Lana Bjornson EPS 541-Final Paper March 23, 2014

Art Criticism Concept Map

My concept map is focused on the question “How can I improve my students language

and skills in order to participate in art critiques?” This question corresponds to the Illinois State

Standard 25.A.5 Visual Arts: Analyze and evaluate student and professional works for how

aesthetic qualities are used to convey intent, expressive qualities and/or meaning. This is a skill

that helps students participate in critical thinking activities and discussions as well as informing

the work they make on their own. In a time when art is becoming extinct in schools across the

nation, I find this standard to be very important in grounding art as a critical component in

schools because it revolves around the analysis and evaluation of visual literacy and is informed

by knowledge and skills that can improve work in other content areas. The main concepts I have

developed to aid my students in their ability to critique art is background knowledge of art,

etiquette for giving/receiving feedback, and knowledge of the steps for art criticism.

The concepts I have focused on are all very much related to and dependent on one

another. For students to be successful in participating in critiques they need to be familiar with

the process and have background knowledge of art to begin with. There is a wealth of

background knowledge that students can have, from their definition of what art is to how to hold

a pencil, and that greatly impacts their ability to speak about and analyze artwork. Additionally,

having the etiquette to converse about art is also extremely important. Both participating in

discussions and being critiqued puts students in a very vulnerable position so it is essential that

students have the language and knowledge to critique each other in order to ensure meaningful

rather than hurtful dialect After establishing what students know and how to participate, students

need to develop an understanding of the steps of art criticism so they can format their responses

to fully engage in critical thinking and gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of works.

To successfully implement teaching this content it is important to understand what

students already know about art. Students may be emerging masters or they may have never even

looked at a piece of art in person. In order to discuss art you need to have some knowledge of

techniques, art history, exposure to art, and the language of art. Students gain this knowledge

through readings and discussions about artists, art movements, art history, and also very

importantly through art making. Art is a great subject because students can learn about a subject

and then turn around and practice what they are learning about. Vocabulary can be developed

through doing rather than just rote memorization. That being said, not all students enter a

classroom with a shared history with art; this is dependent on their school and home experiences.

If students are not art literate then anticipating that students will be able to participate in a

critique is not possible until they develop the tools to do so. These tools would be reading/art

making that is focused on the language needed to critique the specific piece.

Another important part for critiques is having the etiquette to discuss art. This is partially

related to background knowledge in that it is acquiring art vocabulary that allows you to express

your thoughts in clear meaningful ways. Students have to understand how to give and receive

constructive feedback to each other. Participating in critiques of professional work after

watching the teacher model the process can practice that skill. Also students need to understand

that criticism is not meant to hurt other people but rather as a way to help others improve. Giving

students clear procedural handouts to guide them through the process as well as sentence stems

and modeling really helps students understand that structure. Beyond just giving feedback

critiques are a way to practice critical thinking skills.

The steps of art criticism are a way to move students through lower order thinking and

into higher order/critical thinking. Using background knowledge and etiquette students are

prepared to participate in the steps of art criticism. The steps are describe, analyze, interpret, and

judgment. The steps of art criticism very closely relate to the steps of inductive reasoning. The

first step, describe, is the lowest order thinking, all the students do is describe everything they

can see in the picture without giving it meaning or making assumptions. The second step,

analyze, the students use their knowledge of the elements and principles of art to evaluate how

they are being used in the picture. This step is inching up on bloom’s taxonomy, but can easily

be pretty low-level thinking if the students are not pushed to develop their evaluation. The third

step, interpret, is where the students begin to synthesis what they gleaned in the first two steps to

come up with a meaning or intent of the artwork. The final step, judgment, is when the students

perform the metacognitive task of evaluating what they think about the piece. They can simple

judge how they feel about the piece; or this step can be pushed further into inductive reasoning

by adding a reading component about the artwork so the students can learn the intended meaning

and judge if they feel it comes through in the work. The steps should be scaffolded for the

students whether in a discussion or writing so the students will engage in each step appropriately.

Once students have the knowledge and the etiquette to fully participate in a critique then

they will be able to engage in higher levels of thinking while participating. With the background

knowledge to understand what they are seeing and the framework to speak about the work the

students can more freely jump into a critique and quickly build from the lower order thinking

skills to the higher order evaluation skills. After having practice using the steps of art criticism

students will be able to apply them more fluidly and go through the motions without having to be

prompted. This can only be done with modeling, formatting, and practice.

Students must have the all the tools under their belt in order to successfully participate in

critiques. When students try to critique work without proper etiquette and knowledge then they

will only be skimming the surface of comprehension. At first critiques will inevitably be more

surface level and lack much depth no matter how much background knowledge they have. As

time progresses and students understand more about art making, have been exposed to more art

and have practiced participating in critiques more often they will be able to access their prior

knowledge to push themselves into higher order thinking. More synthesis of ideas will occur

because they will have practiced the motions and will not be stumped by the lower order

processes that are needed to begin critical thinking. Salmon, Rossman, Kememy, and Winter

says “Well-learned skills are frequently executed in an automatic way. Skilled performers act in

the moment without thinking or deliberation. They spontaneously know what to do. Deliberate

skill-building through repetition or frequent practice can result in this kind of automatic action

(2).”

Students are bound to have misconceptions at the beginning of a new unit or process.

With critiques student misconceptions will be easily seen during discussions or by reading their

writing about critiques. When using the steps of art criticism it is easy to see where students are

slipping up and that gives the teacher a guide of where they should focus their energy to correct

their thinking. If the issue is in understanding the elements or techniques the artist is using then

the students obviously need to spend more time learning about and using different techniques. If

a student is using language that is disrespectful during a critique then that is a conversation that

needs to be had with that student on etiquette.

Through practice I would like to know more about student knowledge. I have strong

foundation in content knowledge and instructional strategies however student knowledge is ever

changing and I feel it is very important to successfully instruct students. While I feel as though I

have a good idea of how to guide students to where they should be it is very dependent on what

they have been exposed to and how they comprehend the steps of art criticism. I want to set

benchmarks and find ways to monitor my students reaching those goals.

Performance tasks would be the best indicator of my growth because I would be able to

analyze student knowledge and know how to support them further. Performance tasks could be

art making in itself to learn whether students have the procedural knowledge to be able to discuss

it. It could also be written critiques of student/professional works. Additionally participation

during class discussions is a great indicator of their ability to access and apply their knowledge.

Comparing student growth from the beginning, middle, and end of the year would be a great way

to compare how much students have learned.

Art critiques effectively engage students in many types of thinking. This is very

important because the skills students need to have and gain from participating in critiques can

transfer over to skills students need to perform well on standardized tests. Art critiques promote

critical thinking as well as drawing from visual evidence to make claims. Guiding students

through the thinking to successfully critique a work of art can also help their own art making

because they understand how to incorporate meaning into their own work.