Teaching Art History Five Minutes At A Time

** UPDATE **

I have created a template of what this process looks like in my classroom. Unfortunately due to copyright law I had to swap out more of the contemporary artists - but you will get the idea of how to use it here.

** 

Teaching on a block schedule can be awesome. Except when it's not. Our department was recently discussing how the last ten minutes can feel like an eternity. This year it's been magnified because students don't need the same amount of time for clean up because there are half as many, and they have their own set of basic supplies.

One routine I had (pre-covid) was teaching my art history in 5 minute chunks at the beginning of each class. We were on a 6 day cycle. They would take their sketchbook and divide the left page into 6 spaces and answer one question about the artwork each day. The weekly sketchbook assignment would go on the other side so I could quickly walk around and grade both. In hybrid mode, I decided to drop this practice to give more studio time since they are only in half as much. Turns out, we still have that awkward time at the end of class, so I'm bringing it back for semester 2. 

Here is a typical week of prompts

Day 1: What do you think this work is about? 

Day 2: How do you think this was made?

Day 3: What questions do you have about this work?

Day 4: Describe the work using the elements and principals of art

Day 5: Copy down information about the artwork (Title, Artist, Date, Size, Media, Country)

Day 6: How does the work make you feel? What does this artwork make you think about? What philosophy do you think this artist holds?

Of course the specific prompts vary based on the artwork. Sometimes they have a lot of questions I may use day 5 & 6 to share out the answers to their questions. After going through the cycle for two weeks, we could then get into comparing and contrasting works. In a typical 36 week school year, we could get much deeper into 15-20 works instead of glossing over that many in a ten minute powerpoint. This is not to say that I never do an art history presentation, but it does reduce the amount of time they are experiencing "art in the dark."

Does your school require bell-ringers or exit tickets? How do you use that time?