Critique

    In thinking about Critique in the classroom, I realized I don’t have any experience leading a critique as the educator, but only my experience participating in critique as a student.  This lead me to think about the variety of experiences I have had over the past years, and, as I just responded to Moana, I also believe the good and bad experiences are equally as valuable to me at this point.

Overall, I remember my most positive critique experiences to be the ones in which myself and other students could share constructive criticism and observations of each other’s work, in an environment in which we were not worried about what we said or being too critical.  In these classrooms, the goal of critique seemed to be both appreciation of the work we had done by our classmates and maybe our teacher, as well as critical viewing and suggestions for how we could push our work further.  While I don’t remember explicitly being told how the critique should occur, I’m sure I was given some general guidelines at one point early in college.  In researching critique online, I came across the website of Marvin Bartel, (a veteran art educator) who has written about critique, provided a Student Critique form that can be printed and used, and also provided many other links to topics related to art education.

As I read over this Marvin’s student critique form, I decided I liked the idea of a form to help students organize their thoughts during critique.  As a student, I had never used a physical form like this in my classes, but I could see it being very useful, especially with high school students, an audience that would likely use critique in class, but also that would be fairly new to it.  What I liked best about Marvin’s form was that it stresses what the student sees, not what they like or dislike etc.   For students who are new to the process of critque, I think it would work well to hand out these sheets ( or something similar) and give them about 5 minutes to look at the artwork in question and fill them out.  It would be a way for them to have notes for discussion, and also could provide some written documentation of peer observations for the student artist whose work is the subject.  I am curious to hear what others think about using a form like this in critique.   Do you think it would be useful for students or just get in the way of discussion?  Would you only use it with a certain age group?

Marvin Bartel also has a page on “Successful Art Class Critique” which has some interesting ideas.   Overall, his ideas are helpful to me, especially since they address holding a critique directly from the educator’s point of view.  He details exactly what he does in critique, including using his form.  One thing I questioned was when he says he tells students to remember, “ The Platinum rule is: ‘Try to write what you think that person wants to hear‘.  The Golden rule would be nearly as good, ‘What you would like to hear.’ “  I don’t understand why you would want your students only to say/write what others want to hear.  That may be very encouraging, but how would we ever progress?  I am kind of hoping that I am misunderstanding Marvin a bit, because I like his other ideas.  For example, in the next sentence, he says, “ I ask students to avoid all judgmental comments.  I stress description, analysis, and interpretation.  These are comments that say what we see, why it makes an impression, and what it might mean or how it makes the viewer feel. No one is say, “I like . . .”  or,  “I don’t like . . . “  I ask them to simply say, “The first thing I see is . . . “  “This ____ stands out for me because of the . . . . (size, color, brightness, placement, subject, etc.) contrast.”   I think this is great critique form to stress with students.  For many students, I imagine it is hard or unnatural for them to refrain from value judgements.

I think successful critiques can lead to constructive criticism on student work, valuable peer evaluation, and eventually, a mindset better trained to view art in general.  If students get used to viewing art and thinking and talking about what they see instead of what they simply like and don’t like, they can apply this to all art they encounter.