1. Show up to class wide awake, the room will be low lit to enhance the images.
2. Ask questions, share your thoughts, engage in class discourse. Often answers to test questions will be included in lectures.
3. Take detailed notes! Include sketches, keywords, movements, quotes, names, locations, and dates.
4. Take class notes by hand and type up your handwritten notes as a way to study for tests.
5. Make flashcards with images, titles, artists, locations, and dates.
6. Establish a study group early on. Hint: look for other students who are taking notes during class.
7. Thinking is part of studying and writing, so take a walk and reflect on what you've read, viewed, and discussed.
8. Ask yourself what isn't being discussed, look for connections, and consider what you would like to know more about.
9. Art History is not an exact science, it employs theory, visual analysis, and thoughtful critique.
10. Writing about art should be fun. There is no right or wrong if you can make a good case for your perspective. If you need help with your research, contact your librarian!
*Turn off your phone! Consider this class the perfect time for a tech break. Art History courses are often telling the stories collected within images, and when thinking creatively, we can begin to connect these stories to one another, to our own work, or to the historical and social events of the time.