Blog #12 VTS 2 Peer Critique

Blog # 12

Peer Critique: 5/8/12

Teacher: Amy Ruopp

Student:  Emily Grade 7

She was not present for the critique. I did a side by side of two pages which dealt with the same assignment.  

This day over half the class was out on a field trip, so only ten students were present.

WOW.  It took a few minutes to get into the meat of the discussion, but once we did, they got it.

At first, I think they were hesitant to discuss too much of what they thought it might be about.  They instead, focused on the composition.  This is different than what they usually do when they are looking at an “artist” example.

Eventually, Sky, an 8th grader was brave enough to mention the mythical power she knew       this student was working with.  Once she did that, she started to weave a story which connected the imagery to the idea.

The strengths of the VTS process with in the context of a critique is that they look at more than the story.  They start to see why an artists does things, not just what they do. 

It was a building process, but after they broke down the literal objects in the composition (almost threw them back into a early stage one viewer) they then moved into more of a why and the story.  I think doing this more often will make the process easier. The first time is always a little scary.

             I found that using this as a critique, I also had to question  (in VTS style) a little differently.  For instance, when Sky started to make connections to Emily’s big idea, I asked her what she remembered or knew about Emily’s Mythical ability that made her say that.  So she had to qualify her comment not only with what she saw, but with what she also knew based on an interaction with another student.  It was interesting.

The only weakness in my opinion is that with another less narrative or open ended assignment, technical problems might be harder to address... however, I think with practice this could be resolved in some creative manner. 

My students are pretty used to VTS now, and used to talking and sharing in general so this approach worked well in my situation.  In someways, the more general questions make it feel safer since no one has to come up with a “right” interpretation.

I do think sometimes a photo loses something in the translation. After we were done talking about the artwork, they asked to see the real journal and it was there further discussion spontaneously occurred as some of the finer details lost on the screen because evident close up.  I might try doing some detail photos or partial compositions.