Talking about Art and Using Critiques in the Classroom

Chapter 3 of Talking About Art, by Terry Barrett described critiquing processes that are helpful in the art classroom in ways that teach students to interpret and talk about art.  Important questions to ask are:  what do you see?  What is the artwork about? And how do you know?  These questions help students interpret artwork and encourages them to provide evidence.  Barrett explains that the description and interpretation should occur simultaneously.  The chapter also discusses the difference between the artist's intent and the viewer's interpretation.  Barrett described a situation in which a student was reluctant to participate in the critique and argued that his artwork had no meaning because he didn't put meaning into it.  The teacher and other students had found many possible meanings, but he maintained that there was no meaning.  The student that had made the artwork believed that it was wrong for a viewer to assume that they know the meaning, but another student argued that the viewer brings their own ideas to artwork and create their own interpretation.  The teacher handled the situation by telling each student that they were making good points in their debate, and cited a professional that had similar ideas about artist's intent being essential to interpretation.  In the end the teacher agreed to disagree with the student, and the class had learned a lot from the discussion.

"Using Critique in the K-12 Classroom," by Nancy House, discusses different methods of critique.  House explains that the difference between a studio critique and art criticism is purpose.  The purpose of art criticism is to help a public audience understand art.  The purpose of a studio critique is to improve the artwork and share ideas.  Studio critiques should be similar to art criticism by including more description, interpretation, and theory than just focusing on technique.  Jane Stevens refers to typical studio critiques as "ring around the tub" and describes them as boring and tedious because the students discuss the works by moving around the room.  By the time they get to the last works, the students are bored and participate less.  House gives examples of alternative critiquing methods such as the PQP method.  This method encourages students to give praise, ask questions, and offer proposals of how they think the work may be improved.  House also describes the teacher's role during critiques.  They should balance being overly responsive and not responsive enough, provide expert knowledge, and ensure that important issues are covered by leading the discussion.  House warns that teachers should not influence the conversation with personal bias. 

Fieldwork

Last week at Rondout Valley High School, our mentor teacher let me and Jen put student work on display.  She also let us see how the students were being graded and talked with us about some of the works.  The students made self-portraits using contour lines and wrote a couple of paragraphs about their work.  Their written work was displayed along with their self-portraits.

This week, Jen and I did a demonstration of drawing a face.  Jenn demonstrated the block-in method of outlining basic features and filling them in with more detail.  I demonstrated outlining the proportions of the face.  The demonstrations were based off of the original slideshow that our mentor teacher was going to use to introduce the lesson.  The portfolio development class that we taught takes place in a shorter period than the others.  Most blocks are over an hour long, but the second block of the day is called the skinny.  It is only a half hour long.  We decided to skip a powerpoint and only do the demonstrations so that the student could start their projects.   Our demonstrations took ten minutes, leaving the students almost twenty minutes to work.  As they got started, we walked around the room and gave the students advice if they seemed to be struggling.  Overall, the lesson was a success and the students got a good start on their self-portraits.