Talking about your work
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can talk confidently about my artwork, explaining my ideas, process, and intention.
Key learning points
- Talking about artwork helps the artist and the audience understand ideas, process, and intention.
- Verbal explanations can occur in informal conversations or formal presentations.
- Reflecting on and discussing artwork helps develop critical thinking and clarity of expression.
- Linking materials, techniques, and artistic choices to ideas deepens understanding of the work.
Keywords
Engagement - how others interact with or understand your work
Promotion - communicating your work to showcase skills, creativity, and ideas
Common misconception
Artists only talk about their work to promote it in galleries and museums.
Artists might talk about their work for engagement and promotion, in a variety of contexts.
Teacher tip
Task A: Select short, age-appropriate clips of artists talking about their work from trusted sources or major gallery websites. Check that the clips are no more than 3–5 minutes long to keep pupils engaged. Provide clear viewing questions in advance so pupils know what to listen for.
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Artists only talk about their work to promote it in galleries and museums.
Q2.In what contexts might artists talk about their work?
Q3.In Renaissance workshops, artists often had to explain their ideas clearly to get approval for commissions.
Q4.Which strategies are good for talking clearly and confidently about your work?
Q5.Why might talking about your work be useful for both you and your audience?
Q6.Which of these could help you prepare to talk confidently about your artwork?
To help you plan your 11 art and design lesson on: Talking about your work, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 11 art and design lesson on: Talking about your work, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 art and design lessons from the Curating an exhibition unit, dive into the full secondary art and design curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.