Asia Brown

My AP Art class meets every day for 2 hours and 15 minutes for the full school year.

Is AP Art and Design taught at your school as a separate course, or is it combined with other art classes? Please describe the structure of your AP Art and Design course.

Our AP Art and Design course is offered within the framework of an advanced visual arts magnet program that serves students from 4th through 12th grade. By the time they reach the AP level (10th to 12th grade), most of our students have been part of our vertically aligned, interdisciplinary program for several years, allowing for a highly developed level of skill, conceptual understanding, and artistic voice. The course operates as a mixed-level studio environment, where AP 2-D, 3-D, and Drawing students work alongside peers at different stages of the AP portfolio process. While the course includes structured instruction, critique sessions, and thematic investigations, it is largely driven by independent inquiry, with students developing Sustained Investigations based on personal interests and creative exploration. The classroom functions as a collaborative studio space, encouraging peer feedback, cross-medium experimentation, and portfolio development. Given the magnet setting and the long-term cultivation of student talent, students in our AP program are uniquely prepared to undertake rigorous conceptual work and to push the boundaries of traditional media. In addition to classroom instruction, students have access to extended studio hours, mentorship opportunities, and interdisciplinary collaboration with peers in other magnet strands (e.g., music, theater, dance), enriching the depth and complexity of their work.

In our magnet-based art and academic program, most students have been with us from 4th through 12th grade, allowing for a long-term, scaffolded approach to artistic growth. We intentionally teach foundational techniques in the earlier years so that, by 7th grade, students are ready to engage in a more independent, process-based curriculum. This structure enables us to shift away from project-based instruction and focus instead on developing students' abilities to plan, experiment, revise, and reflect—skills essential for the AP Art and Design Sustained Investigation. By the time students enter the AP level, they are already comfortable generating original compositions and exploring personal themes. Our role as teachers is to guide them in refining their inquiry statements by asking probing questions, facilitating regular critiques, and encouraging deep reflection in their sketchbooks. I have a process for finding and refining their Sustained Investigation question, which I call the Question Formulation Technique, where the students explore their general ideas and topics to build a strong question for their inquiry. I like to emphasize the iterative nature of the creative process, helping students view their ideas as evolving rather than fixed and encouraging them to take risks and adapt their work based on peer and teacher feedback. Critiques, both peer- and teacher-led, are a key component of our process, often used to challenge students to clarify their intent, push their visual strategies, and explore alternate directions. Students use their sketchbooks not just to plan compositions, but also to document thought processes, material experiments, and written reflections that help their investigation evolve. I tell them all the time that your investigation can change and grow into something completely different than it started out as.

In our art program, we emphasize technical skill development from an early age, allowing students to enter the AP Art and Design level with a strong foundation in media, technique, and the application of design principles. For students who join the program later, we’ve found that the studio environment itself becomes an effective teaching tool. These students often observe and learn organically from their peers and are quick to seek out direct instruction in specific skills or techniques. This peer-supported learning fosters both community and personal growth. To ensure all students, regardless of entry point, are equipped with the technical tools they need, we begin each semester with a skill-building “boot camp” that focuses on core techniques, mark-making exercises, and life drawing sessions. These are paired with lessons on the elements and principles of design to help students recognize how formal choices impact visual communication. In addition, we expose students to a wide range of contemporary artists and diverse media early in the year. This broad introduction expands their understanding of what’s possible and encourages experimentation. From there, students are guided in applying design knowledge through the lens of creative problem-solving, developing original compositions, refining ideas through sketchbook planning, and revising based on critique feedback. Ultimately, our goal is to equip students with both the technical confidence and the creative flexibility to make intentional choices, explore multiple solutions, and develop work that is both skillful and conceptually strong.

In my curriculum, practice, experimentation, and revision are not just encouraged—they are foundational to how every student approaches their work, from beginner to advanced levels (4th through 12th grades), and how each project is graded in our department. Each project is broken into three distinct phases, with structured grading and feedback at each stage:

I have students fill out studio progress logs daily, where they note their brainstorming and research, experimentations, final planning, and revision choices. These progress logs are then used when they complete the writing for each piece. I have found that it helps my students remember why they made a specific decision and how that artistic choice relates back to their SI question. They also write artist statements and write out their process and material choices.

Critiques and peer interaction are central to how I help students develop their Selected Works. We engage in frequent structured critiques throughout the year—formally and informally—focusing on both conceptual development and technical execution. These critiques serve multiple purposes in emphasizing composition, material choices, and synthesis. We ask, Why did you choose this medium? How does this decision contribute to the meaning or impact of the piece? This builds habits of intentionality that are essential for high-scoring Selected Work submissions. Students receive feedback not just from me, but also from each other, in a way that mimics the AP evaluation lens—addressing materials, processes, ideas, and synthesis—so they become comfortable analyzing their own and others’ work through that same framework. When it comes to Selected Works, I support students by helping them identify which works are not only technically strong but also show intentional, well-communicated synthesis of materials, processes, and ideas. We dedicate time in the second semester to portfolio curation—discussing not only what work is the most polished, but also which pieces show the deepest understanding of synthesis and intent. This process ensures students are not selecting just technically strong work, but work that also reflects their voice and artistic growth.

Because there are so many different projects going on in the AP room at the same time, each student has learned the different processes to take out and put away each type of material. We have a classroom that has a wide variety of supplies, but many students like to bring in some of their own materials to work with, especially in 3-D. Asia actually supplied her own denim, bleach, and water bottles, used to stuff the figures.

I have learned to trust the students’ instincts, but still question everything. Many of my students go on to careers in the art field, and it is helpful to have the AP skills in their pocket when they are being creative. I tell them you will always need to plan, experiment, and revise things in your day-to-day life, so go ahead and get used to this process.

We are given the opportunity to have our students’ artwork displayed multiple times throughout the year and get feedback from other viewpoints. They also allow me to pull students during study halls and during testing (when they do not have a test) so that they have additional time to work on their projects.

For educators who may not have a vertically integrated or multilevel AP program, I recommend forming partnerships with younger grade–level classes or schools. Involving AP students in mentoring roles or collaborative sketchbook planning activities with younger peers can reinforce the habits of experimentation and revision early on and build a culture of independent inquiry that supports sustained investigation later. Also, have patience but be firm with deadlines. Let them explore on their own, but check in often to make sure they are still on track.