Ap Mark Making and Student Voice in Studio Art

Whether you are new to AP or a veteran instructor, scheduling and pacing are e'er challenging. While everyone's school calendar looks a fleck different, there are some universal ideas to help prepare your students for the submission deadline. Let's accept a look at a few tips to get you started.

For a broader overview of Advanced Placement Art and Design Portfolios and the changes made to the construction and assessment of the grade, check out this article starting time. It fifty-fifty includes a handy download that outlines all of the requirements in i place that y'all will want to bookmark or print now!

Here are nine tips to guide your planning and the support of your AP students:

1. Get to know your students through their artwork.

Sometimes students come to us without having taken an fine art grade prior. Or mayhap they came from another fine art instructor, and you take no idea what skills they take. A not bad manner to start this procedure is to ask students to create a mini portfolio of five artworks. This curated grouping of "historical bests" not simply gives students a chance to evidence off their favorite artworks but also to provide explanations. You will become a quick sense of what skills need further evolution and back up. You will also exist able to encounter the media, techniques, and personal aesthetic students are bringing to their portfolios.

2. Showtime off with intentional warmups.

While the "breadth" section of the portfolio no longer exists, these types of artworks make bang-up assignments in AP prep classes. Fifty-fifty if y'all don't have any prep courses, these warmup artworks are a neat way to start the year and get back into the rigor and pace expected for AP.

And then, what do these expect like? Consider art prompts that are open for interpretation just allow students to explore conceptual thinking while pursuing the media and techniques of their choice within their designated portfolio rubric requirements. Prompts such as "inside out" or "movement it" push students to interpret, research, and respond with their own voice while addressing foundational visual art concerns.

iii. Do creating around the rubric.

Understanding the AP rubrics is a challenge in itself. Help students connect with the language through their artmaking. For instance, students might not sympathize what "synthesis of media, ideas, and processes" ways but by reading the rubric. Provide practice prompts such as "create a self-portrait using nontraditional materials and techniques." These artworks oftentimes work well for selected works or to propel student interest into their Sustained Investigations.

Go along to introduce and discuss artists who demonstrate these large ideas. Take a look at artists such as Merritt Johnson, Julie Mehretu, and Marking Bradford. Analyzing language with concrete examples volition help students connect with the rubric expectations.

4. Transition into the Sustained Investigation.

As you prepare for the Sustained Investigation, know that students will need assistance developing enquiry questions that are both broad and specific. It's a strange concept! When students start out, they should accept a question that isn't too generic that provides likewise many paths to pursue with trivial focus. Practice developing inquiry questions and honing in on what interests students before they spring into their work.

Remind students that this tin be a rabbit hole equally they wind deeper and deeper into their portfolio journeying. Don't be afraid to introduce new media and techniques, fifty-fifty when students are deep into their portfolios. Intermission up the intense continued piece of work with some prototype transfers or papermaking. You never know if or how students volition integrate these fresh ideas into their current artwork.

v. Support writing with routine do.

Writing can be catchy for many students. After students have started their first few pieces of the Sustained Investigation, have them draft an artist statement. I often exercise the first ane without any support so I tin run into how a student writes and thinks nigh their piece of work. And so, analyze real-life creative person statements. Take a await at how contemporary artists ask questions and how their piece of work responds visually. Identify how their artist statement pulls out evidence from their work to back up their investigation and body of work. Students can rewrite their statements to reflect what they have learned, engage in critiques, and make several drafts before their concluding submission.

Beyond the statement, students demand to practice writing almost each artwork. The portfolio has a stringent character count to express the ideas, processes, and media for each artwork. Creating a portfolio template in a slides program provides a framework for students to organize their work and consistently do writing and fitting ideas into 100 characters.

half-dozen. Look ahead at schedules and pacing.

This is probably the trickiest piece to go students ready for submission. You might take one semester to prepare students, or you might have two years with a prep plan. Some teachers outset school in late July, while others start in September. The borderline for submission, however, is the same for all students. You lot will have to look at the unlike ideas presented and consider what will piece of work for your students in the time you accept with them.

Because students don't have to submit a required number of artworks for the Sustained Investigation (which is upwards to xv images), it tin can exist especially hard for teachers to gear up deadline expectations. A dandy fashion to combat this is to expect progress images and pieces of writing biweekly. Equally students certificate and share their procedure and finished work, y'all get the unique opportunity to requite them consistent feedback. Then, students can go dorsum and revise their work. A bonus of the biweekly cheque-in is that students terminate upward with documentation of multiple versions, which is some other big piece of the AP portfolio expectations.

Because students by and large struggle with time management, try using a weekly goals sheet. Students can identify their large goals and suspension them down over time (a week, a twenty-four hour period, that hour) to decrease the likelihood of procrastination. Making this a routine practice in your classroom supports studio habits and will integrate seamlessly into your education.

7. Assess educatee work with consequent feedback.

Teachers all take different philosophies when it comes to grading. Focusing on the assessment of each student's portfolio through consistent feedback is where students will thrive. Retrieve, the portfolio is most building works over time, including revision. While the overall idea of each of the AP Art and Design Portfolios is the same, each of the three portfolios is assessed differently through the lens of specific art and design challenges. Make sure to always refer back to the AP rubrics equally you lot assess and provide feedback.

8. Prepare for submission.

This is truly the most stressful time. The final ii weeks is normally a major button, leaving teachers wondering how students will e'er pull it off. In the weeks earlier submission, students should make sure they take good quality photos of their artwork, images are resized per the requirements, and artwork is prepared to be shipped past matting, backing, or protection in the provided portfolios.

While some teachers start their students uploading artwork along the style, others prefer to expect. Curating work and uploading in the terminal week can aid streamline the final submission process. Retrieve those slide presentations you have been working on all year? Now you can reorganize the artwork organization, tweak the language, then only copy and paste directly from the slides to the submission portal.

One pick may be to asking an in-school field trip. Students are pulled from class to take AP exams in other content areas, yet fine art has an 8 p.m. EST borderline. While this won't stop you from nagging students and pushing the "frontwards to AP Coordinator" push at 7:59 p.m., it can definitely keep information technology to a minimum. By assigning half-day field trips for groups of students, y'all can help them submit their piece of work at that moment. Any number of issues popular up at the concluding minute. Existence together to troubleshoot significantly decreases everyone'southward stress.

nine. Celebrate!

Creating an AP portfolio is quite the journey! Don't forget to celebrate this huge feat. First, make certain to download a PDF version of the portfolio after submitting it. This serves as a record of what was submitted for the student, and it also serves as an case for future classes.

Create a tradition to signify each student's submission. It was an exciting honor to ring a bell when a student completed their submission in my AP grade. It might sound a bit cheesy, just those students couldn't wait to ring the bell and share their success with everyone.

If you still have time left in your calendar later portfolios have been submitted, permit your students bask in each others' amazing accomplishments. Equally deadlines loom near, students frequently don't have the opportunity to view others' work. Share final portfolios through a presentation party and celebrate with the "oooh's" and "ahhh's" from their peers.

As a teacher, you also deserve huge kudos! You take just finished a yr of guiding your students through the AP procedure. This included worry, feet, stress, and excitement. Bask a overnice dinner, get a manicure for those poor nails you chewed upwards, sleep all weekend in your pajamas, and vow to never teach AP again… Just kidding.

As students progress into advanced levels with less instructor instruction and more studio time, it tin can be difficult to know how to create a successful pacing schedule. Take a await at your practice and consider what supports need to be put into place through each stage of portfolio development. In the first, students need more time to learn, practice, and experiment. In the cease, the schedule needs to be more virtually the logistics driven by checklists and deadlines. All along the way, students nevertheless need teaching and support where they are at in their journey. Teaching AP is both exhausting and incredibly rewarding. Make sure to celebrate the journey with your students, who are both unique individuals and a accomplice of amazing artists.

For more than conversations around AP Art and Design, cheque out these ii podcast episodes:

1. Breaking Down AP Portfolios, Part ane (Ep. 289)
2. Breaking Downwardly AP Portfolios, Role ii (Ep. 290)

How exercise you lot set your AP students up for success?

What are your favorite strategies to back up students through portfolio development?

In what ways exercise you and your students celebrate later on submission and throughout the year?

Mag articles and podcasts are opinions of professional educational activity contributors and do non necessarily represent the position of the Art of Educational activity University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors utilize terms in the way they are nearly often talked near in the scope of their educational experiences.

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Source: https://theartofeducation.edu/2022/02/25/feb-9-ways-to-plan-for-and-support-students-through-the-ap-art-and-design-portfolio/