Critiques in the K-12 Classroom

The readings from this week focused on critiques and how they are used in the classroom. Students K-12 do not know how to critique art. The traditional method of having the student hold the piece of art up while the rest of the class comments on the piece is not effective. The way to make critiques more educationally beneficial is by talking about description, interpretation, and theory.

There are many different ways to approach a critique.The article Critiques in the K-12 Classroom hi-lights some of these methods. Hartung's method is to provide students with cards which have written terms such as line and contrast on them. Students will then place their cards on the work that best exemplifies the term. The "put your two cents in" method works by giving each student two pennies. Each student places his or her pennies on the two works which they want to discuss. Another method is called "PQP" which stands for praise, questions, proposals.

Whatever the method is, the teacher must lead students by asking questions that direct the conversation. This will help the conversation to develop slowly, instead of just jumping ahead to the judgement stage of the critique. For example, the teacher may first only ask students to describe what they see rather than what they think the meaning of the work is. The teacher must guide students through each phase of the critique; description, interpretation, analysis, and judgement.