Artist Trading Cards used for Critical Thinking

During the AOE presentation in July, I showed how Artist Trading Cards can be used for critical thinking skills.  I offered a worksheet that allowed students to compare and contrast ATC's.  During the conference, there was lot's of questions inquiring about this particular aspect of Artist Trading Cards so I wanted to take the time to write about it. 

The idea is to take two cards and place them on a worksheet.  On the original worksheet I had a lot of questions in a small area.  It was cool looking, but was a little confusing for my students.  I have made another worksheet to share with you.  Feel free to use it.  It's more simple, clean and to the point.  Click here to get the PDF.  I made this new worksheet to fit a regular 8 1/2 x 11-inch sheet of copy paper.  That way, after filling this out, you could place these in a page protector and included it in the ATC collection.

This has been a fun way to see what students think about the project.  It works on comparing and contrasting artwork but in a quick and simple way. It was also a great way to share with others in the class the art that has been traded. We would do this worksheet and then a gallery walk to look at each others thoughts and the other artworks in the classroom.

Be sure to enlarge these images and look at some of the 4th grade thought put into these cards.  It's really sweet!  I hope you can use ATC's to compare/contrast, and to allow students to think deeper about their artwork.