Sample Student Responses from the 2008 Visual Arts Assessment

"Sufficient" Sample Response

The student's response presented here shows clear and specific observations that communicated something important about the artist. The student incorporated identifying detail in terms of personal features and an activity (art making). The self-portrait shows purposeful use of compositional elements and sophisticated use of materials.

This work also shows very good use of proportion, color, and line, and was fully developed and individualized. The response also showed evidence of the student having spent time observing the Kollwitz and Schiele self-portraits. Four percent of students’ self-portraits were rated “Sufficient.”

"Uneven" Sample Response

Works at the “Uneven” level made some specific observations. They sometimes employed pertinent compositional elements, gave attention to details such as facial features to convey expression, and/or effectively used materials to communicate. However, “Uneven” works were typically inconsistent or incomplete in parts. In the sample presented here, the student gave her work individuality by vivid use of color, facial expression, and the symbols incorporated in her jewelry and the background. However, elements of her work seem inconsistent and lacking in deliberation, such as the placement and rendering of the symbols and colors in the background. Twenty-five percent of students’ self-portraits were rated “Uneven.”

"Minimal" Sample Response

As with many works rated at the “Minimal” level, in the sample self-portrait shown here, efforts at specific observations were apparent but relatively minimal (the red lines in the eyes). Compositional successes may seem more accidental than deliberate, and use of materials was unskilled. For example, while this student may have been attempting to convey some sense of an individual person by emphasizing only his eyes and mouth with color, he lacked the skill to make this choice distinctive enough to convey his message. Fifty-seven percent of students’ self-portraits were rated “Minimal.”

"Insufficient" Sample Response

Most self-portraits rated “Insufficient” were generally so schematic as to convey little or nothing about the student. Like the sample self-portrait shown here, they showed unspecific observation, little awareness of composition, and highly unskilled use of materials. In contrast to the “Minimal” response, there were no features in this self-portrait that conveyed anything specific about a person, and it remained at a general level. Fourteen percent of students’ self-portraits were rated “Insufficient.”

See more information in the NAEP Questions Tool.