Written By Alison Loader, Kim Simard and Susan Elmslie

There was no limitation to our imagination …. It was nice to be in an environment that was not based on competition… I also want to thank you for being so comprehensive and open-minded and I know I do not need to tell you how many teachers are not. It is truly refreshing to know that I can ask questions without having the fear of being judge[d] or ridiculed …

Student, Resist Violence class

Art can connect people. We know from the 2004 Rand Study (Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts) that “the communicative nature of the arts, the personal nature of creative expression, and the trust associated with revealing one’s creativity to others may make joint arts activities particularly conducive to forging social bonds and bridges across social divides” (29). In the current moment, portraits of George Floyd in public spaces across North America are one instance of artistic activism as are creative tributes such as poems, artwork, music and performance art appearing on social media in support of Black Lives Matter. Whether these make us cry or move us to concrete action, they help us envision a new and better future. That the present driving force of this activism is young people reminds us of the necessity of making more room for this kind of experience regularly in the classroom. As a group of teachers encouraging the study and practice of creative expression in the classroom, we have seen that the critique of art in such a context provides many teachers with the opportunity to develop a collective bonding experience—or to undermine it.

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What is Art, then?

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable — Banksy

art is simply a practice of creating
it can can be a powerful practice of self-expression
you don’t have to go to an art school or be an expert
to make it
understand it or to teach with it
it doesn’t have to look good, sound good, be good
doesn’t have to be authorized 
commissioned, framed
but art can be shared
can be anywhere
art can make you think, feel 
art can change minds, art
is a conversation,
art is a Gift.

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What is Critique in the Classroom? (Alison Breaks It Down)

The class critique is a mainstay of artistic pedagogy. A student makes and presents to their class a proposal, a work in progress, or a completed project, says a few words of introduction, and then answers questions and receives feedback from classmates and instructors. Akin to a transparent peer review, the class critique (or crit as it is sometimes called) is a face-to-face session meant to inspire and improve student work. Analogous activities can be found in different disciplines and in the non-academic world. Researchers deliver conference papers, filmmakers watch dailies, authors workshop writing, coworkers present projects to one another. A crit obliges students to practice public speaking and, in developing their presentation skills, they learn to identify, refine and communicate intentions, listen, look, interrogate and analyze. 

Both noun and verb, the critique is a space and a practice where critical making, critical reading and critical community join. It can be painful like any exercise, but repetition and good coaching should ease the process. To not take personal things personally takes effort. Courses framed as “studies” can contextualize and inspire the content and form of student work, and class discussions about older and existing literature, art and media in such classes could be considered low-stakes warm ups—with the maker not present, there are fewer feelings to potentially hurt. But more to the point, the discussion of any work demonstrates the dialogic nature of a creation finished and refinished by each reception. At best, a critique builds community and confidence. At worst, a critique fosters competition and anxiety.

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Bad Critique  (or Kim Reflects on a Bad Critique)

We were introducing ourselves. A small class of about 15, assigned to bring in a film we had made in the past to share. We all walked into the classroom. Some late, some chatting, others distracted by the view from the large fourth floor windows facing downtown. This was it, this was grad school, I had made it! Arriving later than the rest of us was our teacher. Seemingly unhappy to meet with us, he darted in, closed the curtains with the click of a button on the wall, exclaiming: “show me what you got.” The glow of the projector was the only light in the room as we sat clustered around tables in the middle of the room and looked at one another’s work. I was impressed, intimidated. Our teacher laughed at the work of some, calling it “mickey mouse”. Now I was scared. My turn was up. All eyes watched as I cued up the DVD. The hushed voices made room for a humming projector. My heart raced. As my teacher braided his fingers behind his head, feet on the table in front of him, he repeated the title I had managed to articulate: “Shave Your Legs.” He made a joke about how he never has shaved his, but might want to after this film. I laughed, maybe a bit too much. The blue glow turned to black, and I could see the familiar grain from the 16mm film transfer. The moment hung in my fast breaths, afraid of what was to come. This was my coming out film after all, and full of confessions, testimonials and symbolic imagery of family tragedy and heartache.

Credits roll, a blustery voice comes from my teacher: “I can’t stand voiceover, can you?” He looks around at those students who can meet his gaze. “Like a whispering in the ear, trying to tell me what to feel”. He goes on to rant about the flaws of “this kind of filmmaking,” but the air has been sucked out of me. I finally muster something about narration being a sort of counterpoint, but it seems to get lost in his monologue. The fluorescent lights that he’d flicked on to enter into the critique now reveal our inability to connect. The only other woman in the class tries to show some support for my work, but it is too late: we need to move on to another film. Lights off once more, the blue hue of the projector awaits the next victim. I leave the room for a moment to cry. I am deflated and confused. Had this work really needed to be torn apart in this way?

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Alison Has Been There

There is nothing quite like a bad class critique. A student gets defensive, perhaps cries, badgers others, the class revolts or shuts down. The instructor in turns does precisely what they should not—fills the space with too much advice, too much annoyance, and loses control and, with it, credibility. It is exhausting, humiliating, confusing, perhaps even traumatizing. The possibility of collaboration and community spirit is lost. Even when students form a circle to protect a classmate from a barrage of criticism, their solidarity is momentary and tenuous at best. The damage is done. What good can come from an experience that causes such anger, such guilt, that amplifies isolation and vulnerability and truncates risk taking? Perhaps an appreciation for times less bad?

Kim on the Aftermath

To this day, I think about the negative impact this critique has had. I am still questioning: where was the room for various impressions, sharing of experiences or interpretations of the work? Where was the gendered analysis, a critique of the ways women and marginalized people often use narration as a speaking of truth? This prof was our guide, and seemed to be misguided in an approach that was causing students to feel harmed instead of motivated.

In terms of teaching, I have miss-worded and miss-interpreted things often. I think the key has been to open it up. One of my favourite things to say after expressing a challenging critique for a student is to say: “But this is only one person’s impression. What else can we bring to this?”

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Who is Driving the Bus? (Sue Reflects on the Power of Vulnerability)

As a graduate student I taught a Contemporary Women’s Fiction class and, as part of a feminist pedagogy eschewing top-down learning and embracing vulnerability, I often turned questions back to the group as a whole, and I admitted when I didn’t know the answer. I invited anyone who was curious about pursuing answers to a question to do some research and come back to the group to share their findings. I was nearly always curious myself, and we’d often begin the next class by looking at what folks had found.

One day one of the students came up to me after class and said she had a dream: I was driving a bus and all of the students in our class were in it. I kept taking my eyes off the road, turning my head to look over my shoulder when one of the other students was talking (I just wrote, without thinking about it, one of the other students). Finally, my student said that she had to step forward and grab the wheel. She said I didn’t bat an eye; the class continued as we drove on. “That was a good dream,” I said to her.

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Alison lets go (Let’s Go!)

The class critique provides opportunities for a teacher to let go, and giving power away can be a powerful act. Humility augments learning when failure is understood as a step towards improvement. This may be achieved through the acknowledgement and acceptance that numerous ideas and responses may sometimes be weak or poorly stated. Students may be empowered to take more chances by honest admissions that, also being in a constant state of learning, teachers (the instructor included) and established professionals do not always have the best or right answers. So inviting students to share work and feedback means that the instructor can (and should) cede their expert status. Instead their role as a discussion facilitator comes into play. In a crit, they can make sure students are heard, fill in awkward silences by asking encouraging questions, reframe and clarify student responses, praise insightful contributions and risk-taking, and restate the activity’s purpose and guidelines whenever necessary. Given the chance, a group of students will perceive and offer more challenges and solutions than one instructor working alone—especially if diverse and dissenting voices are heard without shaming. Breaking the traditional hierarchy of the classroom can achieve a three-fold effect: students gain confidence; community is built; and the teacher is relieved of the burden of always being correct. Acknowledging that critiques can be very difficult, and showing gratitude for student generosity in both giving and receiving helps model compassion and encourages thoughtful responses. In other words, make room for ideas other than yours and students will thank you.

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Sue Has a Poem about That

To the student in my creative writing workshop who 
handed in the course outline bedizened with hand-written notes

Freud says there are no accidents.
But how could you know
I have a special interest in marginalia,
those volleys from the trenches,
smoke signals from the outpost?
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria…+

You wrote, next to Course Title, “I’m restless,”
all-caps, underscored.
When I was your age, I was so restless
I’d want to crash through
a window. Or scream and scream and scream
on the bus, while the old ladies
perched their handbags on their laps
and the babies sucked their fists,
but I had to get to the bank, where I worked
as a teller. T.S. Eliot also worked as a teller,
or clerk, at Lloyds bank, but I didn’t know that then.
Now we say Personal Banking Associate,
which shows my age.

“I’m getting the window seat next week,” you wrote.
Good luck. If you manage to snag it, please note
how the bricks are the colour of corn bread
and how, on a winter day like this, steam
rises from the mysteries of pipe and valve
which, without our ever thinking about it,
conspire to change stale air into fresh air
in our classroom. “This class
will kill my love for CW,” you wrote (lamented?).
All elegies have a consolation.
If it dies, your love might be reborn
as craft: good both going and coming back,
as Robert Frost says. Or you could write
like Ondaatje: slowly and carefully
with great love and great coldness.
This class could kill my love of teaching
if I didn’t keep it alive like the geranium
in my office window, because it is a green thing.

“My work doesn’t need editing bitch,”
you wrote. Seriously?
In the name of the moon
I hereby throw down my glove: 
Prove it.
When you do, I will know who you are,
and I will love you.

 —–

+ The line in the first stanza, “Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria…”, is a line from a Billy Collins poem called “Marginalia.” Going forward, I think I will survey future Creative Writing students to find out what they hope to gain from feedback / critique.

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Holding Space for Vulnerability (Kim Dives In)

Looking at and making art to be criticized, which might seem at first glance confrontational, can actually give space for shared vulnerability and a common understanding of how to act for a greater good. Those of us who have been through continuous critiquing of their work in their schooling may remember times when it was done poorly, or caused harm. 

Those moments often gave way to division in the class, or an inability to find a common goal, encouraging competitive responses versus helpful ones. Contrarily, those moments when it was done with great tact and attention likely left us with great respect for the person giving feedback, a sense that creativity is a work in progress and a comforting idea that what comes out only makes us stronger.

We’d like to share a few examples and ways of working with art and creativity in the classroom that has created a collective bond with students, and how that, when combined with a purpose to spread awareness about an issue or to fight for a cause can truly inspire students and faculty in any disciplinary context.

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Alison on Good Critique

There is nothing quite like a good class critique. Each student listens, shares their ideas and concerns, gives advice, encourages others, the class applauds. The instructor says little, maybe keeps time in check and identifies who speaks next, because students have so much to say. It is invigorating, assuring, clarifying, perhaps even fun. Students become invested in each other’s success. Feedback is a gift accepted with grace, help is offered, confidence grows, community is built. If only every critique went this way.

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Say It with Flowers?

“Say it with flowers, but for god's sake, don't
write any more poems,” Maxine Kumin’s first
creative writing teacher told her. She stopped
writing for twenty years.++

The lupins and irises stand side by side
in the small patch of dirt
next to the red-brick house.

“I never had a better creative writing teacher
than Leonard Michaels,” recalls Dan Barden.
“He was a bastard because he (a) never prepared for class,
b) didn’t apparently care much for his students,
and (c) used no filter whatsoever on his opinions.
He read our stories aloud until the moment
he didn’t care anymore. Then he would stop reading
and ask us why he didn’t care anymore.
Sometimes this took only two sentences.”

Bees have discovered the hyacinth,
the cosmos, the calendula and snapdragons.
They visit and revisit, alight and enter. 

Overall this is a good run at a very taxing form.
It’s hard to pursue a narrative in the pantoum.
You manage to set a mood and tell a story—
no small feat.

Is “the weather before you, / the weather behind you” 
quoted from somewhere? The italics suggest quotation.

Peonies are finicky, difficult
to transplant. Try to retain
as much of the root system as possible.

There are many things to praise here,
beginning with the title, which is compact
and effective at conveying the uneasy sense
of transition the speaker reflects on.

I also appreciate the metaphor of the sonnet
as a domestic, or cultivated, apple. Beautiful.

The last stanza's imagery is also very startling. Here
the personification of the trees is fittingly surreal;
the trees are as restless as the speaker.
I wonder, then, if "gently" is the right adverb
to describe how they exhale.
How about "brusquely,"  or
perhaps an image might work
even better than an adverb?

The only glitch to this ear
is in line 5: "you got great."  If you can
come up with a one- or two-syllable verb
that sounds right, consider replacing "you got great."
Perhaps "you shone"  (which half-rhymes with lines 2 and 3).
Perhaps "you gleamed."

The overall effect here is impressive
and moving—a terrific run
at a notoriously difficult form.
Puts a lump in my throat.

The bees alight and enter the blooms
and revisit. This is how
cross-pollination works.

Marge Piercy said to me, "Take whatever
criticism is useful to you. Reject whatever is not."
We sat in the garden in her gazebo in Wellfleet,
where the wisteria and marigolds were in full bloom.

Speaking frankly about hierarchical crits (Alison’s dread)

I dreaded class critiques as a student and as a teacher. I was shy and never knew what to say. As a teaching neophyte I avoided them when I could and when I could not (in art schools, they are expected after all), I struggled to ignore my students’ dread of them too. But not all students despise them. Some are excited to learn what their classmates are doing, and some give such amazing feedback that others want to hear what they will say. But isn’t it a copout to only rely on a handful of students to make a crit tolerable? Although I myself did that for years, it seems risky and, moreover, it reinforces hierarchies that place instructors and the most “successful” students at the top. Thank goodness for the advice of wiser colleagues (and the knowing students) that have helped me learn how to run increasingly better crits. I think it’s also fair to say that as students gain practice and familiarity with one another they will improve in their ability to give and to receive constructive criticism. In other words, patience comes easier when I remind myself (and others) that there is a pattern to learning. And so within every class bad critiques at the start become good critiques by the end.

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Alison’s Students Speak

Dawson’s 3D Animation and CGI students participate regularly in small group critiques throughout the productions of their thesis films. I invited them to weigh in on the process in an anonymous course evaluation. Here’s what one 2020 graduate has to say:

I feel that I’ve grown a lot from it. I’ve been able to really separate myself from my work and not get my own feelings involved too much. I’ve gotten a lot more confident in my work through critiques (whether good or bad) and I’ve learned to own my mistakes and grow from them. I also feel that students giving each other feedback has created a good sense of community. We’re all willing to help each other out, and we’re all rooting for each other.

Student, 3D Animation

Another suggests:

We should have a class on HOW to take feedback… Generally, feedback is good as we can get new eyes on our work, but if one doesn’t know how to properly give or receive feedback, it can be stressful and can add work.

One surprising outcome of the Covid-19 crisis was how well we adapted the process to a remote class setting and how that will shape future in-person classes and if space allows, I hope to enact the following advice.

I would say the privacy of the Zoom meetings made giving critiques easier… practice did make it easier to give and [get] critiques. For the future, I would continue the more “private” critiques as it is easier to give feedback when not in the presence of the [rest of the] class.

Student, 3D Animation

And finally, a last word from the 3D class of 2020, 

The ‘community’ of the program is its greatest strength I think. Being home makes this all the more apparent. Quite honestly I can’t think of any negatives in this respect. We all seem to lift each other up in positive ways by encouraging and inspiring the best efforts.

Student, 3D Animation

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Some Guidelines for Teachers:

1. Establish and share a written set of critique guidelines that detail best practices. The development of this critiquette (and thank you Matt McIver for the portmanteau) might even be incorporated into an active learning session that involves the entire class. 
2. Because some students may not have heard one before, it is important to model what a good critique can be. There are ample opportunities to do this when looking at existing art in the classroom. How do you get beyond, “I liked it,”, or “that really sucked.” It is a teacher’s role to provide vocabulary. Modeling can include looking at a piece of art and asking for a response. If it comes off as a bit simplistic, no need to judge, simply know that that student has not been exposed to a critique before. Like a mystery, as a group you can try to find what makes a piece seem appealing to some and not others. Ask if there are aesthetic choices (using vocabulary they can pick up on) that are trendy for the period, have students do research about the author’s life, give a sense of the historical context within which the piece was made. 
3. It is important to help the students cultivate critical + aesthetic distance from the work, to see it as something someone made, not as who they are. Be sure that the learning objectives for your critiques are transparent, and stated as often as needed.  For example, beyond supporting class projects, crits prepare students for the public and sometimes difficult feedback sessions they will likely encounter in their professional lives; cultivating aesthetic distance from the work can help shield the artist from a gutting criticism. 
4. Spending time experiencing the work is key. Repeated watching and reading may be necessary. Some questions to consider: What is the work telling us, how does it make us feel and why? Let this go where it needs to go, and try not to censor responses (unless they are harmful). Filter when needed.
5. Oblige or assign note-taking. When students take notes for each other, the presenter (and instructor) can pay better attention using eye contact and observing other visual forms of communication.
6. For any critical work, whether the criticism is written or presented orally with the artist in absentia or offered directly to the artist or writer, you should offer and articulate it as though you are looking in the artist’s eyes. Invite students to speak directly to them, not refer to them in the third person as though they weren’t there.
7. Divide the class into smaller critique groups—if not always, at least on occasion. Hosting small, private sessions (of 4-5 students) can help reduce anxiety and improve participation by fostering intimate networks of support. If the course entails multiple mini-crits, mix groups to enable fresh eyes, and expand and interweave those networks.
8. Allow students to occasionally postpone presenting their own work, but encourage them to offer feedback to others if they are able. Sometimes just being present is all a student can muster, and that’s better than further isolating from the rest of the class. 
9. Remind students that they are in fact helping one another, and that the classroom is a great place to get audience feedback.  When one person says something about the work that can be improved (which sort of commentary a teacher frequently needs to initiate), that is a step in making the work that is in progress more refined, and in many cases the best it can be.
10. Don’t panic when tears flow. Everyone has bad days. And bad crits happen. Respond with compassion. Be kind to your students and be kind to yourself. Remember, fair criticism is not about the critic; it is about the work, and the work is created by a person. Many critics and workshop leaders believe that the work is most important, more important than the maker. For example, Dan Barden, a novelist and professor at Butler University in Indianapolis, like his favourite creative writing teacher, never hesitates to “stomp on toes” and “throw his weight around” to improve the work: “Nothing personal: He just care[s] more about the writing than anything else.” 

Is it radical to say that people are more important than poems? 
People are more important than paintings? 
People are more important than pictures and moving pictures?  

There is no work without the maker. 
If they are harmed and discouraged by those purporting 
to care more about the work than the artist, 
the maker, however much promise they have 
to create truly significant or great work, 
can stop making things altogether. 
The critic should be humble; as Auden said, 
"No one ever wrote a bad review without showing off."

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No Harm, Just Critique

We do not have to go back in history to see the ways in which nonviolence theory can be practiced in an attempt to change attitudes about certain issues, our contemporary landscape provides much evidence of how nonviolence works, and in some cases fails. As we co-write this, people everywhere are sitting in, getting out, taking to their knees, and debating how we can make a better and safer world. There are some lessons from nonviolence theory that are very present in the practice of a good critique in the classroom. The first, is that it is a sharing of perspective. We cannot find connections with one another if we don’t understand others’ experiences. As students engage in art making or even react to art in meaningful ways, they are revealing where they come from. We have seen that this can often be the precursor to bonding, a process necessary in bridging gaps and moving away from the more polarizing ways of addressing complex social issues.

A manifesto for nonviolence-inspired critique in the classroom:

1. A just work is one with collective input
2. No harm can be tolerated 
3. Pay careful attention to the work and the people
4. It’s not about judging, it’s about moving to a new level
5. Surprise students with your own humility
6. Invert conflict with paths toward connection
7. Be the example: model compassion, be patient, express gratitude 
8. Personal preferences can be discussed, but may require unpacking to be productive.
9. Encourage diverse responses to the work in diverse ways
10. Look beyond the work and the person in progress to what they can become.
11. Consider our own assumptions or worldview; be aware of limitations, be open to transformation.