Rejuvenate your Creative Battery

Hello again, I hope you are enjoying your summer and are taking time to rejuvenate your creative battery. When we are working with our students, the hardest thing for them to understand is when we critique their work we aren't talking about them but how to make their work better. Students have a tendency when confronted with any type of criticism to say well I like it that way. You have to develop an atmosphere of trust in order for students to open up to each other. They have to understand that what we say to them is to help them get stronger, get better in their work. So how do we frame the criticism so that they listen and then apply it to their work.

Think back on that first critique in college when the instructor was brutally frank and burst your bubble. Somewhere along the way we have to learn to divorce our ego and listen to what people are saying that will help us make our work stronger. It doesn't mean you are a bad artist, it just means we all have things we can work on to make our work stronger. I always like to frame my remarks to students by having the strengths discussed first and then have each student tell them one thing that could make the work stronger. We end discussing the strengths and then what they heard they would like to try to improve their piece.

Sometimes it is difficult to get them to open up and you have to build a sense of team and support. I always start with general questions for them to share the first few minutes of class. Like what their favorite flavor of ice cream is? Who is their favorite super hero and why? What super power they would like to have and why? What person living or dead would they like to talk to and why? We share these and I answer them also as it builds that sense of knowing someone more than just by name. We use this to build a foundation of trust to start our critiques. The first few critiques are by works from the teachers and other students not in the class. As we go through the discussion I ask them to write down in their journal what they got out of the session and how they will use the information in their work. I hope by opening them up before we begin with their work it becomes less a personal affront and more of a learning experience.

Set ground rules in the critique. No this sucks or that's awesome. They have to be specific and explain what something works or doesn't. We always start looking at the strengths sandwich in the criticism and end with the reflection on the positive and how they will use the information. I hope as you are planning for the next school year you will think about talking to your students and evaluating their work. You can start in kindergarten and teach them how to talk about art and appreciate the work for its merits and possibilities. We build better problem solvers when we get them to reflect on their work.

-Rosie Riordan