Since most art criticism appears in written form, writing about art in the classroom provides many opportunities for students to serve as art critics. Student art criticism may take a variety of forms of writing. When students research and write about artists' lives or art movements, create time lines or chronologies, or write interpretive gallery cards or poetry based on historic artworks, they are integrating art history and language arts. Aesthetics and Language Arts Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with concepts of value and beauty as they relate to the arts. Through aesthetic inquiry, students learn to understand art in a broad and fundamental way by investigating possible answers to basic questions people ask about art.
Aesthetic issues are meaningful topics for both written and oral responses in the classroom.
Puzzling questions about art offer opportunities for critical thinking as both written and oral responses should be supported by reasoned judgments. An Aesthetics Casebook by Margaret Battin, Johan Fisher, Ronald Moore, and Anita Silvers. Students can also write different forms of literature or poetry based on their own artworks. The Art of Storytelling and Narrative Art Telling stories is one way we recognize meaning in our lives and our relationship with the world around us. Storytellers are revered in many cultures and serve a number of functions in societies.