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The benefits of this writing method is that it facilitates a creative thinking process. Students now have to think about the process of creation and the reasoning behind their decisions. Artist statements can also help students be more able to explain their art work to others and give them confidence in their creation.

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As a method of guiding students to encourage understanding, the students will be given an example "Artist Statement Flow Chart" handout. This flow chart is meant to help guide students towards a reflective writing process. Artist's statements are, also, meant to help others better understand the underlying meaning of the art work.

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Students from the middle school age group is susceptible to feelings of insecurity and embarrassment. The student do not know how to convey their feelings or articulating their thoughts from fear of being "dumb" (Hare, 2015). An artist statement allows students in a visual art classroom to express themselves in composition. The students are learning how to write, as well as, what to write about when talking about their own art.

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An artist statement is a descriptive and informative writing about a work of art. This strategy is meant to help the artist and others discuss the art with some background knowledge of the artist's intentions and the methods that they used. The written language is meant to enhance the work of art, not overpower the art work itself.

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How to write a great comparison/contrast paper in an easy, step-by-step process.

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The students are able to visually see their thinking processes and group their ideas to create a topic. The students are allowed to have more freedom and just let the words fall onto their page without worrying about editing or revising their work.

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Mind mapping is a writing method used to generate ideas for a new art project. The students have been given the medium and creation process, but now they must figure out what they are going to make. The mind maps help the students create a back story and generate ideas for their art work.

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Mind maps are a great strategy to use in any content area. Students of this age group tend to be easily distracted and have so much to say. The mind maps help students organize their thoughts and create a visual representation of their ideas. Because mind maps are non-linear and typically created from a word or a phrase, students of all intellectual range benefit from learning how to organize their thoughts.

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This video focuses on how mind mapping can be used as a tool to help students organize their ideas for writing.

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A comparing and contrasting writing strategy allows the learners to "generate a list of similarities and differences" between two or more topics ("Comparing and Contrasting," n.d.). When using this method, the students should be able to make a point or serve a purpose with their chosen topic. The detailed relationship between the topics can be used to clarify the multiple topics or to generate a discussion or debate. This writing method, also, allows the learner to organize their thoughts and gather information.

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The students are able to visually compare the different art work into a written composition. They are also able to support their own opinions with evidence and context clues that they found relevant within the art work. The teacher is able to review the material to ensure content understanding. The students are also able to practice writing using content vocabulary words.

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A common assignment in the art classroom is write about two works of art. The students are given two different works of art that can range in style, type, and methods. It is the student's job to analyze the art work and determine how the objects are similar and how they are different. The students must be able to provide evidence of how they came to their opinionated conclusion (Murray & Rockowitz, n.d.).

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The compare and contrast method can be used within any content course at any level. This method of writing is versatile and is simple for students to understand. Students are able to work individually or collaboratively to come up with their topics and generate a list of similarities and differences. Sample sentences can be written together or on the board for ELLs or LEP students to refer to for reference.

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Mind mapping is a graphical strategy utilized to help students generate ideas and information about a topic. Mind maps are visual thinking tools meant to help structure information, analyze, comprehend, synthesize, recall, and generate new ideas ("What is a Mind Map?", n.d.).

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By using annotation strategies in their sketchbooks, students are allowed to have more practice with helpful reading and writing strategies. The students are able to better understand what they had previously read or written without too much difficulty.

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In art, annotation can be used as a way to read and understand notes or to analyze a work of art. Students of this age group are still learning about the parts of a sentence and the different parts of writing (Texas Education Agency, 2008).  Students are able to focus on key points, processes, and content-related vocabulary words.

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A great way for students to use annotation in the art classroom is to annotate their sketchbook. Students are written notes and taken quizzes that have been added to the sketchbook. Using their own created materials, students are annotating their sketchbooks to explain why they did what they did when they created their own art work.

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Annotating is a strategy meant to increase reading comprehension. This strategy requires active reading, mark-making, and commentating. The goal of annotation is to help students be able to "draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research"  (Fisher & Frey, 2013, p. 100).

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[Image]. Retrieved from http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-e4SRjbb7TBA/VZUEKiZFIkI/AAAAAAAAADY/qpYMjD3SpbA/s1600/venn-diagram.jpg

[Image]. Retrieved from http://www.teachthetraits.com/car.gif

[Image]. Retrieved from https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ca/4c/c7/ca4cc7d5e93708159f3f0ebead4501d7.jpg

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Comparing and Contrasting. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/comparing-and-contrasting/

Comparison/Contrast Essay [Video]. (2011, November 27). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMi1nYBcpdI

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2013). A Range of Writing across the Content Areas. Reading Teacher,67(2), 96-101.

Hare, T. (2015). Use This Flowchart to Help Your Students Write Authentic Artist Statements. Retrieved from https://www.theartofed.com/2015/09/25/use-this-flowchart-to-help-your-students-write-authentic-artist-statements/

How to Write an Informative Essay [Video]. (2015, January 8). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ilnI3cBC3I

Murray, & Rockowitz, A. C. (n.d.). Writing Across the Curriculum: Writing about art. Hunter RWC. Retrieved from http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/repository/files/WAC/Writing-about-Art.pdf

Payne, J. (n.d.). Teaching Students to Critique. Retrieved from https://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/educators/how-to/tipsheets/student-critique.aspx

Power writing grade 6 [Video]. (2015, January 23). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlBFEjJzBV0

Texas Education Agency. (2008). Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Grade 6. In Texas Administrative Code (TAC), Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Grade 6. (Chapter 110.18). Retrieved from http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter110/ch110b.html

Tieken, F. (2013). Artist Statement [Painting]. Retrieved from http://www.agora-gallery.com/advice/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Fred-Tieken-Artist-Statement-11.jpg

What is a Mind Map? (n.d.). Retrieved from www.mindmapping.com/mind-map.php

Writing Strategy - Mind Mapping [Video]. (2011, February 13). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTmFpxTXHEc

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Created using PowToon -- Free sign up at http://www.powtoon.com/join -- Create animated videos and animated presentations for free. PowToon is a free tool that allows you to develop cool animated clips and animated presentations for your website, office meeting, sales pitch, nonprofit fundraiser, product launch, video resume, or anything else you could use an animated explainer video.

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The students in this 6th grade class work on writing fluency.

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The goal of this strategy is to be able to conduct a research to convey different informative facts that are relevant to the topic. The students are analyzing information to determine its credibility. Prior to this strategy, students should be taught how to read analytically to be able to read and collect information from the text (Fisher & Frey, 2013, p. 99).

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In class, power writing can be completed weekly as a completion grade. I would not be grading the students on how proficient they are writing. Instead, I will be reading over the writings to get a better understanding of what the students have comprehended from our lesson and some things that my students are still struggling to understand.

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The repetitive use of power writing will enhance understanding of the topic. Because if the students are thinking about the topic and writing about the topic, they will learn to understand the material much better than a replication of information. Students are also keeping a chart of their word count as a way to monitor improvement.

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This strategy can be incorporated into any classroom to further content literacy, as well as, vocabulary building. Students from all learning levels will benefit from power writing. The students that typically struggle with content comprehension will be able to get a better grasp on the material and feel as if they have mastered the topic better. For our limited English proficient (LEP) students and English language learners (ELL) students, power writing will help them practice English by writing down some things that they have heard previously in class. The students that are naturally gifted with intelligence will also do well to practice improving their writing skills.

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Power writing is a writing strategy that allows for students to write multiple compositions during a timed event. The students are learning fluency through data collection and grammar errors. In Fisher’s and Frey’s (2013) given example, students were given three one-minute writing sessions. After each session, the students were to “reread what they have written, circling any errors they notice, then count and record the number of words in the margins” (Fisher & Frey, p. 97). Their studies have found that with enough practice students will gradually improve their writing fluency and be able to write more words per minute with less errors.

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This writing strategy creates ownership of learning in the classroom. The students benefit from learning history or procedural processes. Also, students are learning how to convey information in a structural writing style.

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This strategy can create two different types of lesson. One, the student can write about the biographical information of an artist or an artwork. Another lesson would be that students are writing about how they got to the end process of an art work. What steps were taken to complete the project. Informative essays will benefit the students to retrace their own steps of learning and to use content-related vocabulary.

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Informative essay is a writing strategy that encourages students to direct their own learning of the content. Students are more likely to be interested in learning if they are involved in how they are learning. Many students from sixth to eight grade in our district may not have had any prior art curriculum. This strategy will help the students better understand the artist and time period behind the art.