Norms and Procedures

Norms

Courtesy to Art of Education University.

Of all of my learning experiences from my teacher apprenticeship, one particular lesson stands out as the most humbling. Leading a discussion in which students were asked to describe school so as to choose an idea or feeling they would represent with an abstract painting, the answers were mostly negative. Almost worse, many of the contributions were also unthoughtful and indistinct. 

Teaching the lesson again, I knew I had to provide scaffolding for the discussion and reinforce my expectations in other parts of other units. I wanted students to feel comfortable expressing themselves, but I also wanted them to be mindful and creative. I wanted them to think like artists, and I wanted that to be a classroom norm. 

Students are more attentive to rules when they get to take an active role in generating them. I’ve seen this happen in the short term, like when introducing new manipulatives, like mirrors or wooden blocks, and programs like Capturing Kids’ Hearts are predicated on it happening in the longterm; teachers and students cogenerating a social contract and following it for the entirety of a school year. 

My strategy for establishing norms in the art classroom: Ask students, “What do you think it means to think and act like an artist?” 

Routines

One of the most prevalent routines in the art classroom is the “Demo” (or, demonstration) where the instructor models a new technique or strategy, ideally self-narrating or doing a “think-aloud.” It’s literally imperative that students know what’s expected of them during this procedure. (An opportunity to ask: “What do you think your job is during the Demo?”) If students are distracted or disengaged, the Demo becomes a waste of everyone’s time, especially the instructor’s. I’ve developed a checklist for the procedure after several unsuccessful Demos: 

Self-narrate: The instructor should be calling attention to whatever thinking strategies they’re using while modeling the new content. (Demos are inherently visual; the self-narration component adds another sensory learning modality.)

Checking for understanding: The instructor should punctuate each step or big idea with a question. 

Reteaching: The instructor should be prepared to describe or show something in a different way if the Demo doesn’t clearly communicate their expectations. 

The other important “D” in art classroom routines is documentation. Students should, with help from the instructor, ultimately take responsibility for documenting their work, and more importantly, their thinking. 

Instructors should absolutely document student work, but establishing clear expectations for how students should document their thinking helps track growth and identify students’ strengths and challenges. Sketchbooks and artist statements are excellent opportunities for students to document their thinking, and in my ideal future classroom, those practices become a habit. Documenting work and thinking creates data, which informs assessment and lesson design, and helps students show the instructor how best to teach the content. 

Artist statements for my "Color Forms" project provided a great deal of insight into what I might change about the lesson in the future.  

Sharing artwork and thinking should also be routine; students should have multiple opportunities to share with varying levels of stakes. While all students should be made to feel confident in their work and open to feedback, only a small number of students will want to put their work under the document camera in front of the whole class. Other, more low-stakes options, are “Paper Tweets,” or a classroom bulletin board/discussion forum, where students can share thoughts and work indirectly, and on their own time. (This is, notably, also a strategy that Emdin advocates for in For White Folks.)

A classroom Twitter board, which incidentally provides students the opportunity to adopt self-affirming pseudonyms. Courtesy to Linda C. / From Surviving to Thriving.