.

Art is particularly helpful in developing a growth mindset because failure riddles the artistic process. Your students have been building their growth mindset without even knowing it! Elementary students need a little extra help to see it, though. Incorporating visual and discussion-based strategies with written activities helps your artists, from shortest to tallest, see where they started and how it’s going now.

If you are struggling to connect artmaking and a growth mindset for your students, here are some resources:

• Growth Mindset in the Art Room Pack from PRO Learning
• How a Growth Mindset Can Affect Your Teaching Career
• The Enormous Effect Language Has on Growth Mindset

Engage in these seven activities to help your elementary students recognize how much they have grown as artists and humans this year!

1. Repeat a project from the beginning of the year.

Repeating a project is a great way to visualize growth without relying on language. Choose a project you can effortlessly build into your curriculum. Self-portraits make great comparisons and offer the chance to incorporate various skills. Simply have your students create a portrait at the beginning of the year and recreate it at the end. Display the two side by side to show how much growth has occurred!

2. Assemble a growth portfolio of student work.

A growth portfolio highlights the artistic process over the product. This portfolio differs from a traditional one in that it consists of more than just the finished artwork. Include sketches, peer critiques, midpoint reviews, and other foundational documentation that brought about the finished product. Give a complete picture of how much work went into the art!

Start assembling digital growth portfolios today with these resources:

• “Utilizing Digital Portfolios (Ep. 325)”
• How to Use End-of-Semester Online Portfolios to Measure Growth
• “Digital Portfolios and So Much More… (Ep. 112)”

3. Collect formative assessments into an illustrated work log.

Consider interspersing written formative assessments with live and in-the-moment learning checks so that students can track with you. For example, assign exit tickets, sticky note reflections, or peer critiques, and have your students save these until the end of the year. Then, students create an illustration to accompany each one. For example, their drawings can show them learning the lesson, demonstrate their learned technique, or symbolize their learning.

4. Select a “Show and Tell” piece as the subject for reflection.

Encourage students to consider a piece of art they are proud of. Ask students to think about the process of making the work, the challenges they faced along the way, and why the artwork is successful in their eyes. Adjust the reflection format for the grade level. Try a Think-Pair-Share for younger students and a written reflection for older students. Then, have each student show their artwork and share insight from their reflection.

Help your students think about their art with these reflective strategies:

• “Encouraging Risk-Taking and Reflection (Ep. 094)”
• How to Reveal the Creative Process Through Reflection
• Use the Studio Habits as a Guide for Reflective Self-Assessment

5. Host a “Biggest Failure” award ceremony with prizes.

Time to celebrate those mistakes! Instead of choosing their most successful artwork, have your students determine one that was an epic failure. Ask your students to write about or discuss what they were trying to accomplish, where they went wrong, and what they will do differently next time. Each student then presents the artwork and failure takeaways. Vote as a community on the “Biggest Failure” and award simple prizes for first, second, and third place.

6. Curate a sketchbook gallery walk with your class.

What better way for students to see how they navigated their artistic journey than a look in their sketchbooks? Prepare for the gallery walk by having students tag three to five pages representing essential learning from the year or showing incremental skills growth. Then, set out the tagged sketchbooks and tour them as a class. Ask students to leave encouraging notes, observations, or comments as they go.

Make sketchbooks foundational in your art room with these resources:

• Making Elementary Sketchbooks Meaningful Pack from PRO Learning
• 5 Simple Ways to Use Sketchbooks in the Elementary Art Room
• How to Make Sketchbooks a Vital Part of Your Classroom

7. Connect growth beyond the walls of the art room.

You are not the only one seeing your students’ minds evolve and change. Your students have picked up new skills in all of their classes. Their character has also developed along the way. Collaborate with other teachers to celebrate all of the transformations you’ve seen. Incorporate work from other classes into these activities to provide a more holistic picture of your students’ growth!

You put in the hard work all year to provide your students with opportunities to fail and learn from their “mistakes” safely. In turn, they have taken what you have given them and run with it, developing their artistic skills and growth mindsets. The final step is to show your elementary students how much they have grown. Taking the time to process growth cements knowledge and learning in your students’ developing brains.

There are many creative ways to tailor growth processing to your students’ grade level. Try a visual method with your younger students, like comparing artworks from the beginning and end of the year. Integrate more written components, like sketchbook gallery walk feedback, as your students get older. Expand your reflection beyond the walls of your art class for a more holistic look. Whatever the activity, make it fun and really celebrate how far you’ve come together!

For even more ways to celebrate artistic growth with your students, try one of these additional strategies:

• 10 Trusted Rules to Promote Artistic Growth in Your Classroom
• 3 Practical Ways to Assess Student Growth
• An Authentic Way to Show Student Growth in the Art Room

How do you process student growth with your elementary students?

Which activity are you excited to try in your elementary art room?

The post 7 Ways to Process Artistic Growth With Your Elementary Students appeared first on The Art of Education University.

There are several ways to assess portfolios. You can determine if they fulfill AP art requirements, demonstrate growth, or meet college application requirements. Portfolios can have more potential than these traditional uses, though! Once the portfolio is complete, use one of the artworks to create a keepsake item, or have students make a unique year-end art project showing their growth. It will help students assign greater value to their artwork and end the school year on a positive note!

Make these three keepsake items from portfolio artworks or create summative assessments using these seven projects.

For the purpose of this article, “portfolios” indicate the entire collection of artworks students made throughout the school year. For more on Student Portfolio Basics, check out the Pack in PRO Learning.

These three year-end project ideas transform portfolio artworks into keepsakes.

One way to remind students of their artwork’s value is to transform it into a keepsake. Students reflect on their growth throughout the school year as they create their keepsakes. Whenever they see the keepsake in the future, it will remind them of their positive experiences in art class.

1. Create jewelry or keychains.

Use pictures of artwork to create jewelry pieces. Print small images of students’ favorite artworks. Supply a couple of different jewelry or keychain molds for students to choose from. Students put their images in the molds. Then, pour clear epoxy resin over them. Turn artwork into earrings, necklaces, or keychains by adding jewelry hooks or chains. Students can keep them for themselves or give them to friends or family! Check out the article A Step-by-Step Guide to Resin Jewelry in the Classroom for more.

2. Compose a unique digital collage. 

Students work in groups to digitally combine images of their artwork from the year. This project is even easier if your students already take pictures of their artwork throughout the year for digital portfolios. Challenge students to create a form using the shades within the artwork instead of just randomly arranging the pictures. Their collage of pictures can make the school mascot, a symbol, or even a portrait! If you have the budget for it, print the collages and give them to students or post them around the school or classroom. It also allows you to focus on resetting and cleaning out your art room for next year since students only need electronic devices to do this project.

3. Sew a blanket or pillow. 

Memorialize your students’ portfolio pieces into artwork that remains at the school for future students to see. If you have an inkjet printer, print photos of your students’ favorite art directly onto fabric. Several companies will print photos onto fabric for you. Students sew the pieces together to create a class quilt or pillows. Put them in the “chill zone” in your classroom next year to inspire your new students.

These seven year-end projects serve as summative assessments.

Instead of creating a keepsake from portfolio artworks, consider designing a project around portfolios to serve as a summative assessment. Summative assessments for student portfolios show how much students have grown in their artistic skills throughout the year.

1. Use a “failure” project to create a new project.

Students often have least-favorite pieces in their portfolio or pieces they wish they could change. Let students reimagine those pieces for the last project of the year. Being able to persist, salvage, and transform is a wonderful way for students to show their artistic growth. It’s also a way to demonstrate how they have developed a growth mindset around their art.

Here are five ways your students can revise a “failure” project: 

1. Tear or pull the piece apart and use the fragments to create a new artwork.
2. Take a 2D artwork and make it into a sculpture, or take apart a sculpture and turn it into a 2D art piece.
3. Create a collaborative multimedia piece using the entire class’s art pieces.
4. Take the main concept of the piece and create a new one.
5. Rework the piece’s unsuccessful areas.
6. Manipulate the artwork digitally, as shown in 5 New Ways to Revise Old Artwork.

2. Market for next year’s class.

You spent an entire year helping students create diverse, polished artwork. Capitalize on that by having students create flyers or posters showing their portfolio pieces. Your students can make these digitally and print them as flyers, or they can use traditional drawing or painting materials to create posters. If you haven’t introduced them to digital art or taught them graphic design skills, use this as an opportunity to present it. You’ll end the year with advertisements for your program, which is a convenient strategy if you’re struggling with low enrollment numbers.

3. Donate to the community.

Not all students are emotionally attached to their art. Ask students to donate their unwanted art to local community centers or assisted living facilities. Present the art to a community facility and allow them to curate the pieces they want to display. Go a step further and plan a trip to the facility to show students how their community proudly displayed their art. Students can also transform their art into cards with handwritten notes to local nursing homes or hospitals. Whether students take your class again or not, it ends the year with them knowing they created something of value.

4. Create an exhibit. 

Ask the class to create an art exhibit in the hallways. To start, students lay out all the artwork from the year and look for connections between the artworks. As they find connections and pick artwork, they learn how to act like curators. Read How to Help Students Curate Exhibitions to Promote Ownership and Lessen the Load for advice on student-led exhibitions. If time allows, ask students to invite guests to the exhibit. Extend the project so the students can act as museum workers, such as museum educators, preservationists, and art handlers.

5. Apply for a solo exhibition.

If your students made portfolios as part of an AP art course or submitted their artwork to competitions, they’ve already taken the brave step of asking their artwork to be judged. However, your students may wonder if their portfolios serve a purpose beyond college applications, AP course credit, or competitions. Why not enter their portfolio for a chance to have a solo exhibition? Even if their application isn’t accepted, you’ve still walked them through a daunting process and prepared them to try again.

6. Make money.

The idea of the “starving artist” is a pervasive misconception and one your students may also hold. If your district and school policy allow, give your students the opportunity to experience earning money with their art. Students set up booths and put on an art fair or host an art auction. Ask students to create a marketing campaign to get people to show up. They can invite administrators, teachers, families, and community members to show off all their hard work from the year and make some money while they’re at it! Who knows, someone may fall in love with their portfolio and buy the whole collection!

7. Write a portfolio artist statement.

Ask students to reflect on their growth, process, and learning throughout the year by composing an artist statement for their entire body of work. Provide prompts to help students think deeply about their artwork. Then, give students leeway to present their artist statements creatively. They can make a video, slideshow, or skit to demonstrate their journey.

Students often need guidance to recognize the value of their portfolios beyond their traditional uses. Let them finish the year strong by applying their portfolio in a unique way, like incorporating their art in jewelry or a digital collage. Have students show off their work by curating an exhibit, applying for a solo exhibition, selling their artwork, or donating it to the community. Or transform artworks into something new or use their hard work to market for next year’s art program. However you choose to use portfolios, show your students how much they have grown this school year!

How do you assess student growth at the end of the year?

What do you think is the most important use for student portfolios?

The post 10 Unique End-of-Year Portfolio Assessments for Secondary Art Students appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Let’s explore four scenarios to show how you can build up to an art studio where honest feedback, constructive criticism, and challenging topics are not only expected but valued.

Before diving into the scenarios, let’s look at a few practical overarching tips you can start with and strive toward. The tips below start simple and foundational and become more challenging as you move further down the list.

Here are helpful tips to guide your planning:

• Build in lots of opportunities for in-person small talk and conversation to grow class connections. Try cheesy team-building exercises, reading warm-up answers out loud, or sharing weekend highs and lows with the class. The prioritization and nurturing of relationships are key to tackling difficult topics.
• Keep feedback tied to a rubric or set of criteria, such as a list of words related to the elements and principles of art. Post the prompts given later in this article to guide each student’s statement and response.
• Start with a physical reproduction and critique a famous artwork. It’s easier when the artist isn’t in the room!
• Have the students critique one of your artworks. You can model how to respond to feedback, including feedback you don’t agree with.
• Anonymously critique a peer’s work by typing responses and using emojis to assist in providing a clear and kind tone. Students can randomly read the responses aloud or try this sticky note method.
• Divide the class into smaller groups for more meaningful feedback and a more intimate, private setting.

Here are four scenarios to illustrate how to build students’ resiliency to tension and face constructive feedback confidently.

Just like the list of tips above, the following scenarios are organized by intensity and are loosely based on George Bateson and Robert Dilts’s Logical Levels. Logical Levels is a hierarchy that captures how human behavior, identity, and communication intertwine. For the purpose of this article, we will start out with more common examples and work our way up to more serious conversations you may have in your secondary art room. Ensure you adhere to your district and school policies regarding challenging and sensitive topics. Remember, when the conversations get more difficult, there is more opportunity for students to step up, learn, and grow!

Scenario 1: Barrier

The Situation

Let’s say you are having a progress critique, and students post their artwork on the wall. You have a student who is in a wheelchair. They can’t easily navigate around the students to view the artwork over their standing peers’ heads. This is a barrier.

Why It Feels Tense

If the barrier is not addressed ahead of time during your lesson planning and prep, the student in the wheelchair may feel isolated and uncomfortable. They may want to do well but may not be able to participate.

Options for Leaning In

You make adjustments prior to the lesson so this student can view the work comfortably and participate. You instruct students to hang their work slightly lower on the walls and have all students bring over a chair to sit on while they view the work. Everyone makes accommodations, and the class dynamic and assignment can continue without anyone feeling singled out or hurt.

For more tips on how to approach your instruction with an inclusive lens, read this article.

Scenario 2: Preference

The Situation

Here’s another fairly simple example. Your students are listening to music while drawing during independent studio time. A student is streaming their favorite country musician. Another student leans over to them and blurts out, “That song is terrible! How can you listen to that?!” You observe the first student getting defensive and tense. What just happened?

Why It Feels Tense

“You” language is often taken as blaming and attacking. Introduce, model, and reinforce “I” language versus “You” language in the art room. In our music example above, the student could still express their opinion by saying, “I don’t like country music. I like hip-hop!”

Imagine one student saying to another, “I don’t like all of the red in your artwork.” While this student is applying “I” language, this may be a more sensitive situation because it’s about another student’s creation. Our students often pour their hearts and souls into their masterpieces, so when negative comments roll in, it can feel like a personal slight.

Options for Leaning In

Here are some ways to apply “I” language in the art room during a critique or art analysis:

• I see…
  I see a lot of red.
• I don’t see…
  I don’t see a lot of variation in colors.
• I like…
  I like the bold color.
• I don’t like…
  I don’t like the amount of red.
• I wonder…
  I wonder why you used so much red.
• I’m curious as to why…
  I’m curious as to why you used so much red.
• I think…
  I think there is a lot of red in this artwork.
• I believe… because…
  I believe there is too much red in this artwork because it hides the focal point.
• I want to share…
  I want to share Barnett’s Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis. This artist used a ton of the color red but broke it up with lines he calls “zips” to make it visually interesting.

Ask the students to consider if the things their peers observed about their work align with their intent. It’s a way to know they are communicating their idea clearly, and it is one indicator to determine how successful or strong their artwork is.

Close the loop by encouraging students to smile and say, “Thank you.” It’s harder to be mad when someone is giving you a caring smile. Remind students that honest responses can be difficult but good to hear. They can point out where your artwork can grow and get better! Model how to graciously thank and validate feedback regardless of if you agree or disagree. This will reinforce and welcome a culture of honest feedback moving forward.

Here are some ways to say “thank you:”

• Thank you!
• Thanks for sharing.
• I appreciate hearing that.
• Thanks for pointing that out.
• Great observation!

Bolster spirits by ending each critique with a round of applause or snaps for all who participated!

Play this game with your students!

Modeled after the video series, Spectrum, by Jubilee, this is a fun game that incorporates movement and helps students express their opinions using “I” language. This game does require quite a bit of room to spread out. If you do not have a big classroom, you may need to borrow the gym or go outside.

Here’s how to play:

1. Mark seven lines on the floor with string or tape or have students stand behind marked chairs.
2. Each line will signify the following: strongly disagree, disagree, somewhat disagree, center base, somewhat agree, agree, and strongly agree.
3. Read a statement. Make it lighthearted and silly, like, “The best pizza topping is pepperoni,” or make it art-related, like, “Graffiti is art.”
4. Give students ten seconds to silently move to the line that corresponds with their opinion.
5. Call on students to explain why they chose that line.
6. Move back to the center base and repeat.

Scenario 3: Behaviors

The Situation

It’s time to dig a little deeper! For another art room scenario, you received a parent email that said, “You didn’t give me any notice about my child’s failing grade. Now it’s too late, and I can’t do anything about it. Because of this, you need to change the grade or give her makeup work!” Most of us would read this email, cringe, and then get fired up! “How dare they accuse me of failing their child? I did XYZ to support them…” and down the rabbit hole we go.

Now, imagine you got an email that said, “I received my child’s report card today, and I was surprised to see a failing grade in art! I can’t believe I didn’t realize this sooner. Is there anything you can do to change the grade or provide makeup work?” This use of “I” language softens the tone and shifts the responsibility to the parent instead of you. The parent is no longer making a demand but a request. You would probably be much more likely to work with the parent and student to rectify this situation.

Let’s take a peek at a student example. You can tell your students, “I expect you to write your name on your projects. If your paper has no name, I won’t know whose it is!” You are expressing your expectation with a reason why. You are giving your students the choice to write their name or maybe have it go missing. On the other hand, if you told a student, “You should have written your name on this! No wonder it got lost!” it puts all of the blame and shame on the student.

Why It Feels Tense

When another person points out our behavior, we often feel attacked. After all, we made a choice and did (or didn’t do) something for a reason. It may seem like our judgment is being called into question. No one likes to feel like they are wrong!

Options for Leaning In

But as art teachers, we may find ourselves in situations where our administrator or a parent is giving us critical feedback or reprimanding us. We may also be the ones providing constructive criticism or correcting behaviors with our students. How you word conversations can make all the difference!

Let’s revisit “I” language with the following statements:

• I would prefer…
• I need…
• I want…
• I desire…
• I expect…
• I would like…
• I would appreciate it if…

Encourage your students to use “I” language to express what they are looking for versus what their peer, in their opinion, “should” be doing. Reiterate that their peer has a choice, and it’s not always reflective of whether or not they like or dislike them. Their peer can choose to comply and agree—or they can disagree.

Scenario 4: Core Belief Systems

The Situation

Let’s look at a recent example from the news you can use as a practice discussion with your students. A few months ago, Jason M. Allen won a blue ribbon and $300 at Colorado’s State Fair for his piece, Theatre D’opera Spatial. The kicker is that this piece was created with an artificial intelligence (AI) program that turns lines of text into realistic images.

This created quite a controversy in art circles. Some questions that surfaced included the following:

• Did Allen cheat?
• Is this ethical?
• Is this a form of plagiarism?
• Can he call himself an artist or a painter?
• What implications will this have on traditional painting?
• What does the term “art” encompass?
• Is this a responsible use of technology?

Why It Feels Tense

This level of discussion can hit home the hardest. At this level, topics are usually religiously, spiritually, and/or politically based. The beliefs around these categories are essential to one’s formative identity. Because these beliefs are so integrated into who a person is, the lines are infinitely blurrier when it comes to approving or disapproving of an idea, a person, or both.

Options for Leaning In

Established norms around a safe classroom environment that values trust is key. Do this through team building, “I” statements, active listening, and appreciation for others’ honest contributions.

When sensitive topics come up, remind students of the following:

Let’s go back to our AI example. The first step to having a solid discussion on any topic is to be as informed as possible. This requires quite a bit of research, including what AI is, then looking at the topic from as many perspectives as possible. Check out these two articles (1, 2) for more resources on how to scaffold the research process with your students.

Here are some resources to get started:

Note: Be sure to review all resources before determining if they are appropriate to share with your students.

• The text-to-image revolution, explained
• An A.I.-Generated Picture Won an Art Prize. Artists Aren’t Happy.
• Should AI-Generated Art Be Considered Real Art?

Next, pose questions. They can be the questions above, or your students can generate a list of questions during their research. For a fun and anonymous way for your students to contribute questions, check out Snowball Responses.

Here are ten helpful tips to keep the discussion calm and friendly:

1. Review the class norms.
2. State clear expectations about participation, such as, “It’s okay to refrain from speaking. However, everyone will participate by exemplifying support and respect.” Or, “Everyone speaks once before anyone speaks twice.”
3. Provide time for students to prepare by jotting down their thoughts in a sketchbook before diving into a discussion.
4. Make it a game with activities like the Fish Bowl or Inner/Outer Circle.
5. Sit in a circle to encourage face-to-face interactions.
6. Try elbow partner or small group activities for the first few questions to build confidence. Work your way up to whole class discussions.
7. Pass a special object to promote active listening. Only the student holding the object can speak. Make it fun, and use an art-themed prop!
8. Employ a one-minute timer when speaking. Timers force students to pare down what they say to the essentials and promote consideration for others’ time.
9. Use “I” statements.
10. Snap fingers when someone says something that is profound or resonates with you to show support without interrupting.

Art is everywhere; it covers and connects all disciplines and content areas. Because of this, art critiques can get a little messy when an artist’s intent or an artwork’s subject matter is on a sensitive or controversial issue. Even when we are looking at and discussing artwork made in our art rooms, providing feedback can be tricky! Because our young artists pour themselves into their masterpieces, it can be hard to separate comments about their artwork from their character and identity.

The scaffolded strategies and tips above can help create a studio environment that welcomes constructive criticism with less hurt feelings and personal slights. Build trust and positive relationships through team building, a focus on “I” statements, active listening, and a show of support and appreciation. If you decide to dive in deep with your students, prepare to be blown away by their insightful thinking and passion!

How do you foster open-mindedness in the art room?

Share a critique or discussion activity your students get excited for.

The post How to Help Your Students Learn to Talk to Each Other Again appeared first on The Art of Education University.

Let’s look at six activities to get your students to investigate an artwork more closely.

For more tips to get your students passionate about looking at and talking about artworks, take a look at the Pack, Strategies for Student Engagement in PRO Learning. This short yet packed series of professional development videos and resources is facilitated by Chelsea Fleming, AOEU’s K–12 Professional Development & Curriculum Specialist and a former middle school art teacher and instructional coach. Check out Chelsea’s tips to keep your students interested and actively participating throughout the entire period. Read how to get your district or school to cover PRO by checking out this article and filling out this quick contact form.

1. Give One, Get One

Each student writes down three things about anything they see in the artwork. Pair students up. Each partner takes turns sharing one thing they saw. They also write down their partner’s observations. This is a very simple way to get students to see artwork from another person’s perspective.

Take this activity one step further.

Students share how their lists differed from their partner’s and hypothesize as to why!

2. Hidden View Drawing

Pair students up. One student gets to see the artwork, and the other does not. The student who can see the artwork describes the piece to their partner. The other partner draws and tries to replicate the artwork as close to the original as possible. The final reveal or comparison is great fun and usually full of laughter. This is a great activity to practice how to describe an artwork and hone communication skills.

Take this activity one step further.

Ramp up the challenge by timing the activity!

3. Four Corners

Get those kinesthetic learners up and moving with this game! Label the four corners of your room with the letters “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D.” Project an artwork with multiple-choice answers that align with the four corners/letters for all to see.

For example, a fill-in-the-blank statement can be, “The element most used in this artwork is ___.” Corner A is Line, corner B is Shape, corner C is Texture, and corner D is Value. Students go to the corner they believe is the best answer.

Take this activity one step further.

Post a different artwork (by students or a master artist) in each corner. Students go to the corner with their favorite artwork and use unit vocabulary to share why it’s their favorite. If using student artwork, post exemplars from a different class section, but cover the names so no one feels singled out. Call on students to justify their answers.

4. Fish Bowl

Arrange students in two concentric circles. The inner circle is students in the fishbowl. The outer circle is students observing the “fish” in the fishbowl. Students in the outer circle are not allowed to talk. They write questions about the artwork on a sticky note or small scrap of paper. Fold or crumple the papers and “toss” into the circle to “feed the fish.” Encourage the outer circle to write down questions that build upon previous answers and consider how much “food” is in the bowl at once. The inner circle students talk and answer the questions passed to them. Students switch circles halfway through so each student can ask and answer.

5. Snowball Responses

For a great winter activity, draw a snowman on a whiteboard or large piece of paper and place it in an emptier part of the classroom. Show an artwork and ask a question. Students write their responses on a piece of paper, crumple them up into a “snowball,” and throw them at the snowman. This is a safe way to share ideas and opinions anonymously.

Take this activity one step further.

Transfer this activity to a check-in. Ask what questions students have about an assignment or how they are feeling that day.

6. Inner/Outer Circle Discussion

Similar to the Fish Bowl game, arrange students in two concentric circles. The inner circle faces out, and the outer circle faces in, so both circles of students are facing each other. Each student is paired with one student facing them. Provide prompts or questions and a timer for responses. After each prompt or question, one of the circles rotates. This gets students out of their seats, interacting with multiple peers, and it literally keeps the discussion moving.

FLEX Curriculum not only has hundreds of lessons aligned to all 50 states’ standards, but it also has tons of student-facing resources. The Inner/Outer Circle Discussion handout is a fabulous example of one of the resources. It includes a visual with written steps of the activity. To learn more about this resource and the many other features of FLEX, fill out this quick contact form.

Take this activity one step further.

Do this as a peer critique! Each pair gives one “glow” and one “grow” piece of feedback before rotating.

What do all of these six activities have in common? They all make looking at and talking about art fun! These activities help students feel safe to share, challenge them to talk to each other and work together, and get them out of their seats. All of these benefits contribute to deeper interactions with art and with each other. Your class will be a place your students look forward to attending for the rest of the year, and it will give them positive memories to look back at and remember for years to come.

What is your favorite fun activity to get your students talking about art?

Which activity will you add to your toolkit to try this week?

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The Comparative Study is one of three required IB Visual Arts assessment tasks and is worth 20% of a student’s final examination score. This task will stretch your students’ observational habits and higher-order thinking skills. Students pursue research, analyze artworks, and make informed connections. Their study results in a visually enticing, written digital presentation. Although the Comparative Study assignment is specific to IB Visual Arts, the strategies and lines of inquiry can be used in all types of art courses and levels. These ideas lead to the heart of art comprehension.

Some of your students may start their IB experience with an enhanced understanding of art analysis. However, many students will need your support to analyze art with an informed approach.

Let’s look at the requirements for the Comparative Study. We will digest the assessment criteria and walk through three inspiring strategies to support your students as they analyze art.

Unpack the Comparative Study at a glance.

The Comparative Study requires students to identify at least three artworks, artifacts, or objects created by artists from different contexts. This is an externally assessed task. Students submit their work to IBO’s website as a PDF file in April (northern hemisphere) or October (southern hemisphere). The Comparative Study looks different for students enrolled in the Standard Level (SL) or Higher Level (HL) course. Be sure to refer to the IBO Visual Arts Guide for detailed instructions and our overview article. The article features a download with an at-a-glance look at the assessment requirements.

Expose students to artists and encourage their use of visual journals.

It’s never too early to introduce artists to your students! To start with, plan to expose your students to different art movements and traditions. Include artists from different time periods and various geographic or cultural backgrounds. Research and investigation into these domains will support students’ brainstorming processes. Students will need your support to apply best practices for art research. Ideally, your students will uncover the work of artists whose work resonates and holds relevance to their artmaking. As students gather information, they can document their findings in a visual journal. This artist research should also inform work in their Process Portfolio and Exhibition assessment tasks.

Support your students as they select artists for their study.

At the start of their first year in IB, tell students to watch for artists whose work and life are of interest. Students must arrive at their choices for the Comparative Study on their own. As their teacher, you can guide them to make artwork selections that fit well.

Students must select at least three artworks to compare from a minimum of two cultural contexts, including:

• Time periods
• Geographic locations
• Artistic movements
• Socioeconomic factors, such as race, class, culture, or religion

Students will need to draw conclusions about the impact of an artist’s world upon their work. Thus, students must consider artists’ unique backgrounds during their art analysis. You may be uncertain about the distinction between cultural contexts within a student’s selection. If you have doubts, advise your students to find a third artist from a third context for comparison.

Develop guiding questions and review vocabulary with your students.

Before you get started, review the assessment criteria of the IB Visual Arts Guide. Pretty hefty terminology is used in the Guide, and this might not make sense to students. Your students will need scaffolding to understand what is required within each markband of the rubric. Try breaking down the content into smaller pieces.

Here are some guiding questions to get started:

• What do you see? How do the elements and principles work together to communicate an idea?
• Why was the artwork made? Does the artwork have a practical function or a conceptual purpose? What do you think the artist was trying to communicate?
• How did audiences receive the work at the time in which it was made? How did art history or art theory inform the work? Were culturally-specific materials used? Did current events from the time influence the intent?
• How do the works compare to one another? Is there a theme, material choice, technique, or genre that connects the selected works?
• How might you present your ideas in a visually engaging way? What new vocabulary can you apply to your study?
• How did learning about other artists and their works influence your artmaking ideas? What do you notice that is similar in your work? What meaningful takeaways do you have?

As you support your students through the process of art analysis, review fundamental concepts, such as the elements and principles of art and design. Check out 3 Helpful Elements and Principles Downloads to review these concepts. Using the Feldman Method of Art Criticism, shared by the North Carolina Museum of Art, will provide practice with applying art vocabulary. Gently guide your students to use their vocabulary effectively and accurately. It may be helpful to place a copy of the Glossary from FLEX Curriculum in a central location within your classroom.

While students are engaging in the process of research, be prepared to review your school’s academic honesty policies and referencing style (MLA, APA, etc.). Within the Comparative Study, it is imperative that students cite sources for each image. Their citations should include available information, such as the title, artist, date, and medium. Students must also acknowledge and label their own artwork for the sake of clarity. Students are not assessed on their academic honesty, but, if the Lead Examiners suspect plagiarism, they will flag a student’s work for review.

Here are three inspiring strategies to help your students develop their art analysis skills.

1. Make art analysis a routine practice.

A frequent complaint by art educators is there isn’t enough time to share art history in their classes. Build in routine art analysis activities to get your students to observe artwork. These exercises don’t need to take long! Warm up your classes with a daily slide on a single artist relating to the unit you are guiding. Integrate daily routines to generate thoughtful visual journal reflections and verbal discussions. With regular art exploration, your students will acquire the necessary tools to build a critical art analysis.

Here are three fun warm-ups you can do with your students this week to sharpen their art analysis skills:

1. Scaffold student thinking with these three simple questions using Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS):
   What do you see?
   What do you see that supports this?
   What else do you see?
2. Bring in student choice. Challenge your students to research and share an art slide once per week. Ask each student to moderate their discussion using VTS.
3. Visit Project Zero’s Toolbox for Thinking Routines with Art or Objects. Some fun ideas they share include See, Think, Wonder and Think, Puzzle, Explore.

2. Collect art images and create an art historical timeline with your students.

Collecting colorful art postcards, calendars, and old art history textbooks is an excellent habit to develop. Whenever you visit an exhibition, look around for free postcards or brochures. Keep an eye out for secondhand art history textbooks and, yes, cut them up! You will find it’s not difficult to amass a variety of images that might pique your students’ interests.

Label the dates on the back once you have gathered two or three dozen images. You can use these materials in a 45-minute lesson with your students. There will be several teachable moments to plug in some gaps on art history during this activity!

Here’s what to do:

1. Set up adjoining tables to create room for making a timeline.
2. Spread out the art images on the tables, ensuring dates aren’t visible.
3. Ask students to arrange the images in order from earliest to most recent.
4. Challenge your students with questions:
   Can you explain your thinking?
   What makes you so sure?
   Is there anything here that seems out of place?
5. After students finish, offer suggestions and insights to stretch their thinking further.
6. Pin some of the postcards up on a bulletin board. Add in labels of major art movements alongside key dates for future reference.

3. Help your students visualize their thinking.

The Comparative Study presentation should include written introductions, analyses, and reflections. However, students also need to visualize their thinking. Guided exercises will enable students to independently analyze artwork in their sketchbooks or digitally.

Here are five ways students can visualize their critical art thinking:

1. Detailed Sketches
   Create detailed sketches of artworks to help students slow down. They will begin to notice the finer details of a work of art. Sketching artworks is especially helpful at the start of the Comparative Study.
2. Venn Diagrams
   Venn Diagrams are a great way to compare details of the study. Students can compare the elements, principles, and media applications between various pieces.
3. Mind Maps
   Mind Maps help students visualize their observations and brainstorm possible interpretations. Mind maps are an excellent tool for HL students when they connect their artwork and the Comparative Study.
4. Timelines
   Timelines require students to do a bit of research. Students also consider the important events of the period that shaped the artist’s life and work. By visualizing the artists’ lives, students can make deeper connections.
5. Complexity Scales
   Use a Complexity Scale. Students write down less complex ideas on one end of the scale. Then, they add more complex ideas to the other end of the spectrum. As students grow in their critical thinking skills, they can reorganize their scale. The scale allows students to understand their developing interpretations and evaluations.

Like all art analyses, the Comparative Study may feel overwhelming for students at first. Art analysis asks you and your students to take a deep dive into the worlds of artists. This is no easy feat! Taking the criterion one by one, you will start to see the benefits of this assessment task. The Comparative Study can weave through the Exhibition and the Process Portfolio work. In this way, it contributes to a more holistic understanding of art during the two years of IB Visual Arts. Understanding the big ask of students within the Comparative Study can ultimately support students of all levels as they build upon their research and analytic skills.

How do you use visual journals to think through your ideas?

Which aspects of the Comparative Study are you most excited about?

The post 3 Inspiring Strategies for the IB Visual Arts Comparative Study appeared first on The Art of Education University.

The goals of student-centered learning and teaching are to:

• Help develop critical thinking and self-reflection skills.
• Provide space to self-advocate in the learning process.
• Give enough room to fail and learn from missteps.
• Show specific techniques for accessing the information relevant to their interests.

Four artistic processes can help facilitate successful student-centered learning:

1. Self-reflection
2. Critiques
3. Artist statements
4. Curatorial rationales

Are you finding it difficult to figure out how to teach these processes and fit them into your curriculum and limited class time? Let’s look at these processes, their purposes, and how and when to teach them to your students at various ages and grade levels. We even have a handy packet for you to download so you can easily reference all these tips and strategies.

Self-Reflection

“Self-reflection basically gives us an opportunity to pause and look back so that we can look ahead with more passion and vitality.” Self-reflections are a way for students to document what they have accomplished and what they have learned. They can engage with artistic thinking about how they envision their work or discover what skills they need to develop. It’s also a way to document ideas the current work may inspire. Students can find solutions to design problems they will encounter later in art class or other contexts later in life.

Self-reflections can include information the student will need when they return to class. Examples may be how to mix a particular color or questions they need answers to before moving on. “Looking back so we can look ahead” is important for students to recognize their progress and accomplishments and be motivated for their next work session.

In K–12 art education, we want students who put deep thought into their work and ideas. It is important for students to step back and evaluate their work with a critical eye and be able to envision what their next steps are. We want them to develop all of these skills as habits of mind. Artists, designers, engineers, or anyone trying to solve a problem in their community or workplace engages in self-reflection. Honest, thoughtful reflection is an essential life skill. Self-reflection should be taught and modeled at the beginning of the year, then openly expected for the remainder of the year, and retaught and reinforced as needed.

Lower Elementary Grades and Struggling Writers

Use questioning strategies and allow students to verbalize answers:

• What is your work about?
• What is the most important thing people should notice?
• What did you learn today?

As students move from kindergarten to first and second grade, increase the complexity of the questions:

• Why did you choose those colors?
• Is there anything you need to learn how to do to complete this work?
• How did you use (whatever skill you taught, such as layering colors with crayons or color pencils)?

Upper Elementary Grades and Strong Writers

Try these as sketchbook prompts or exit tickets as often as possible: 

• Use sentence starters to guide students’ thinking and writing.
• As students get older, increase the complexity of the questions and the expectations for the depth of their answers.
• Model the process with your own artwork by thinking aloud and showing them how artists use self-reflection.
• Try artistic habits as springboards for self-reflection.

Middle School and High School

Set expectations on day one for self-reflective thinking:

• Use daily exit tickets using focused, self-reflective questions.
  What did you focus on today?
  What is the most important thing you accomplished today?
  How are you using (contrast) in your work?
  How did you decide to ______?
  How do you feel about what you did today?
• Use weekly reflections to focus on what they have accomplished and learned and plan out their next steps.
  What new skills/techniques did you develop this week?
  What did you accomplish this week, and what will you do next week?
  What might you need to improve/refine before continuing your work?
• Teach them how to identify what they need to learn to improve the quality of their work.
• Model the process with your own artwork by thinking aloud and showing them how artists use self-reflection.
• Use questions to guide them while they work on a piece. This webpage has questions organized by various stages of creation.

Critiques

A critique is a detailed analysis and assessment of something. In our case, it’s artwork. But a critique is more than saying what you like or don’t like about a work of art. It’s also not about getting or giving a grade.

“Rather than coming from a place of judgment, critiques can be used for educating viewers on an artist’s practice, understanding the intent of a body of work, or providing comments that strengthen an artist’s creative endeavors.”

Critiques should provide an honest look at students’ work in a positive, nurturing, and collaborative atmosphere. They provide an opportunity for students to accept and incorporate criticism into their work to refine and improve it. This will develop critical skills for our students’ futures, as critiques often mimic work performance and project evaluations. For students to become willing participants and open to feedback on their work, first focus on making critiques fun and useful.

Set the stage for constructive critiques with these two tips:

1. Conduct historical and contemporary art critiques, but save the Judgment component for another time. This will allow students to focus on the process rather than on judging the product.
2. Focus on a particular aspect of the art and/or a concept you are teaching.
   What elements and principles did the artist use to create emphasis?
   How did the artist use contrast?
   How does the color contribute to creating a mood?
   What is the theme/idea of the work?
   How do you know this?

Lower Elementary

Focus on celebrating their ideas and work, as well as getting used to sharing in front of the class with these questions and prompts:

• Tell me about your work.
• Where did you get this idea?
• I like the way you (colored in the sky all the way down to the ground.)
• I wish (the dragon was larger since it’s the most important part.)
• Here are some fun, creative ways to conduct critiques to develop a positive mindset around the refinement and revision of student artwork.

Upper Elementary

As students advance through the grades, have them do peer-to-peer, small group, and whole-class critiques during the creation process as well as when students finish a piece.

Ask these three questions of viewers and then ask the artist if there was something they missed or misunderstood:

[special-list]

1. What do you see?
2. What do you think/feel?
3. What in the artwork makes you think/feel that? 

Middle School and High School

First and foremost, create a positive, nurturing mindset for critiques. Set strict ground rules similar to these:

• Emphasize that it’s about the work, not the person, and the student artist must disassociate from their work during a critique.
• Focus on the goal of a critique, which is to analyze.
• Conduct formal, scheduled critiques as well as impromptu, informal ones when you see a student “hitting a wall” or needing some constructive feedback.
• Differentiate between the roles of an Artist, Viewer, and Moderator. Read the Beginner’s Guide to Constructive Critiques for helpful information.
• Check out these 15 Questions to Inspire Quality Art Critiques. For a quicker, more informal critique, try the three questions method mentioned above for Upper Elementary.

All Grades

Try Pair-Share or Gallery Walks with these questions for both work-in-progress pieces and finished works:

• Which artwork shows the best use of contrast?
• What title would you suggest for this piece?
• What is a question you have about the work?
• What do you see?
• What do you think the work is communicating?
• How is this different from the artist’s intent?

Artist Statements

An artist statement in K–12 art education is a short narrative about an artwork. It is generally written in the first person. It goes into more depth about the artist’s ideas and inspiration. It also helps the viewer understand the work.

Artist statements are generally written about a single work of art. Several unrelated pieces in an art show by one artist may include a different statement for each piece. Some teachers use artist statements as an assessment tool for completed work. Regardless of how you use them, consider what you will have students focus on when writing their artist statements.

Additionally, the writing prompts or questions should be constructed so that students are being asked to consider their prior self-reflection and critique feedback in their writing. Although self-reflection can look similar, artist statements are a culmination of the self-reflection that has taken place during the creative process and from engaging in formal and informal critiques. It is noteworthy to add that students must first be adept at self-reflection at all points during the creative process. This will help them become effective participants in individual or group critiques. It will also help them write interesting and informative artist statements.

Teach artist statements as students begin to finish their work and ready it for display. Whether you use the artist statements as an assessment tool or for an art show, be clear about what students need to be thinking about. Tell them what the expectations are, and show them some examples of well-written artist statements, along with some that are not.

For non-writers, try these two ideas for artist statements:

1. Audio or video record their responses and create a QR code to display with their work that will take the viewer to the recording.
2. Transcribe their responses with the help of parent volunteers, older students, and/or teacher assistants.

Elementary

Create a template for students to write their artist statements in Grades 2–5. Scaffold the forms for various writing levels by using sentence stems for beginning writers. For older students, provide questions with set expectations, such as complete sentences and two sentences or more per answer. As a baseline, some teachers require one sentence per grade level.

In Engaging Learners Through Artmaking, Katherine Douglas and Diane Jaquith suggest using these prompts:

1. Tell me about your artwork.
2. What do you want people to notice?
3. Where did you find this idea?
4. How did you make this?

Middle School

Continue to provide a variety of options for students who may still struggle with written expression:

• Allow video or audio recordings.
• Provide sentence stems and questions.
• Provide peer assistance where appropriate.

High School

Provide differentiation as needed and appropriate, but also demand more depth and critical thinking about their work.

Focus on these three tips:

1. Give clear directions and criteria.
2. Emphasize the purpose for completing them.
3. Display a typed version with their work.

Middle School and High School

Check out this guide to writing well-written artist statements appropriate for all secondary students.

Artist Statements as Assessments:

Many teachers use self-reflection as a formative assessment and artist statements as a summative assessment. Below are some ideas and tips to make this happen successfully.

• Compose process displays as artist statements that contain images and descriptions of the work in progress from beginning to end, along with the finished work. This can be done online or as a physical display.
• Use a blog platform for artist statements and process documentation. Students can leave feedback and questions through the comment feature.
• Write an artist statement for all completed work, whether or not it was successful.
• Articulate what was learned in the process, even if it was deemed unsuccessful. One can learn as much from a failed work of art as from a successful one!
• Require the appropriate use of art vocabulary.
• Adjust the artist statement prompts to hone in on what your curriculum is focusing on.

Having students write artist statements to address meaningful and relevant prompts will aid them in articulating their artistic process. It will also provide you with a way to grade them on their process rather than their product. When students know they are being graded on the process and not the artwork, they will focus on the process more. Consequently, their artwork will improve. All of those students who are afraid of getting a bad grade because they “can’t do art” are now focusing on something they feel they can control.

Curatorial Rationales

Curatorial rationales, such as those used in International Baccalaureate (IB) Schools, are different from artist statements. In IB schools, visual art students are required to create a final display of a coherent body of related works. This display is accompanied by a curatorial rationale, which an examiner uses for assessment. “Writing the Rationale is part of the process of self-reflection, decision making, and of understanding of [sic] the relationship between artist and audience.”

Because IB Schools focus on critical thinking skills, curiosity, and solving complex problems, these rationales go into greater depth than the traditional K–12 artist statement. However, the idea behind this process can also be implemented in general high school art classes to add an important and stellar writing component to your curriculum. It can be a great authentic mid-term or final exam instead of the traditional test format.

For more submission details on IB curatorial rationales, check out this article. Take a look at an excellent example of an IB student’s rationale here.

The curatorial rationale is generally broken down into three parts:

1. Overview, Concepts, and Ideas
   What is your work about?
   What are the underlying themes or threads?
   How did your theme come about?
   What are the concepts, issues, or ideas you have explored here?
   How are they linked in your work?
   What experiences have contributed to the making of this work?
2. Selection of Works
   What materials and techniques have you used?
   Why did you choose these?
   Do the materials have an impact on the meaning of the work?
   How do you justify your selection of works?
3. Relationship With the Viewer
   How does the way the work is presented contribute to how it communicates with the viewer?
   How did you consider the arrangement of the works within the available space?
   Do you have an overall vision for presenting this body of work?

Here are some journal reflections to help students brainstorm and process before writing:

• What media do you work with?
• What interests you about this type of work?
• What themes, concerns, and ideas have you explored in this work?
• Is there a relationship between the media you used and the ideas you worked with?
• What outside interests, artists, encounters, or experiences have influenced your work?
• What ties your individual pieces of work together into a cohesive body of work?
• Is there an “intention” behind the work?
• What do you want the work to achieve?
• How do you want your audience to experience it?
• How have your display methods of display (how the work is arranged and presented) contributed to the viewer’s experience?
• Imagine you could have any possible space or display method. What is your vision for presenting this body of work?

Why is this important?

These artistic processes are embedded within the National Core Arts Standards. Instruction and expectations for these processes should be included in all art curricula that strive to meet the NCAS.

Read the standards again closely and see how these processes align with them:

• Anchor Standard 3: Refine and complete artistic work.
  Enduring Understanding: Artists and designers develop excellence through practice and constructive critique, reflecting on, revising, and refining work over time.
• Anchor Standard 4: Select, analyze, and interpret artistic work for presentation.
  Enduring Understanding: Artists and other presenters consider various techniques, methods, venues, and criteria when analyzing, selecting, and curating objects, artifacts, and artworks for preservation and presentation.
• Anchor Standard 5: Develop and refine artistic techniques and work for presentation.
  Enduring Understanding: Artists, curators, and others consider a variety of factors and methods, including evolving technologies, when preparing and refining artwork for display and or when deciding if and how to preserve and protect it.
• Anchor Standard 7: Perceive and analyze artistic work.
  Enduring Understanding: Individual aesthetic and empathetic awareness developed through engagement with art can lead to understanding and appreciation of self, others, the natural world, and constructed environments.
• Anchor Standard 8: Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
  Enduring Understanding: People gain insights into the meanings of artworks by engaging in the process of art criticism.
• Anchor Standard 9: Apply criteria to evaluate artistic work.
  Enduring Understanding: People evaluate art based on various criteria.

Engaging students in meaningful self-reflection and critiques as well as writing thoughtful artist statements and curatorial rationales will ensure students are meeting these standards.

These processes are also essential to building 21st-century skills. The Brookings Institute conducted a meta-analysis of education department documents across several countries. They identified several common skills and competencies across all national documents.

The most common skills and competencies cited were:

• Critical, innovative, and reflective thinking
• Reasoned decision-making
• Communication
• Collaboration

The art classroom is where these skills and competencies are explicitly and methodically taught and applied every day. Art educators stand at a fork in an important road. One way takes us to more budget cuts and less art instruction for students. The other way takes us on a path to advocate for our subject matter. These skills are important for all students to develop. We need to show the relevance and significance of art education in targeting these skills. If we do not teach them, who will?

So, how do you fit all this in?

As stated above, these processes fall under the umbrella of the NCAS and should be built into your curriculum. These are not add-ons or extras. They are essential parts of your curriculum. Weave them into your daily routines in order for students to adopt them as habitual ways of working and thinking. Taking the time to model, teach, and reinforce these processes will go a long way in making them part of your classroom culture. How you teach each of these processes will be different depending upon the grade level you teach, your schedule, and the academic abilities of your students.

It is important to remember all students need to know:

• Why they are doing these things
• The purpose of each process
• How it will benefit them in the short and long term
• How to engage in each process
• What artists think about while they are self-reflecting
• Questions artists ask themselves
• How artists reflect on, react to, and use the feedback received during a critique to refine, improve, and finish their artwork

Teaching any process without putting it in a meaningful context is not going to create the buy-in from students we want. Show them artists are not just born with the knowledge and expertise to be brilliant artists. Instead, they use these processes to become better at their work.

When your scheduled time with a group of students is limited, look at ways to scaffold these skills across grade levels. Most students in elementary will have the same art teacher (or two) every year. It is manageable to scaffold and build these skills across grades.

In middle and high school, try to collaborate with your colleagues in scaffolding and building these skills across grade levels. Subject area departments should always vertically align the curriculum in order to build the skills and competencies from grades K–12. Include these processes in the curriculum so all students can have as much exposure to and practice with them as possible.

Teaching students how to self-reflect, participate constructively in critiques, and write strong artist statements or curatorial rationales will not only improve their artmaking but also provide them with essential life skills. Not all students will pursue art after graduation, but we can equip them with the essential skills of self-reflection and communication through writing. Start by trying out these processes with the tips and strategies outlined above. Strive to create an atmosphere where all of these processes are expected, transparent, honest, and useful to your students. This will allow them to successfully navigate the 21st-century world in which they live.

National Core Arts Standards (2015) National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. Rights Administered by the State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education. Dover, DE, www.nationalartsstandards.org all rights reserved.

NCAS does not endorse or promote any goods or services offered by the Art of Education University.

What struggles have you encountered in implementing these artistic processes, and what solutions did you find?

How will you introduce these processes to your students next year?

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