I am an art teacher who has worked in all kinds of high schools. Last year, when I moved to the most high-needs school I had ever taught in, I had to reinvent my teaching style for a pretty tough group of students.

I quickly realized that my students had no idea how to behave in an art room. They thought of it as playtime. After some strategic planning, I began modeling each step. After students learned the basic routine, I gave them Depth of Knowledge sentence starters to help them learn the language of art criticism. They used their guides to view and respond to master works of art as well as their own and other students’ work during class critiques.

Just when I thought they understood how to use the sentence starters to critique work, we had our first major project critique. I had dreams of a group of students sitting in a semicircle around the student artist, analyzing the shapes and colors of the abstract painting and finding meaning in each brush stroke and line.

Ha! It could not have gone more wrong. Students refused to present or to respond. And when a student finally did respond, it was only to ask, “Why do we have to talk and write about art? This isn’t an English class.”

I was crushed. But over the next few weeks, I began showing the students how to break down art criticism into four basic steps: describing, analyzing, interpreting and reflecting on art.

When describing, students only describe what they see using unit vocabulary. No opinions. “I see geometric shapes, I notice layering,” etc. When analyzing, students describe what they think is most successful about the work and why, using unit vocabulary. When interpreting, students try to decipher meaning, message and intent using visual cues. Finally, when reflecting, students focus on areas and techniques to ponder how the artist can improve.

I provide a template including each of the four basic steps so students may use it as a guide to write their end-of-project artist statements and refer to it in discussion. I also write out the four steps on chart paper in different parts of the room so students can use it for quick reference when presenting or responding.

To encourage students to participate in critiques, I choose names from the proverbial hat. About seven to 10 students can present per class, and students earn points by presenting and responding at least three times.

This structure worked pretty well for mainstream students, but it wasn’t enough for high-needs students, students who are painfully shy, students who are frequently absent or those who just aren’t engaged. For these students, I found it helped to vary the levels of sentence starters using Depth of Knowledge questions and the Learning Standards for the Arts. Another strategy I used was to store worksheets in a common location so any student, regardless of his or her attendance, would know how to participate upon arrival. Lastly, I’ve found that it really works to display students’ earned points on a big chart for all to see.

The best strategy to help students understand critique, as well as find personal relevance in the arts, is a field trip to an arts institution. I took my students to MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, several times to critique master works using our class guiding sentence-starter sheet.

These visits especially helped motivate students who have poor attendance. I had one senior tell me she had never been on a field trip before and certainly had never been to a museum. This student later went on to have her work selected for inclusion in the first annual Manhattan Borough Arts Festival.

To get high-needs students to grow from, learn to connect with and appreciate the arts, we teachers need to front-load with materials, vocabulary, sentence starters and time in the museums and galleries of New York City. We must expose these students to the world outside their comfort zone.

It is very difficult, but with a lot of patience, planning and some well-thought-out museum trips, your high-needs students will be able to find their own voice using the arts.