Faculty Showcase Adoption Art 311: Writing About Visual Arts

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID: Writing About Visual Arts: Art 311
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook and resource collection are being utilized in an art course for undergraduate students by Rhiannon Aarons at California State University Long Beach. The open textbook provides information relevant to best practices used for professionalization in the arts, as well as critical elements of theoretical discourse. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to save students money and increase participation in reading assignments. Most students access the open textbook in PDF or as an embedded Canvas page.

Brief description of course highlights:  Writing Intensive and Integrative Learning Capstone course emphasizing writing for a visual arts audience. Includes reading critically, analysis of research, organizing and developing arguments, clarity, self-editing, and appropriate use of vocabulary/style. Extensive writing, editing and peer review. Letter grade only (A-F).

Student Population: Junior or Senior level School of Art students from disciplines including Fine Art, Studio Art, Design and Illustration

Learning or student outcomes: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate comprehension of texts by developing accurate summaries, reasoned analyses, and responses. Summarize, synthesize, and evaluate source information and present this information clearly in writing. Cite these sources in a formal bibliography. 
2. Evaluate and incorporate source materials as appropriate to a given task. Demonstrate effective use of techniques to improve clarity, cohesion, and concision in academic and professional writing.  
3. Express and synthesize their own and others’ ideas. Choose and develop a point of view in written form and demonstrate an awareness of rhetorical and analytical tools and structures. Use references where appropriate and frame arguments and discussion in terms of larger critical and cultural contexts. 
4. Use conventions appropriate for particular audiences. Choose vocabulary and appropriate level of formality for particular contexts. Demonstrate an awareness of professional conventions, standards and expectations within art writing.  
5. Demonstrate an awareness of writing in the visual arts and its role in illuminating creative practices and works of visual art. Also, develop writing in response to the student’s own creative practice: cultivating innovative, imaginative, and divergent thinking.        
6. Demonstrate information literacy with respect to, but not limited to, research and writing for the visual arts. 
7. Apply the conventions of standard written English. Apply lower-division knowledge from General Education humanities courses and intellectual and practical GE skill areas (written communication, critical and creative thinking, and information literacy), to discipline-specific writing at the upper division level that builds upon knowledge from previous School of Art courses. 

Syllabus and Sample assignments [optional]: Additional solution to limited comprehensive OER is an assignment where students will generate an OER peer learning resource about an artist of their choice that they feel closely aligns with the practice they are working towards.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: Steal Like an Artist 

Brief Description: Steal Like an Artist is a basic “getting started” guide for artists of all kinds and is a very accessible read.

Scribd.com: Steal Like an Artist

Authors: Austin Kleon

Student access: Scribd.com for PDF download or embedded directly in Canvas shell. 

Supplemental resources:  Multiple slide presentations are available on the Canvas shell to support course content for each module. Videos/films on YouTube and Kanopy are also included in the course content. 

Cost savings from that of a traditional textbook: Approx. $50-75

License: Copyright

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. Save students money and bridge equity gaps that occur with first generation college students.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? FBrowsed OER sites. Used search engines such as Google and Bing.

Sharing Best Practices: I have found there are a lot of available materials for lower division GE courses. Materials for specialized upper-division classes, especially in the arts, are much more difficult to find. 

Key challenges faced and how resolved: Limited comprehensive OER resources available about specific artists. In the process of resolving by writing and publishing original OER sources to bridge this gap. 

Rhiannon Aarons 
I am a visual arts lecturer at the California State University Long Beach. I teach Art 311: Writing About Visual Art.

School of Art | California State University Long Beach (csulb.edu)

Please describe the courses you teach.
Art 311: Writing About Visual Art is a thesis development upper-division writing requirement for all School of Art students. This course centers on finding the student’s personal voice in writing about their work, as well as the work of other cultural creators.

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.

My teaching philosophy is to present culturally relevant and equity driven course content while providing a platform where students can build professional and creative community with peers. My research interests include creative production made by marginalized artists with intersectional personal identities, and how their practices drive social change.