When I was at Amherst Middle School, 7th and 8th grade students needed to write artist statements for their final projects, but I also dabbled with having the 5th and 6th grade students create them as well. I found that quality artist statements took a bit of prompting, so I created this Artist Statement Worksheet to get them started. Once the students had this form in front of them, the quality of the artist statements increased dramatically. Sometimes filling out the form was enough, but with the older students, I had them use this as a "rough draft" and students needed to type their final artist statements in Word and print them out to be displayed alongside their final projects.
Do you have students write artist statements? What do you ask them to include? Let me know in the comments below!
This is exactly what I was looking for in my effort to get my students to learn to talk about their art. Thank you so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteYAY! SO happy that you can use this in your own classroom. It really is super-helpful to get them writing really nice statements about their art (beyond the single sentence!). It is also designed to make it a stress-free experience for you and them. ENJOY!!
DeleteHi, I love your form. I have some of these same questions on my form for my students. My question is with grading. I just love to read what the students write however my administration is telling me to grade them the same as literacy teachers are grading essays. How do you grade the artist statements?
ReplyDeleteHi, I love your form. My students answer some of these same questions for their artist statements. I have a question about grading them. I love to read what the students write and I think it gives me insight to what and why they have created their art. However my administration wants me to grade them using the same rubric the literacy teachers use for essays. I tried to explain that the purpose was different from an informative essay. How do you grade the artist statements from your students?
ReplyDeleteHi Kim-Thank you for stopping by! I can see your dilemma with regards to grading the artist statements that students are writing in the art room. I'm not sure I can answer it at this time, but I have reached out to some other art educators to see what they do and then I'll let you know how I handle it in my art room. Perhaps together we can give you a few perspectives...I will be in touch shortly--thank you for your question! Warmly, Mrs. P
DeleteI know this post is rather old, but when I was teaching middle school art, I gave them a grade based on whether they answered the required questions or not, and if they had written "enough". I asked for 1 sentence per grade level as a minimum. I gave them prompts about describing the appearance, materials, process, and intention, as well as how they felt about the finished piece.
DeleteYay so glad that I found this in time for kids ART CAMP next week!
ReplyDeleteSO glad it helps! I really love using the form and hope it worked well for you. Thank you for visiting!
DeleteDo you have similar form for elementary school? Thanks! :)
ReplyDeleteHi Jane-I don't have one of these specifically for elementary school (although I have used this for grades 4 and 5). For the younger grades I usually choose one or two points I want them to write about and have them do that on a separate sheets of paper I attach to their work (along with artist's name and title of the piece).
DeleteHi is there a way to download this? It is great thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteHi there! I uploaded it to me googledocs. Try the link at: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Byb1fmno7uIvWkVSX1M1MjJzRm8 and you should be able to access a pdf of the file. I;m glad you find the form useful. It's my go-to artist statement form! Enjoy!
DeleteYou are the coolest for sharing with everyone! I just happened upon your page while trying to find an artist statement template for my middle schoolers to do during this online fiasco called Covid... can't wait to get back to normal teaching again. Thank you
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