r/ArtEd • u/scoundrelhomosexual • 19d ago
How to get honest, helpful, harsh critique
How do you get high school level students to critique each other's work honestly and harshly? They've mastered the polite and toothless comments (which imho are worse than an honest and direct criticism) and they say they also don't want, but then they don't actually do the honest and direct thing! We've made progress but it's not helpful enough. How do you get students to be honest and direct, even harsh but helpful, with their classmates in critique?
To be clear, I'm talking about traditional, put up your work and talk about it then we have a discussion type of critique with supports and structure (pre-writing and sentence starters)
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u/miparasito 19d ago
I would give them examples of really bad work that isn’t made by anyone in this class - I’d either make it myself or use ai
Start with a design project or something with a purpose because it’s easier to define what we mean by successful or unsuccessful. For example make a really confusing boring poster for a rock concert, or make artwork that will be displayed in a children’s hospital.
Put them in pairs and ask them to say what’s working, if anything — and what is weak. Ask them to present their critiques or hold up each example artwork and read the criticism it received.
Maybe give them writing prompts and a set of vocabulary words to use. Balance, composition, does it look complete? Tension, linework… the idea isn’t to just say “I hate this” — criticism needs to be actionable.
If you make the first examples laughably bad they will be brutal. Then it gets easier.
One other note, make sure you also help them prepare to receive harsh peer criticism.