Critical Thinking

Reorganized Knowledge

Analyzing - Evaluating - Connecting

Analyzing

1. Recognizing Patterns How can students be taught to respond to visual configurations instead of verbal ideas?

2. Classifying Can students learn to see their work in the context of styles from throughout a global art history?

3. Identifying Assumption What can the teacher do to help students be more deeply self-reflective about the assumptions that lie behind their work?

4. Identifying the Main Ideas Are there visual ideas or stylistic tendencies that dominate a student's entire visual production?

5. Finding Sequences Can students find sequences of sketches from throughout their sketchbooks that relate to each other and develop visual ideas in a new direction?

Evaluating

1. Assessing Information How can students be encouraged to develop more sound artistic and aesthetic criteria for evaluating their developing artwork?

2. Determining Criteria How can students develop aesthetic criteria for assessing their work from a global sampling of relevant and related artwork?

3. Prioritizing Of all the possible directions an artwork can be developed, which decisions are most critical in helping the student make the maximum artistic growth?

4. Recognizing Fallacies How can the teacher help students identify their "visual blind spots," areas where they cannot see the weakness in their current artwork?

5. Verifying How can the student be engaged willingly in the process of art criticism and critique, both during and at the conclusion of the visual thinking process?

Connecting

1. Comparing/Contrasting What other artwork from around the globe compares or contrasts most with what the student is currently attempting?

2. Logical Thinking What is a logical and critical argument, based on sound aesthetic criteria, for supporting the artistic visual approach the student has chosen?

3. Inferring Deductively Given the comparisons and contrasts identified in step #1 and the logical argument in step #2, how can the student infer the relative success of their finished artwork?

4. Identifying Casual Relationships How can the teacher help students identify the casual reasons in their visual thinking processes that have contributed to the relative strength or weakness of the final product?

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