Designing an art curriculum that emphasizes authentic artmaking, empowers students, and elevates their voices--requires rethinking the way that art educators teach. Art educators must develop curriculum and instruction that embodies three key concepts: (1) inspire student thought; (2) assess students in ways that encourage artistic growth beyond…

This article explores two teaching approaches available to art education teachers: arranging curricula based on big ideas found in postmodern artists' work and practice, and/or adopting a choice-based studio model. The author considers the role that offering students choice (and fundamentally, shared power) plays in each of these approaches. As a…

In this article, the author describes a choice-based art unit she designed for her 7th-grade students, discussing how choice impacted student motivation and how this relates to playful exploration, meaning making, and sharing. With the implementation of a personally meaningful found-object unit, students' motivation increased because of the…