Artist Statement Form for Middle School

I love to have my students write about their work. Even the littlest people can have a lot to say about their creations! Also, having the students self-assess their work is part of the National Core Art Standards...

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!

End of Semester ART Portfolio Self-Assessment

One of my goals at the end of the semester is making sure that the students leave the art room with ALL of their work. This isn't an easy feat with Middle School students, but I wanted to make sure the students realized that the work they had done with me was important and special--special enough to make it home and possibly shared with someone. What we do in the art room is important and needs to be handled as such. Here's what I came up with...

For the sixth grade students, I took a large piece of white drawing paper I had folded in half to create a folder for each student. I attached the following forms to the outside of the folder:

Portfolio Self-assessment Form by Mrs. P @ CreateArtWithMe.blogspot.com

• A checklist of all the projects they created during the semester as well as a self-assessment for their effort during the semester. 
• The Art Portfolio Self-Assessment form that you see above. 

A couple of days before the end of the semester, students were handed an empty folder with these sheets attached to the outside and needed to do the following:

1. Finish all of their outstanding projects
2. Gather all of the projects listed on the checklist and put them inside the folder (names on everything!!)
3. Complete the self-assessment regarding their EFFORT
4. Complete the PORTFOLIO self-assessment
5. Pass their completed portfolio and forms in to me to review

This worked wonderfully! Once students passed in their completed portfolios I had everything in one place so that I could complete their grades and once the grading was done, I could pass the whole thing back to the students who had a nice way to carry their work home with them.

Having the students complete the self-assessments was also a win/win. Students were able to communicate with me about how they felt they did during the semester and I had that information as I reviewed their work. The portfolio self-assessment form was short, but allowed the students to look at all their work as a whole and comment on it. I think many of the students were surprised to see everything they had done and how well they had done it! I received comments such as "I didn't know I was an artist!" and "Wow, I can't believe how much stuff I did!" Completing the portfolio self-assessment also led to a richer class discussion on the last day.

This was a great way to wrap up the semester--I definitely plan to do something like this again!