Managing the Art Room: Cultivating Good Habits

Wait, what? We have homework for art class?” This is a common response from sixth-grade students after I present their first homework assignment. For some time, I contemplated whether homework should be a component of my art curriculum. Some of these considerations included:

Grading homework takes too much time and energy in an already demanding discipline.
Students have enough homework already.
If I assign homework, students might not enjoy their art experience.
On the other hand, I believed I needed to assign homework to validate the importance of the art program; having no homework could convey that art is an “easy” course that lacks the inquiry of other disciplines.

Why Homework?
After years of reflection and implementation, I am convinced that homework should be a fundamental part of my art curriculum. It reinforces the concept that art-making should not take place only when students are in the art room. I want my students to become active makers of art and develop the ability to be critical, analytical observers of their visual world.

I design my homework assignments to foster these habits. They are developmentally appropriate to each grade level and supplemental to the work we do in class. The drawings are recorded in a sketchbook that students maintain throughout their time in the middle-school art program.

As we know, many students moving into their middle-school years become hyperaware of their drawing capabilities. To shift this focus, sixth-grade homework assignments emphasize the importance of the idea over technical drawing abilities.

Daily Drills
This practice is implemented during the first couple of weeks of sixth-grade art with three- to five-minute daily drills. Students are asked to visually articulate their best idea in response to prompts such as drawing an idea for another use for a CD or for shoes, etc. I encourage students to move beyond typical responses. When I ask students to draw another use for pizza, it often generates ideas such as pizza frisbees or pizza wheels for a car. To promote deeper thinking, students are encouraged not to use those ideas.

Following the drills, students walk around the room and consider a favorite idea generated by a classmate. This practice provides early opportunities for students to become more comfortable with sharing their work.

Sixth-Grade Assignments
These drills serve as the groundwork for week-long homework assignments. I ask students to invest an equal amount of time in both the idea and the development of these drawings.

Homework assignments are treated like the daily drills; when the assignment is due, students walk around the room to view each other’s work and share their favorite ideas. They quickly learn the power of humor in these exercises. One assignment requires students to design a cereal for adults and one for children. Some of my favorite adult cereal titles include Espresso O’s and No LIFE!

Seventh-Grade Assignments
Seventh-grade homework assignments are more contemplative, asking students to think expansively about their place in the world.

One assignment asks students to utilize the image of the Earth to create a meaningful illustration. When the assignment is due, each student is allotted thirty seconds to present to the class the meaning behind their idea. These opportunities help students build a skill set for verbally articulating their work.

Eighth-Grade Assignments
In eighth-grade, students can elect to take art, which traditionally indicates they will pursue their interest in the upper school art program. Within this framework, homework assignments center on building a technical skill set and correlate with in-class work.

For example, self-portraits are an annual eighth-grade unit of study, with slight variations from year to year on how the final product is executed. In one unit, homework assignments focus on observational drawings of the eyes, nose, and mouth of prominent historical figures. Referencing these individuals and their stories allows for deeper thinking about oneself and the world.

Another homework assignment focuses on the study of the human eye and requires students to utilize well-known images of Martin Luther King and Sharbat Gula, the Afghan girl whose portrait famously graced the cover of National Geographic in June 1985.

By the time my art students leave eighth grade, my hope is that they have developed their ideas through artistic behaviors that extend beyond their time in my classroom, and that they continue to refer to their sketchbook as a place of journaling and recording those ideas. Designing art homework assignments that are fun and thought-provoking can help to cultivate these habits.