How Can Students Be Assessed in Art?

In light of the current focus on assessment and evaluation, it is interesting to see what Victor D'Amico had to say about it as part of "Coming Events Cast Shadows," published in the September 1958 issue of SchoolArts:

Evaluation is an important part of the learning process for both the child and the teacher. While the child is apt to evaluate each experience and product separately, the teacher focuses her evaluation on broad learning, the acquiring of concepts, and how these concepts change or promote growth in the personality of each student. This is determined not only by the works produced but also by the way in which each individual deals with the problem: the amount of interest he shows, his absorption or independence of action, his awareness and mastery of the aesthetic elements involved. In an exhibition prepared by the Committee on Art Education, one panel bore the caption,"Look at the child as well as his work." This is the emphasis I intend here. The act of doing and becoming forms the basis for evaluation and is the best evidence of growth.