Guides for Museum Professionals for Writing about Artworks

In recognition that teachers need engaging informational texts for student readers, learning community members produced a collection of texts about art and artists written especially for students to read independently. The art studies found on this website are informational texts that can be used alone or in the context of classroom lessons. Art studies give students the opportunity to build their content knowledge about works of American art and to challenge them to analyze and find meaning in this art. Each art study was written at a text complexity (generally grade-appropriate) level that relates to the lesson it supports and includes questions that encourage close reading of the artwork, analysis of key ideas and details, and the integration of knowledge and ideas.

To develop these texts, museum educators participated in a series of workshops about writing for students. The first was led by Kris Wetterlund, Director of Education and Interpretation at the Corning Museum of Glass and author of  If You Can’t See It, Don’t Say It: A New Approach to Interpretive Writing in collaboration with reading specialist Donna Ogle, Ed.D., of National Louis University. Additional workshops were led by authors Juliet Bond and Elizabeth Partridge. The writing guidelines below were supported the creation of the art study texts found on this website.

Download If You Can’t See It, Don’t Say It by Kris Wetterlund, Director of Education and Interpretation at the Corning Museum of Glass here.

Download the American Art at the Core of Learning writing guidelines here.