HIGH SCHOOL

Kenge.

Frank Juárez

Art students often find it difficult to express themselves through the written word. Give them a canvas, brushes, and paint, and they have no trouble expressing themselves through color, but if you try to engage them in conversation about art, they freeze up. Thatʼs why we need to offer our students multiple opportunities to talk and write about art.

Making Art Personal
For the past couple of years, I have been incorporating more writing into the curriculum. If you ask students to write a research paper on an artist, you often sense that theyʼre not truly committed to the task but are just trying to get the thing done to satisfy the requirements for a grade. You might have more success in getting some genuine reflections by encouraging students to write about whatever is on their mind.

You will be surprised at how invested students become when you make art a personal journey, as it is in your own artistic life.

You will be surprised at how invested students become when you make art a personal journey, as it is in your own artistic life. We encourage students to explore different media, but how often do we encourage them to explore their own personal thoughts on what matters most to them? A couple of years ago, I asked myself how I could make art more relevant to my students’ lives. Thatʼs when I designed a printmaking unit I called Whom Do You Look Up To?

Johnathan.

Whom Do You Look Up To?
In this unit, I asked students to pick their own subject matter (a person) who had meaning to them. They learned the basic techniques of printmaking, and produced an edition of five prints, which they titled, numbered, and signed. From the edition of five, students each selected their best print. This print was matted with two window openings—one for the print and the other for a paragraph about the subject of the print.
Ask any art teacher what they want students to take away from their art room, and most likely they will tell you that they want them to be better communicators. Reading my students’ writings has provided me with a way to look at them through a different lens.

Sydney T.

Frank Juárez is the head of the art department at Sheboygan North High School in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, founder and publisher of Artdose magazine, and a contributing editor for SchoolArts magazine. frankjuarezgallery@gmail.com  
Whom Do I Look Up To?