Clark, G., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Teaching Talented Art Students: Principles and Practices.

Clark, G., & Zimmerman, E. (2004). Teaching talented art students: Principles and practices. New York: Teachers College Press (168 pp., $25.00 pb, ISBN 080774445X)

In Teaching talented art students, Gilbert Clark (Professor Emeritus of Art Education and Gifted Education at Indiana University) and Enid Zimmerman (Professor and Coordinator of Art Education and Gifted and Talented Programs in the Curriculum and Instruction Department in the School of Education at Indiana University) promote an expanded perspective on the distribution of art talent in the population. Using Clark's Drawing Abilities Test (CDAT, a standardized instrument used to measure visual art abilities), the authors establish that, like intelligence, art talent is normally distributed in a pattern similar to the bell curve. Therefore, according to these authors, almost everyone is endowed with at least some aptitude for art talent development. There are a few students with superior artistic abilities, but most have abilities somewhere in the average range. They suggest that in a supportive, flexible, and intellectually demanding environment, artistic talent can be cultivated. If their premise is correct, then this book has a much broader appeal than the title suggests. We all are teaching students with the potential for artistic talent, though only some of them demonstrate high levels of artistic ability.

In order to support artistic talent development, the authors advise using a structured program to encourage consistent work patterns and the skills necessary to confront frustration. At the core of this text, Clark and Zimmerman provide a program structure for a general art curriculum that accommodates various levels of achievement and relates the instruction to the understanding of works of artists, art historians, art critics, and aestheticians. The authors' theoretical framework for educating artistically talented students is formulated through the integration of Discipline-Based Art Education and the application of D. H. Feldman's "Unique to Universal Continuum" theory of art talent development (1985). Each developmental domain in the curriculum model is seen as a level of achievement within specific bodies of knowledge. The developmental domains are ordered from Introductory to Rudimentary, to Intermediate, to Advanced, to Mastery Stages.

Appropriate content for each learner's stage is explored across four strands: Art Making, Art Criticism, Art History, and Aesthetics. The assumption is that students begin their studies of visual art at a naive stage and as a result of planned teacher interventions and activities, exit at a more sophisticated level. For example, at the Introductory stage, learners begin the Art Criticism strand by acquiring basic vocabulary. At each progressive stage, students learn to use that vocabulary in order to categorize works of art through description and analysis. At any place on the structure, artistically talented students would be enriched by reaching greater depth of knowledge, skills, and values than that achieved by most students. When this curriculum model is applied, the authors suggest that future art education researchers group and categorize student products from this differentiated curriculum and use the distribution as a means to create a new model for identification of artistically talented students.

Clark and Zimmerman provide an impressive review of the literature examining the relationship between academic ability and art talent, and the connections between giftedness, creativity, and art talent development. Additionally, they provide useful suggestions for identifying artistically talented students. Teaching Talented Art Students provides several examples of differentiated curriculum from their research and development programs conducted over the course of their long careers in art education and gifted studies. They include creative examples of teacher designed thematic units and two models that apply their "Expanded Structure for Learning Experiences in the Visual Arts." As much as I appreciate reading the theme-based units, I also feel that the book would benefit from a more detailed articulation of an entire art program based on their model.

Art educators who are already familiar with E. B. Feldman's (1994) art criticism methods and Broudy's (1987) aesthetic scanning procedures will be interested in Clark's approach to Looking and Talking About Art (LATA) detailed in Chapter 4. LATA may be a useful idea for teachers who want to introduce discussion of artworks into their classrooms; however, even with the help of a figure illustrating the cognitive map of his methods, I found that the description of this system was not complete enough to implement.

In the final chapter on programming and assessment, program models for students who are artistically talented are well matched with common options and opportunities used for the academically talented including enrichment models, ability grouping, and acceleration. However, the assessment examples were specific to the studies presented, making it difficult to generalize to a wider application.

The audience for this book is broader than the title suggests. Acceptance of art talent as normally distributed has implications for all educators, including but not limited to educators of the academically gifted and talented.

REFERENCES

Broudy, H. (1987). The role of imagery in learning. Los Angeles, CA: Getty.

Feldman, D. H. (1985). The concept of non-universal developmental domains: Implications for artistic development. Visual Arts Research. 11(1), 82-89.

Feldman, E. B. (1994). Practical art criticism. New York: Prentice Hall.

Jesse Cukierkorn, M.A.Ed. is a doctoral student and graduate research assistant in The Frances A. Karnes Center for Gifted Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, MS. E-mail: Jesse. [e-mail]