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|  | Help for New AP Studio Art Teachers
For a beginning AP Studio Art teacher, getting started can seem like a monumental task. The main points I emphasize to those I mentor is to take "baby steps," experiment, and be willing to take constructive criticism from art colleagues. As one person, you can't do everything, but you can anticipate problems and plan successful, more sophisticated lessons for your advanced students. I strongly suggest that you obtain the AP® Studio Art Course Description from AP Central® or the College Board Store and that you visit the AP Studio Art Course Home Pages.
AP Studio Art Course Description (.pdf/2.3MB)
 AP Studio Art: 2-D Design Course Home Page
AP Studio Art: 3-D Design Course Home Page
AP Studio Art: Drawing Course Home Page
For more guidance with your program, convince your administration to send you to an AP Studio Art workshop or summer institute for beginning AP teachers. Workshops run from half a day to two days, and AP Summer Institutes are usually five days. Here your mentor instructor will help you fully understand the AP Exam requirements. These instructors are trained to evaluate the studio art portfolios and many have taken part in the annual evaluation of student work. Reviewing the student samples and participating in some mock Reading sessions will give you a better sense of the quality of work that is expected of your students and how to better arrange their work in the portfolios.
Evolution of an AP Studio Art Program
At my high school, AP Studio Art evolved out of a small group of upper-level students whom I met during the school day during my prep periods for independent study sessions. These students had taken all of the art courses we offered at the time and had work that I considered to be near the capability of a college freshman entering art school. I met individually with each student and reviewed his or her portfolio. During these early critiques, I pointed out each student's strong qualities and helped them plan a strategy to enhance their weaker points. I met frequently with each student and monitored his or her progress. As the year went on, I began to ask my students questions to help them find a personal style, or what the AP Exam Readers call the "artist's voice": Are you sure this work is complete? Where are you in this painting? What would you do to improve this work? These questions became the guiding standards we used during our continuing open dialogues while debriefing works. Helping the students hit their stride verbalizing about their works as well as seeing them progress into the art production mode was something that I always looked forward to.
These original few students were basically seeking help from me to assist them in organizing a portfolio for college entrance. What they didn't know at the time was that they were going to be the first students from our school to submit portfolios for AP credit. What I didn't realize at the time was that they were also setting the standard by which we would evaluate other students who followed. In just three years, our independent study portfolio group grew to 12 students, and we created an AP Studio Art course. As our program quickly expanded to 20 students, one of the problems we faced was how to coordinate lessons that would continue to challenge all students and help them grow. The other important factor was, would their art be unique and original enough to stand out and be recognized by the AP Exam Readers as upper-level work?
I suggest that as a new AP teacher, you should create for your students a series of lessons that they can easily use as solutions for the Breadth section of their AP portfolios. I also suggest that you design these lessons so that your students can modify them to fit into any of the three portfolios offered for AP evaluation (Drawing, 2-D Design, and 3-D Design).
The lesson that follows is one that I recently developed with this intent in mind. My students who were involved with the 3-D portfolio worked on constructions using natural objects, while those creating 2-D designs also worked with natural objects in a relief format, including modular and repetition pattern designs. The drawing group during the same class period created similar images based on natural objects.
Parallel Lessons for AP Studio Art Instructors
This is a series of lessons for the AP Studio Art teacher who is instructing all three types of portfolios (Drawing, 2-D Design, and 3-D Design) simultaneously (particularly in the same classroom) during the same semester.
Rationale
- These lessons focus on strategies and sequences for developing themes and topics for student exploration.
- These lessons allow the teacher to make presentations that guide students toward original vision, leading them to make connections between the similar topics being studied.
- Students should be able to create original solutions to their visual art projects by understanding the parallel connections between the similar topics and themes covered.
- The student's decision to use a particular medium and method of problem solving to create original art should represent his or her best means to visually communicate this idea or theme.
- The teacher should manage the class time and space, dividing it according to the number of students working in these multiple mediums.
- Teachers should make modifications to these lessons periodically due to changes in enrollment, available classroom space, and budget constraints.
- One of the most important goals of the parallel lessons is to have students, while working on very different portfolios, plan and understand how they relate to one another and at the same time accomplish individual solutions to similar themes.
Combined Breadth Lesson for 2-D Design and 3-D Design
Lesson Activity
Students will create six original works of art using only natural objects. They will select, modify, and arrange these objects to address a particular design issue or work in harmony with a group of design issues. Students can create a modular design that uses repetition and textures through drawing, taking photos, creating installations, or planning graphic designs.
For example, students must consider direction and intensity of light to enhance the visibility of the textures that form the modular units for this design. This is key to illustrating good texture in a photograph. It is also very important to identify the volume, size, and content of the space occupied by a 3-D work of art.
Composition will be the key to linking the student's understanding of the similarities between the visual messages of the different pieces created by various individuals and why other students chose to use certain materials.
Introduction
As an introduction to this lesson, I present a slide show to inspire students. These slides represent the works of known artists, school faculty, and fellow students. The visuals have a heavy representation of working in the style of Andy Goldsworthy and include some of this artist's works as well.
I give students one class period and one homework assignment to collect natural objects that they think will have the possibility, when combined, of representing strong solutions to design problems.
Student Outcomes
- Students must plan, in sketch form, multiple ideas for various arrangements of these objects.
- Students must have a brief conference with the teacher to keep focused on this task and to make sure that the student is on the right track with this idea.
- Students will select the best materials and work methods for this design.
At this point, teachers should encourage students to use any medium available to them, for example, photography, paint, and sculptural mediums.
The questions that the students should always keep in mind are:
- Where do the materials and methods of working cross the borders of the three different portfolios?
- Can all three exist in each other's field?
- Should they only be segregated, presented, and understood alone?
Evaluation
The students critique their own six pieces and those of their peers. Through these open discussions, students clearly see that multiple solutions to a similar theme can be achieved and spark creative, original thought that translates into a unique means of communication through art making.
Dan Spinner has been teaching studio art in the public school environment for more than 30 years, and has taught at Joel Barlow High School for more than 25 years. He has served as the Art Department chairman and been responsible for developing and restructuring many of the school's art programs. Dan's expertise in college portfolio development and assessment has led him to become a College Board consultant for the northeastern states and an AP Studio Art Exam Reader.
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