Facilitating Engagement with the Art-Making Process

Investigating Ideas and Materials:
Students need experience using materials in order to begin developing conceptual art making plans that use artistic materials and processes. Teachers should guide students down this path by developing investigations using a variety of media that allow students to explore. This article discusses using a "spiral curriculum" in which students revisit materials and techniques allowing them to develop a deeper and more complex understating of the media with each exposure. It is also suggested to allow for opportunities to gain experience with both two and three- dimensional processes to accommodate different forms of expression. This seems like common sense however, I think that three-dimensional art is given a lot less attention in school art programs. I am not especially drawn to one over the other, but in getting to know more artists I am finding that there are many people who feel that their brain just works in either 2-D or 3-D. I think that it is important to allow for these different forms on expression as much as possible in assignments.

Structuring for Creative Thinking:
When introducing an art problem it should be more closed than open. This might seem counterintuitive, but constraints can help to focus a student's work. The assignment should still allow for choice, so that the student has the ability to create meaning in their work. Narrowing the art problem and applying constraints is something that I have struggled with in my previous attempts at lesson planning. My lessons have a tendency to get bigger and wider as I go, so I think it might be helpful for me to start with something small and then look at how it connects to bigger ideas. I think I need to practice planning backwards. This article also the importance of persisting and following through with a process even if you aren't sure how it might turn out. It goes back to the idea of focusing on process rather than product and being willing to explore. There is also value in "working at the edge of one's expertise." This pushes artists to take risks and in turn grow from the art making experience. It is also important to reflect on the art making process. This helps use to better understand what we learned and how we learned it. I think that sketchbooks, in process peer critiques and the cool things that Michelle Livik is doing with Instagram and such are really cool ways of pushing students to reflect.

Forming Elegant Problems:
There are four main characteristics of an elegant problem. Flexibility for a variety of ability levels, choice making, sparks original thinking, opportunity for elaborations, and is worthwhile. Rich art making problems are centered on big ideas. It seems that if we focus on a big idea and follow the other steps outlined in this section, opportunity to explore the media and appropriate constraints, then we will be well step up to have a successful and engaging lesson.

Designing Problems Based on the Real World of Work:
Not only do problems based in the "real world" provide a strong basis for a rich lesson, but it also develops students' skills that are can be used in the work world and shows the importance of artistic skills beyond school. Of course we all know that the type of mental skills developed by strong art lessons are invaluable, but as students, school administration, and parents realize the strength of the work that thinking that these students are doing in art the will see how invaluable it is as well.

Facilitating a Dialogue and Discourse about Student Work:
I feel that this section makes several very important points about discussing students' work. First off it does not have to be in the form of a large all-class critique. Small groups, written responses and self-reflection are all ways to get students to think about the meaning that they are creating in their work and how others are seeing it. I think that in-progress feedback in usually the most valuable to students, but also one of the least well utilized. It is also of the utmost importance that students are given guidance on what is appropriate and respectful in a critique setting. All feedback should of course be constructive otherwise it can become a negative experience for students.

Related Article: Recognizing and Using Higher Order Approaches to Teaching Art by Elizabeth Kowalchuk
This article compared two teachers approaches to teaching portraiture. One teacher's approach was to simply explain facial proportion to students and then have them use a gridded picture to create a self-portrait. The other involved students in looking at art history, criticism, and aesthetics in addition to studio work. Kowalchuk says that having multiple component s like the second teacher leads to high level thinking and understanding.

She also states the importance of selecting "generative topics." Teachers should ask themselves if a topic relates to a variety of other issues, processes, and subject areas. Kowalchuk knows that this type of lesson planning can be time consuming and intimidating, but she suggests that teachers try to alter their existing lesson plans to find ways to incorporate other aspects of art. She suggests in the case of portraits rater than having students just make gridded self-portraits they could look at the work of Chuck Close.

Though I agree that this is a step in the right direction I feel like the Chuck Close lesson has become the stand-by way to teach gridded drawings. Maybe groups of students could look at a variety of different artists and how they approached self-portrait. Self Portrait also lend itself so well to being embedded in the idea of identity. Cindy Sherman and William Wegman are both good examples of other artists to look at for different approaches on portraits. This could allow students to explore the medium of photography which they might have less experience with. It also becomes the much more elegant problem of identity and self representation rather than the problem of drawing you face "correctly." It is important, even if it's through the mode of Chuck Close, that students are thinking about what their self portrait says to their audience. When the students work is discussed they should have more to say about it then the proportions, but we must give them the structure on which to hang a more developed artistic process and product.