How should an elementary critique be run? Critiques can be harsh in college. I had a professor tell me how he had his peice ripped up in front of the entire class during a critique. Thankfully, I've never had a critique that harsh.
Critiques for elementary students are a completely different ball game. The main purpose of an art class for younger grades is to promote a love and appreciation of art- not scare them away with feelings of inadequacy. On the Kennedy Center's ArtsEdge website, it emphasizes that the teacher should lead the critique in a positive direction, prompting students with the right questions to help them hone their persuasive, oral and writing, information-gathering, and justification skills.
I have had really positive experiences with critiques and have gathered what I thought was constructive. My professor would usually ask the artist what he thought of his piece, to describe it to the class, and at the end, asked the artist to identify things he would change, wrapping up with constructive criticism. For elementary students, I don't think any realm of negativity should exist in the critique, but I think the aspect of the artist presenting the peice is an important component of a successful critique. Shirley Ende-Saxe, a teacher at an elementary in Ohio, wrote of how she had the artist run the critique, giving them the freedom to call on classmates once the critique was opened for comments.
I once had to judge artwork of the Reflections Contest, a PTA art competition. It was one of the hardest things! Children are so creative, but sometimes their motor skills aren't completely there, and it's hard to judge the level of effort and craftsmanship. The reason I bring this up is because I had to decide which piece was better than another, comparing them side by side. This is NOT the mindset we should be in at a critique. It is so important to avoid comparisons; rather, we should completely focus on each piece one at a time.
As an art teacher, I plan to post up the students' art and go through them piece by piece. I'd let the student tell about it, then open it up for positive comments and let the student call on them (I really liked that idea!). I'd prompt questions if necessary to emphasize judgment, description, analysis, and interpretation, then wrap up each one with my comments. This way, I feel like I could keep control of the class, boost the confidence of each student, and help students learn how to critique.
In FranCoise Barbe-Gall 's book How to Talk to Children about Art, he writes that we need to educate kids about paintings by artists as diverse as Botticelli, Vermeer, Degas, Chagall, and Pollack. In addition to critiquing each other's art in an elementary class, I think teachers should consider choosing a piece of fine art each day for the students to write about, then talk about it once they've thought through their responses. I think analyzing great artwork would greatly benefit the discussions in classroom critiques.
If a teacher can initiate and maintain a positive atmosphere for students to think and talk about their artwork, guided by questions and inspired by analyzing recognized artworks, critiques are a positive activity for a classroom of any grade level.http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/3338/
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+elementary+critique%3A+talking+about+children%27s+art-a09048848
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Caitlin--
ReplyDeleteDid you ever find your text book? I hope so. You make some wonderfully thoughtful and sensitive arguments in this post. I agree--I think many times the key is asking students penetrating questions that will make them think. Do you have any ideas of what those questions might look like?
I haven't found it! It's a little frustrating when the office (where I hope it is) is only open from 9 to 5- the exact hours I'm in class. I did email them though, so I hope to be hearing back. If not, I'm going to bite the bullet and buy another second hand one!
ReplyDeleteWith questions, I think questions definitely depend on the assignment and the age of the kids, but some general ones could be: What do you like about this picture? How does this picture made you feel? What do you like about the colors they used? What's your favorite part? For older kids, you'd want to focus on questions dealing with what you've taught, such as: What do you think the focal point of the picture is? How did they make a clear emphasis? How did they use color or composition to their advantage? Haha, I hope I can think of good questions depending on what I really want them to learn!