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ETA 10 (1) pp. 99–116 Intellect Limited 2014
International Journal of Education through Art
Volume 10 Number 1
© 2014 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/eta.10.1.99_1
The University of Auckland, New Zealand
The University of Auckland, New Zealand
This article reports on research that investigated how students’ critical thinking
skills can be developed through images. The research was located in New Zealand,
a country whose national curriculum and assessment systems stress ‘thinking’ as a
key competency and place emphasis on developing visual literacies. The research was
underpinned by a critique of the impact of images on students living in an image-
saturated world and the importance of them being visually literate. It involved
examination and documentation of strategies used by two teachers to foster the criti-
cal thinking of year 13 students in visual arts education and their responses to those
experiences. The research was positioned within an a/r/tographical framework, a
method which links art, research and teaching, and privileges both text and image.
The findings, presented as an integration of participant and researcher ‘voice’ and
the ‘visual’, illustrate the profound effects of critical looking practice through an
enquiry framework.
thinking skills
art education
critical thinking
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Background to the research
The importance of researching the visual as a thinking tool was influenced
by the reality that students live in an image-saturated world and much infor-
mation is communicated by images (Emmison and Smith 2000; Sturken and
Cartwright 2009). The persuasive power of images to influence and transmit
ideologies (Leavy 2009) suggests that the place of visual arts education should
be reassessed because this subject provides opportunities to develop think-
ing skills around diverse visual manifestations, such as popular visual culture
and contemporary art (Duncum 2002; Eisner 2002; Gude 2007; Wilks 2003).
Although there is a lack of theoretical literature based on critical think-
ing in visual arts education analytical skills have appeared progressively as a
concern within visual arts curricula in recent years, indicating a change in focus
(Hogan 2006). Examples of this emergent pedagogical perspective are present
in New Zealand’s national curriculum and its visual arts assessment system for
senior students, both of which provided motivation to conduct the research in
this country. In the curriculum one of the five ‘key competences’ is the develop-
ment of visual literacy and reflective skills (Ministry of Education (MoE) 2007).
These capacities are understood as crucial for ensuring continuous life-long
learning and facilitating students’ critical participation in their own contexts.
The aim of this small-scale research was to investigate how and whether a
sample of year 13 secondary school students, aged 17 years, could develop
critical thinking skills through images. The research sought evidence of
the strategies used by visual arts teachers to foster students’ thinking skills
through personal and class interactions and art making. The intention was to
offer a critical discussion around different approaches to promoting cognitive
skills in visual arts education. The research questions were:
To what extent are visual arts teachers in New Zealand secondary schools •
using images as a method to encourage students’ critical thinking skills?
How do students perceive they develop their analytical skills through •
images?
How is the development of students’ critical thinking skills conveyed •
through their art making, artworks, and explanations?
Context 1 – Literature on critical thinking and the visual context
Encouraging critical thinking around the visual has become an important
educational task to support lifelong learners to participate within democ-
racy (Eisner 2002; Freedman and Sthur 2004; Grushka 2005; Gude 2007). The
current global context, with its constant changes around knowledge, demands
a new educational paradigm (Hardy 2006). In visual arts education in the
twenty-first century, where ideologies are principally transmitted by images,
there is a corresponding demand for new aims and approaches focused on
analytical capacities (Alter 2011; Duncum 2010). For this reason, M. Román
(2005) stresses that a cognitive focus should replace a content-instruction
emphasis in which students are encouraged to acquire information. It is also
suggested that to encourage critical thinking through the visual, strategies
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should have a reflective rather than technical focus, and students should be
considered as active thinkers who can be guided to be discerning through
innovative strategies and discussions around diverse issues relevant to their
context (Eisner 2002; Duncum 2010). It is argued that this goal can be achieved
by integrating visual literacy and a critical enquiry framework around images
(Duncum 2010; Gude 2007; Grushka 2009).
Context 2 – Curriculum and assessment policies
The educational context for the research was framed by both The New Zealand
Curriculum (MoE 2007) and assessment policies pertinent to year 13 students
studying visual arts. The curriculum stipulates what is deemed important
in education, including critical thinking as a key competency that promotes
lifelong learners who will participate actively within society. Its emphasis on
visual literacy is grounded in a cognitive model that encourages thinking as
a way to promote students’ critical involvement within their ‘cultural milieu’.
The curriculum is applied across all year levels in secondary schools and
also underpins the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA)
(New Zealand Qualifications Authority 2012), the assessment tool used
to evaluate senior students’ performance at years 11–13 (15–17 year olds).
A feature of NCEA qualifications is that students’ performance is measured
by standards-based assessment using Achievement Standards. A distinctive
aspect of the standards for Visual Arts is that they are not ‘content-based’,
thereby giving teachers the freedom to design programmes for and with their
students. A further feature of NCEA is that five visual arts disciplines are
offered – design, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture – from
which students can select up to three.
Context 3 – Shared perspectives between researcher
and supervisor
The hypothesis that developing students’ critical thinking skills is dependent
on teachers encouraging them through strategies supported by a cognitive
model is a perspective shared by international student, Veronica Garcia Lazo
and her research supervisor, Jill Smith, an experienced tertiary teacher educa-
tor in visual arts education and researcher in this field in secondary schools in
New Zealand. Moving visual arts education to a cognitive model is a significant
theme in Smith’s art making, research and teaching, just as understanding the
visual as a thinking tool is relevant to Garcia Lazo’s professional experience.
As an artist and secondary visual arts teacher, Garcia Lazo was aware of the
importance that images currently have in teenagers’ lives and how the visual
has the power to influence their approach to the world. She was inspired by
literature which proposes that developing students’ analytical competences
ensures a fairer participation in a democratic setting.
In 2012, when Garcia Lazo began studying in New Zealand, Smith intro-
duced her to contemporary approaches to conceptualizing, conducting and
presenting visual arts research in innovative ways. Smith’s particular interest
in a/r/tography, the theoretical framework that influenced the re-presentation
of her doctoral (text-presented) research findings (2007) in an (image/
text) exhibition (2009), encouraged Garcia Lazo to explore non-traditional
approaches that validate the arts as a researching tool. This convinced her that
developing thinking skills within visual arts education was more possible in
secondary school settings where the focus was not confined to development
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of art making skills but included discussion, interpretation and meaningful
art making (Gude 2007; Hogan 2006). In this new environment Garcia Lazo
could comprehend the reflective potential of her research topic (2012), aspects
of which are reported in this article.
Methodology: Crossing the boundaries through a/r/tography
The theoretical position of a/r/tography was selected to best study the issue of
using the visual as a thinking tool. Elucidated by R. Irwin and A. de Cosson
(2004) as a creative land of dialogue and experimentation between three fields –
artist/ researcher/ teacher – this arts-based research methodology privileges
both text and image in order to seek deeper meanings involving the self and
others. The selection of a visual method of enquiry was based on the evoca-
tive power of images (Duxbury 2008; Leavy 2009) and the significant place
they have in human lives (Emmison and Smith 2000; Sturken and Cartwright
2009). It was also grounded in the transformative power of ‘visual knowing’
which suggests that diverse and rich thinking occurs in the context of making
images or studying them (Eisner 2002). For Garcia Lazo, a/r/tography repre-
sented a challenging and liberating method that offered a path whereby she
could portray meaning through visual means via her own understandings as
an artist, researcher and teacher. A/r/tography also operates as an instrument
throughout all stages, from data collection to evaluation and representation in
order to acquire knowledge (Leavy 2009). In a research project that aimed to
investigate the development of critical thinking skills through images, a visual
methodology was the most coherent approach because it allowed for the
inclusion of images as a way to capture, collect and symbolize information.
This inclusion is validated in terms of the power of images to recall viewer’s
emotions and include researcher’s interpretations (Wilson 2004). The subjec-
tive nature of images is validated by the image-maker’s meanings expressed
through written text (Irwin and de Cosson 2004; Springgay 2002).
For this small-scale qualitative research the settings and teacher participants
were purposively selected (Punch 2009) by Smith, on behalf of her interna-
tional student, from two different types of schools: a large co-educational
multicultural state school, and a predominantly European private girls’ school.
The two visual arts teachers, both European and experienced educators, were
asked to explain the research project to their year 13 specialist art classes and
to invite a volunteer to be the student participant. The four participants were
given pseudonyms. The teacher at the multicultural co-educational school is
referred to as Yolande and her student as Vena-Rose. This student, of Fijian
ethnicity, was studying Photography for NCEA. The teacher at the private
girls’ school is referred to as Shannon, and her European student as Bella. This
student studied both Painting and Printmaking. All participants were fully
informed of the research and gave consent for the data collection.
Four methods were used to collect data, beginning with semi-structured audi-
otaped interviews with the teachers that enabled their individual ‘voices’ and
experiences to be heard (Drever 1995; Jackson and Mazzei 2009). The second
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103
method, audio-taped and photographed observations of the teachers’ interac-
tions with their students, was influenced by E. W. Eisner’s (1991: 195) claim
that ‘the richest vein of information is struck through direct observation of
school and classroom life’. Third, audio-taped interviews with the students
focused on the importance of images to them, how they had selected artists to
influence their work, and how they were going to visually map out a ‘thinking
journey’. The final method was making three artworks by the researcher. In
two of these, a/r/tograhical ‘fragments’ from each student’s body of work were
used by Garcia Lazo to compose an artwork that represented ‘metaphorically’
their individual processes and learning obtained through discussions and art
making. Fragments are considered evocative pieces of meaning which acti-
vate emotions that the totality cannot suggest (Duxbury 2008). Garcia Lazo’s
third artwork encapsulated the ‘lived experience’ of the teachers during the
research (Irwin and de Cosson 2004). Each method included visual documen-
tation, an essential component of a/r/tography. The University of Auckland’s
Ethics Committee required the researcher to ‘disguise’ the identities of partici-
pants, thus photographic techniques such as blurring, cropping and selecting
‘fragments’ from the students’ art making processes and outcomes were
used.
The findings represented the ‘voices’ of the visual arts teachers and their
students, expressed during interviews and observations. These encapsulated
the teachers’ views about their strategies to encourage critical thinking and
the students’ perspectives and responses to them.
Curriculum philosophy and assessment: A scaffolded
supporting structure
The approaches used by both teachers to develop thinking in visual arts were
strongly supported by the curriculum and NCEA Achievement Standards.
A key strategy was to progressively offer opportunities to develop indi-
vidual thinking through all the secondary school years with the ultimate
aim of producing ‘active learners’. Yolande, the teacher at the multicultural
co- educational school, explained that ‘it works as a reflective process’ that is
gradually established as a way of thinking using images, from a simple to a
more complex mode over time:
We look at images to create a foundation, analysing stylistic approaches,
intentions and meanings. Then students can springboard from that to
really create their … own language through a broad range of visual arts
making.
A student-centred mode: Giving the freedom to think through
the ‘artist models’
Both teachers’ methodologies were grounded in a student-centred mode
with two fundamental features: an individualized teaching approach and
reference to ‘artist models’ as a starting point to encourage critical thinking.
Shannon, the teacher at the girls’ school, emphasized that using artist models
to underpin her students’ individual practice required the development of
flexible units. She stressed that it was not about students ‘reproducing’ artists’
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Veronica Garcia Lazo | Jill Smith
104
works, but involved generating an original project underpinned by artists’
ideas and procedures. The challenge was to encourage students to brainstorm
around their subject matter of interest, which helped them to become aware
of their own thinking, and to document their thinking through writing and
making. Shannon talked individually with each student, offering suggestions
to extend their ideas: ‘Find a work, unpick its components, don’t copy it! Make
a work that deals with the same issues, but in your own way’.
To guide students’ selection of artists Yolande offered them a library in
the school Intranet, which contained numerous folders of photographers’
works classified by origin and approach. Students were asked to explore and
select images they liked, after which they printed a selection on one page,
then mounted this sheet on the wall. Yolande explained, ‘this gives me an
insight into that student. Then we can begin to look at what these students
want to look at in photography as a mirror of themselves or as a window into
the world. Or both!’
Although both teachers fostered a student-centred mode, Yolande comple-
mented her individual approach with whole-class interactions and group
discussions. Shannon maintained a more individual style, whereby conversa-
tions were developed with each student. It was observed that both methods
enhanced students’ thinking.
Including diverse imagery: Visual culture through discussions
Although ‘visual culture’ is a key element of the curriculum only Yolande
included this in her approach. During classes she discussed the meaning of a
wide range of visual manifestations that belong to students’ everyday lives to
illustrate how their reading of these images determines their final meaning.
She said, ‘I often bring very contemporary material into the classroom … to
try to blow their minds … for new ways of working to come in’. Shannon, on
the other hand, argued that her approach only contemplates visual culture if
it is relevant for an individual’s programme of work. However, she consid-
ered visual literacy an essential ability for writing about visual ideas: ‘It’s
the originality in the thinking and the way ideas are presented in a written
form’.
An enquiry framework: Multiple approaches to encourage
critical research
To encourage critical investigation of selected images and artists the teachers
took multiple approaches, using discussions and worksheets to motivate the
progressive development of students’ work. For example, discussions between
Shannon and Bella were developed as the student selected her artworks for
her NCEA portfolio (Figure 1).
Yolande emphasized that it can be hard for students to start analysing
images because it is like an unknown land for them. She therefore created
a safe class environment in which students can ‘feel comfortable about
not knowing’ by putting herself in the position of not knowing everything.
She said: ‘I try to create a culture in the classroom where the sort of mistakes
that you make here are benign mistakes. I like … modelling the idea of being
curious and being open’.
Template guide-sheets and prompt questions, supported by visual and
written examples, were used by the teachers to unpack images and concepts
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Developing thinking skills through the visual
105
from the Achievement Standards, including the skills that students were
expected to evidence in their artworks throughout the whole process. These
guides were kept as broad as possible in order to not limit students’ thinking
to merely answering questions, but to focus their looking. Shannon believed
that documenting their thinking processes provided students with fundamen-
tal support to create a critical statement around art and to identify what was
essential to discover. Prompts included, ‘What is the meaning of the work?
What is the visual language; how does the artist use colour? Is that used to
portray emotion? Is that used formally or structurally?’ Yolande explained that
one of her templates aided students to compare their selected artists: ‘They
are writing some broad general statements about the things that are not just
similar and different, but the way in which things are linked between those
photographers’.
Shannon encouraged a deep investigation of artists’ approaches by
asking students to create a timeline. The aim was to see how their selected
artists were connected in history with at least ten other artists and how each
artist’s ideas have developed. To her, it was important for students to notice
these relations with the past to understand their own art making process
Figure 1: Observation of Shannon and Bella discussing the student’s images and
layouts.
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Veronica Garcia Lazo | Jill Smith
106
as ‘cause and effect’. Shannon explained this through the allegory of the
‘tree’:
I often talk about the tree and how this branch led to this twig, then led
to this twig, then to this twig … and you need to actually trace all that
back to the precedents to find out where these ideas began.
Showing thinking as on-going cycles: An open-ended journey
Both Shannon and Yolande promoted the concept of the ‘thinking journey’,
presented to students as on-going thinking cycles of researching, drawing and
producing. Once students began drawing and producing their own artworks
they could return to research as needed. Visual diagrams were used to demon-
strate that it is not a linear process and, while there is a starting point that
operates as a visual proposal, there is a need to generate continuing cycles of
reflective production. Yolande discussed this with her students to bring light
to their next step:
They look at, ‘what am I really wanting to communicate?’ They analyse
the different ways in which they’ve been working in terms of ideas and
corresponding method. Then, they may be narrowing it down …
Figure 2: Observation of Yolande reminding students about the concept of the ‘thinking journey’.
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Developing thinking skills through the visual
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Yolande recommended that students keep the journey open-ended; that
they might be at a stage where they can predict their next movement, but
the journey was not about a conclusion. Her aim was to make students feel
comfortable around this uncertain process, ‘but being … willing to come to
know’. She discussed how the journey allowed students to renegotiate their
way through at any phase:
The cycle is also this idea of taking multiple journeys at once … you
have a starting point that hopefully will allow you to take a number
of related journeys in your picture making, informed by practice. And
then, what you do is weave all that together in cycles of reflective and
creative thinking.
Shannon’s approach was to encourage students to regard their thinking process
as a narrative to be unfolded. Initially, she discussed with students how their
process was a series of actions that needed to reveal a dialogue around visual
ideas. She warned students to not dwell excessively on telling a story because
their journey should provide evidence of a visual language issue. This was
followed by discussions: ‘I recommend an absolute minimum of five artists to
reference and the more the better because the more they have the less likely
they are to be linear in their narrative’. Shannon also highlighted the impor-
tance of producing a series of work, which provides greater possibilities to
assess techniques and ideas to make further decisions into a coherent whole:
Identifying streams in work, being very careful not to repeat what they
are doing … to not keep going around in circles. I draw diagrams of
how an idea can actually have three different branches and that it is fine
to follow all three and then select from those.
The study and creation of images provided inspiration
for students’ thinking
The visual arts classes described by the students provided essential support to
develop their thinking around the visual. For Vena-Rose, Yolande’s student
in photography, the concept she previously held about images had changed
because the art classes had enhanced her understanding of the visual and its
underlying meaning. Vena-Rose described this experience as a useful tool that
allowed her to ‘perceive more things in an image’ around her subject matter,
the graphic characteristics of architecture. Correspondingly, Bella, who studied
painting and printmaking with Shannon, showed a deep awareness of how the
visual affects young people. She declared herself a frequent user of websites that
offer images to be explored and find inspiration from. Bella described images
as ‘an eloquent medium’ to depict her ideas about the exploitation of animals
and was very conscious of the active role of the viewer in reading images.
The researched artist models were seen by the students as the base that
underpinned their own making in a thoughtful way. Vena-Rose explained
that it helped her to look critically at how her artist references used formal
principles and how worthwhile it was to explore bodies of works by individ-
ual artists. But it was the exploration of work by differing photographers that
was most inspirational for developing thinking about her images. Vena-Rose
stressed that her selection of media was based in the knowledge acquired
through researching, and this made her confident about choosing particular
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Veronica Garcia Lazo | Jill Smith
108
techniques. Likewise, Bella discovered artists who inspired her use of tech-
niques to evoke ideas: ‘Those artists manipulate dark tones to get an effect,
which is what I’m really interested in, to portray the idea of darkness’. She
explained how she chose particular symbols to portray her thoughts about
animal exploitation during her drawing processes:
I have rats and a lot of animals that are really ugly looking, especially in
my prints because I use it … as a symbol of humanity and how morals
are ugly in a way, the way that we sort of inflate suffering of animals.
Both students considered that the flexibility of the ‘thinking journey’ had
enabled them to develop evaluative skills for producing artworks and making
adjustments according to changes in their thinking processes. As Vena-Rose
said: ‘I might change my mind a little bit throughout my journey. So, I’m
Figure 3: Examples of Vena-Rose’s drawing of architectural images applying artist
models.
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Developing thinking skills through the visual
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hopefully excited ... I’m a little bit shy at times, but I’m confident’. Bella said
she felt comfortable about not knowing how her story was going to unfold:
I think it’s important to look at the work, think about what you have
done and find aspects you like … and maybe magnify them more, or
make them smaller in your next works and just play around through
the portfolio.
A thinking journey: Empowering students
to show individual reasoning
The main difference between the two students’ thinking related to their start-
ing point for developing ideas in their individual projects of work, and in
the art making methods that were appropriate to their themes. These differ-
ences reflected each student’s particular concerns and underpinned distinct
aspects on how to illustrate their ‘thinking’ through the visual. For example,
Vena-Rose’s interest in the graphic characteristics of ‘architecture’ generated
an ‘objective’ consideration of formal picture-making in her photographic
drawings (Figure 3).
In contrast, Bella’s concern with the issue of animal exploitation was
grounded in a psychological discourse. This emotive topic generated more
‘subjective’ thinking and producing through symbols that portrayed powerful
meaning (Figure 4).
The differences between these two students illustrated the open-ended-
ness of their choice of ‘story’ in addressing the objectives of the Achievement
Standards in NCEA Visual Arts. Each student’s body of work illustrated the
Figure 4: Examples of Bella’s drawing applying the influence of diverse artist
models for printmaking.
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Veronica Garcia Lazo | Jill Smith
110
flexibility of approaches used by their teachers, an essential feature of develop-
ing thinking as a lifelong learning skill. The main value of the students’ differ-
ences lay in their production of unique and original bodies of work in which
the visual was explored and individual thinking was established.
A key factor contributing to the teachers’ ability to develop thinking skills in
students through images was the philosophy underpinning national curricu-
lum and NCEA assessment processes. The flexibility of these policies provided
space for innovative and critical approaches by the teachers, enabling their
students to develop diverse ideas and meaningful creations. As a result, the
students demonstrated awareness of their thinking, coupled with the ability
to evaluate, synthesize and communicate ideas through their writing and
visual language. The strategies used by the teachers were enhanced by the
following:
Philosophical and pedagogical support from a flexible curriculum based in •
a cognitive model
A standards-based, not ‘content-driven’, assessment system•
The development of thinking skills as a foundation through all years of •
secondary schooling
Open-ended units designed around a student-centred mode that focused •
on students’ personal interests
Inclusion of visual literacy and discussions to develop and produce •
individual thinking.
This research showed that educational policies and curriculum design are
critical factors. As O. Gude (2007: 6) argues: ‘Quality in art curriculum is thus
rooted in belief in the transformative power of art and critical inquiry’. Visual
arts curricula should not be confined to content and skill-development, but
must consciously create a foundation from which students are enabled to
study their own concerns through diverse visual topics. The teachers’ strategies
to develop students’ thinking skills, and the grounding theory behind them,
demonstrated that to produce lifelong-learners visual arts education should
emphasize thinking skills and encourage individual reasoning. Although this
research was confined to a small-scale project, the findings offer a critical
discussion around diverse strategies to develop cognitive skills in visual arts.
A/r/tography offered Garcia Lazo a creative means to privilege the roles of
artist, teacher and researcher, allowing for the inclusion of images and text
to approach deeper meanings involving the self and others (Irwin and de
Cosson 2004). The merging of these three roles integrated her voice in the eval-
uation of findings and through the visual. The inclusion of images was justified
by their evocative power that worked as means to represent understandings
and create meaning that cannot be expressed by words (Springgay 2002).
Within this frame, Garcia Lazo looked critically at her findings, searching for
the most eloquent visual and written ‘fragments’ from the student and teacher
participants. With these she created three a/r/tographic artworks based on
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Developing thinking skills through the visual
111
multiple fragments from the data, coupled with her own interpretations. These
complemented the conclusions from the research.
A/r/tographic piece inspired by the student’s processes:
Vena-Rose’s thinking journey
This a/r/tographic image, inspired by Vena-Rose’s thinking processes, comprised
‘fragments’ of some of her most eloquent architectural images influenced by
diverse artist models. Garcia Lazo’s digital collage combined the students ‘frag-
ments’ with her own photographs to create new images. These represented
Vena-Rose taking photographs from multiple perspectives of the city, a part of
her drawing procedure. Just as the student’s photographs were later manip-
ulated through digital techniques, Garcia Lazo followed a similar method to
symbolize her thinking journey using technology as a discerning tool. The
scale of her subject, Vena-Rose photographing an architectural landscape, was
enhanced and repeated to symbolize the student’s observational processes. Each
camera lens was then painted to represent Vena-Rose’s artistic strategies. This
became a metaphor of her making and reflective processes, and of Garcia Lazo’s
Figure 5: Awakening through the artist models.
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Veronica Garcia Lazo | Jill Smith
112
understanding as a/r/tographer. Finally, this visual interpretation was comple-
mented with a poem by Garcia Lazo, based on her impressions and fragments
of Vena-Rose’s interview and to illustrate the student’s thinking about images.
A/r/tographic piece inspired by the student’s processes:
Bella’s thinking journey
This a/r/tographic piece, inspired by Bella’s thinking journey, is a digital mix
created with ‘fragments’ of some of the student’s most expressive painting and
printmaking images underpinned by different artist references. It included a
photographic portrait of Bella taken by Garcia Lazo, digitally manipulated to
disguise the student’s identity and represent her emotional approach. Bella
appears in the upper right corner observing the dark zone at the left. Because
her creations revolved around emerging subjects from the darkness, Garcia Lazo
followed a similar approach to suggest Bella’s thinking processes. Accordingly,
different layers were used to insinuate uncanny characters, including rats, hidden
Figure 6: Drawing symbols into the darkness.
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Developing thinking skills through the visual
113
in the shadows. This became a metaphor of Bella’s creative and insightful art
making, coupled with Garcia Lazo’s comprehension as a/r/tographer. Lastly,
this pictorial reading of Bella’s thinking was completed with a poem based
on Garcia Lazo’s interpretations and fragments of their interviews, selected to
evoke the student’s deep understandings around the visual.
A/r/tographic piece inspired by the two visual arts teachers’
approaches
This final a/r/tographic image was inspired by the two visual arts teachers’
approaches to developing students’ critical thinking through images. Since a
key feature of their strategies was the progressive freedom given to students
to explore their own programme of work, this image was created around that
concept. Garcia Lazo photographed a leaf, which she manipulated to repre-
sent a tree to symbolize the way in which the teachers presented the notion
of the thinking journey. Just as the students were encouraged to research and
select diverse related artists to inspire their own art making, the leaf stem
Figure 7: Giving the freedom to think.
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Veronica Garcia Lazo | Jill Smith
114
became a trunk. This metaphorically suggested their chosen pathways that, as
they moved forward, offered several branches or alternative thinking journeys
to follow. The leaf ribs were as interconnected as the artists, who are linked
by their approaches. The veins symbolized the students’ freedom to choose
their way through and the way they were encouraged to vary their journeys
through cycles of thinking as a natural reflective process. Finally, this visual
metaphor was complemented with Garcia Lazo’s poem based on fragments of
the teachers’ interviews and her conclusions from this research.
The authors wish to thank the Faculty of Education, The University of
Auckland, for its support for the preparation of this article.
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SuggeSted Citation
Garcia Lazo, V. and Smith, J. (2014), ‘Developing thinking skills through the
visual: An a/r/tographical journey’, International Journal of Education through
Art 10: 1, pp. 99–116, doi: 10.1386/eta.10.1.99_1
Contributor detailS
Veronica Garcia Lazo is a secondary school art teacher and photographer from
Chile, and current doctoral student in the Faculty of Education, The University
of Auckland, New Zealand.
Contact: The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92601 Symonds Street,
Auckland, 1150, New Zealand.
E-mail: veronica.garcia@auckland.ac.nz
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Veronica Garcia Lazo | Jill Smith
116
Dr Jill Smith is Principal Lecturer and Course Director of graduate and post-
graduate courses in Visual Arts education, School of Curriculum and Pedagogy,
Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Contact: The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92601 Symonds Street,
Auckland, 1150, New Zealand.
E-mail: j.smith@auckland.ac.nz
Veronica Garcia Lazo and Jill Smith have asserted their right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of
this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd.
ETA_10.1_Lazo_99-116.indd 116 1/20/14 2:50:32 PM
