First off, I found it strange that the author of this writing posed as a high school student.  I believe it would have been a much more powerful and persuasive article if it was an actual student’s thought process.  Although  the journal entries are based on prior research, and an actual assignment based on Mr. R’s classroom. I feel that the writing style gives it less validity.

The actual content and “golden thread”  of  informing your art work seems to be a great teaching strategy that allows for DBAE style of teaching.  Also it enables students to see how art is related to the world around us. Researching artist and artistic themes opens up students to the work and choices that help them see deeper insight into their own work. I liked that each day in class they build on the previous, from figure drawing, to critique, to research, and then painting. It can be easy not to make connections in art class, especially if  it is a product based style of teaching.

I’ve been trying to figure out ways to incorporate student research into my classroom, however I have no more tables  and only one internet connection. I recently had my students divided into collaborative teams to find out information about printmaking artists. I gave each group a manila envelope with visuals, and a variety of artist biographies per artist, and they made artist fact cards with their research.  I try to help my students inform their work with videos. When I started to teach my elementary kids about printmaking I used a short video http://www.5min.com/Video/Inspiration-of-a-Printmaking-Artist-391422143 they seemed to like it especially be interested because the artists subject was animals.

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