Grading Artwork, Or, The Bane Of Every Art Teacher's Existence

Image found via Google search and sourced on this site: wecreatearttutorials.blogspot.com.

As an art teacher, I think the only thing worse than grading is having to sit through irrelevant professional development. I know, I know, we are all language/math/whatever teachers. But that's a topic for a whole other post so let's get back to grading since it's the next stop on my classroom tour. This chart is between my desk and the whiteboard so it's in a prominent place in the studio.

At the beginning of the year I have a conversation with all of my students about craftsmanship. This magical and mysterious word encompasses the skills, knowledge, and behaviors my students are expected to demonstrate to achieve mastery of our objectives. For administrative purposes, craftsmanship is graded on a 1-4 scale that measures performance on at least two standards each term with a separate behavior grade. I have put in a lot of time writing rubrics and standards in student-friendly language, which I will share in my project posts. Today, I'm talking about a more holistic approach to grading that can be applied in any art classroom. 

When I asked students what "craftsmanship" meant they used context clues to relate it to sportsmanship but in the art room. Close, but not quite how I want them to think about it. I believe that grading artwork is extremely difficult because art is subjective and art students will not enter or leave the classroom demonstrating skills in the same way. To them, I say art is different than a class like math or science because in those classes you are trying to find the right answer and providing too many wrong answers will get you a bad grade. While I am not offering a choice-based art program (maybe someday) I do try to empower my students to make creative choices in their projects so they feel inspired to solve art problems in a variety of ways. Bad or wrong "answers" in the art room typically revolve around harming materials or disruptive behavior.*

I encourage my students to use the craftsmanship chart at every stage of their project not just when they are contemplating the final product. The craftsmanship definition on the left provides questions for students to reflect on their work. Next to that are pictorial examples of different levels of mastery. I liked one example I found on Pinterest so much I pretty much copied it verbatim since I don't like reinventing a perfectly good wheel. Someone named Mrs. Dodson came up with the original and I thank her for it, wherever she is. Each level of mastery is associated with a scale grade as well as an emoji because I'm a hip teacher. Just kidding (but for real though). Actually, emojis are the best way I've found to represent how I truly want students to reflect on their work and how that translates into a report card grade.

A student who meets grade level expectations will receive a scale score of 3 on their report card. This is connected to the regular happy face emoji. I turn to students and say, "This emoji shows how you feel about your artwork - happy and proud - just like your friends and family will feel when they see your artwork." I believe it's important for students to consider their audience when reflecting on their work because professional artists often make work that is meant to be shared with others. Many a student has gone back to work after being asked if they would be proud to show their project to their parents. It's been an effective deterrent to students who rushed through their work and cheekily announce that they are done. Not so fast if it doesn't pass the refrigerator test. Scale scores of 4 are rare and I explain that students must do work that exceeds expectations. In student-ese, I say that exceptional work looks like it was done by an older student. 

Conversely, scale scores of 2 represent work that doesn't quite meet expectations and is not on grade-level. Check out the emoji and notice that students/family/friends will feel sad and disappointed when they see work like this. If I score students at a 2, especially in the beginning of the year I mean it as a wake up call. When I discuss craftsmanship with students I explain that earning a 2 means something went wrong and they didn't produce their best work. This usually happens for a couple of reasons: 1) they wasted work time by being off-task or managing time poorly; or 2) they didn't ask enough questions to clarify their understanding to make sure they knew what was expected. As a teacher, one of my chief responsibilities is conferring with students to check their understanding but I refuse to take sole responsibility for this. Students must also recognize when they have a breakdown in understanding and learn how to seek help. This is one of those life skill moments when I'm setting up students for success by simulating real life in a low-risk setting. If they don't know what their boss expects of them someday it isn't totally up to the boss to seek out each employee to make sure they know what to do. Especially if you have 350 employees, I mean, students, that you see twice a week. Scale scores of 1 are just as painful as the wailing emoji and I don't go into too much detail with students - this grade means something went terribly wrong and you are way off track. Your work would only pass the refrigerator test if you were in PreK.

Students like this system because it's visual and easy to understand. They've even offered to create examples to expand the scale from 0-5. I like this system because it gives me several different ways to give feedback and prompt students' best work. Both of us have a common vocabulary to describe the process and the resulting product. 

How do you explain craftsmanship to students? Do you have a grading philosophy?

Artfully,

Catherine

*As an aside, there is also a debate about whether art should be graded more rigorously on how well students demonstrate performance skills as they would in other classes. With students at a primary level, I feel like art class better serves them by celebrating individual progress rather than focusing strictly on uniform mastery of techniques.** Older students who choose art as an elective can and should be held to different standards; they've chosen to devote a significant part of their advanced studies to this subject and failing to grade them rigorously ill-prepares them for judgments in the real world. Back in elementary, my has been experience that as students develop awareness of themselves in relation to others that their perception of self quickly dissolves into black-and-white/I-can-or-I-can't with a very fixed growth mindset. Whether students use their art skills professionally or not someday matters very little to me. Art skills can benefit people in many professions and I want my students to develop a lifelong appreciation for art. Furthermore, I hope all of my students feel comfortable with art-making so they can use it as a healthy outlet and have the confidence to undertake creative projects, whether that's DIY or a hobby.

**Note that I separate performance skills and perception or explaining understanding. Students who may struggle to communicate their ideas visually should be able to explain either verbally or in writing about the process of art-making, historical connections, and contemporary relevance.