Giving Feedback in Art

     Giving feedback can be tough. You don't want to be too hard on someone and sound mean, don't want to praise them without purpose and don't want to make them second guess their whole work of art. What is feedback? According to Grant Wiggins, President of Authentic Education, "Feedback is useful information about the effects of an action in light of a goal." This means that in commenting on someone's work you have a goal in mind of them changing, adding or subtracting something from their art to improve the end product. 

    In doing so, you want to present your ideas to the writer without "being a jerk". Adam Grant a Wharton Professor suggests that you can start your feedback with these 19 words, "I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them." This wouldn't work in all scenarios of our class for example, right now we don't know each other so we're not sure of one another's potential yet but, the sentence could be modified to fit what we are trying to say. 

    Also, in our class we don't want to sound like we are in charge and make the writer feel undermined. Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp in their book Getting It Done, say that going about any situation (life or class) has 3 kinds of feedback, "Appreciation, Advice, Evaluation." In using these three kinds of feedback Roger Fisher and Alan Sharp suggest, "The habit you want to develop is to know your purposes when you offer feedback, and to make your comments in a form appropriate to accomplishing that purpose." In saying this, they believe that knowing the situation and what is going to improve the product and make your feedback heard best is key.