Assessment - Mastery

Ahhhhhh.........ASSESSMENT -the four letter word in the Visual arts community! True art isn't assessed it is critiqued. There is no right answer here because expression yields divergent responses and even the most basic rubric is controversial in its attempt to "asses"  artwork. At the formative level it is easy to judge a skill but judging for mastery is often in the eye of the beholder. 

Sooooo.....this is how I approach mastery. I assess for mastery of the skills and not the expressive idea. I assess for the development of the idea and the general process in which the student arrived at their final piece.

Art differs from other subjects due to the creativity component that becomes central once high level skills have emerged. Music and writing have strong conventions that must be adhered to but those subjects can have a strong creativity component as well.