I’ve been delving into Teaching for Artistic Behaviour, and have also acquired the wonderful book, The Open Art Room by Ian Sands and Melissa Purtee. The goal is to encourage real artistic behaviours as well as offer opportunities for choice.

I’ve tried two new procedures in the last while, with grade 12s. I’ve given them a reflection sheet where I included relevant artistic behaviours such as risk taking and experimentation, as well as originality (that were two of the success criteria) and asked them to rate themselves. Interestingly, they were quite honest and some were even quite hard on themselves, indicating that they needed to be more original and not rely so much on reference photos.

The other procedure I asked them to do was to submit an artist proposal at the beginning of a Surrealism unit. I explained that it was formative (not for marks) and would give me an opportunity to understand their thinking about the next project, to offer feedback, and to give suggestions. I’m finding this is working quite well and it is steering them in new directions and getting them to slow down and consider different ways to experiment with their art.

I’m grateful to Sands and Purtee for sharing their expertise, and to my Facebook PLN groups, especially TAB High School!