FTC & EDUCATION
Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens. It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.
–National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 (P.L. 89-209)
Sandell’s FTC methodology–focused on CRITERIA and EVIDENCE–is used by educators within high school and university classrooms as well as other learning sites for diverse audiences. Learners can use the FTC Palette to explore and engage with a work of art. The Palette’s design prompts learners to investigate, question and value the subject of research organized within the criteria of Formal, Thematic and Contextual information.
Examples of FTC used in secondary and higher education plus digital gaming include the following:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to find ourselves where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
T.S. Elliot

AAA student Kat Leiss reads an original poem inspired by Norman Rockwell’s painting Rosie the Riveter at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Leiss used the FTC Palette Norman Rockwell’s work of art Rosie the Riveter.
Arkansas Arts Academy (AAA), Rogers, Arkansas
At Arkansas Arts Academy (AAA), Arts Integration Director Aaron Jones works with teachers to incorporate the arts into core subjects. A method that has proven to be successful for middle and high school subjects is the use of the FTC Palette. Students are introduced to Dr. Renee Sandell’s FTC Palette using a work of art. Using the FTC Palette for research allow students to approach a work of art and make meaningful connections with the core discipline being taught. The FTC Palette ensures a higher understanding and contextualization of the work of art is achieved, affording the students to compose beautifully, descriptive narratives that examine the structural composition of the work and express the artistic intention and describe the journey of the artist through the creative process.
International School of Beijing, China
Brian Reverman, Art Department Instructor at International School of Beijing uses FTC integration to guide students in decoding and encoding art in his high school International Baccalaureate (IB) art program. Reverman’s videos use FTC to understand art include Discovering Art: Search for Meaning and Discovering More About Art: The Search for Meaning. Engaging students in creative approaches to critical response, Brian created an electronic version of the FTC template in an instructional video with links to templates, free software, and student examples. His Art-o-matic 3.0 videos provide a graphic organizers for analyzing art and building artistic language. Reverman’s latest FTC videos are designed for middle school with art-o-matic templates for beginning students to use FTC and includes one for writing an artist statement (integrating FTC with the 8 Studio Habits.)
Find Videos at https://mountains.brianreverman.com/art-o-matic/
University of Maine, Augusta
Professor Susan Bickford uses FTC in her classroom and gallery teaching at University of Maine, Augusta: “I use the FTC palette both with beginners and with advanced students, in classroom discussions, field work in Museums, and studio critiques…The ways of expanded engagement that the SummerVision DC program gave to me have deeply impacted my ability to lead a group with passion through the museums. I often bookend our semester with trips to the field…it jumpstarts our class with super food and then when fatigue is kicking in keeps us finishing up strong. My students remark on how much more they enjoy museum visits by practicing lingering contemplation than when they were just buzzing through, and how it will be a part of their life practice form here on out. “
Interactive Game:
“Mantles in the Museum” by Jason Cox, University of Toledo and Lillian Lewis, Youngstown State University. In this edu-larp (Live Action Role-Playing), players are members of a diverse arts community responsible for sending three works to a prestigious exhibition hosted by the United Nations. The game is designed to make art and art criticism more accessible, and is appropriate for people of any level of knowledge. The FTC Palette specifically focuses on three qualities (Form, Theme, and Context) that can be used to help formulate questions and ideas about the different attributes in a work.

FTC & EDUCATION
Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens. It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.
–National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 (P.L. 89-209)
Sandell’s FTC methodology–focused on CRITERIA and EVIDENCE–has been used by educators within high school and university classrooms as well as other learning sites for diverse audiences. Learners can use the FTC Palette to explore and engage with a work of art. The Palette’s design requires learners to investigate, question and value the subject of research organized within the criteria of Formal, Thematic and Contextual information.
Examples of FTC used in secondary and higher education plus digital gaming include the following:
Arkansas Arts Academy (AAA), Rogers, Arkansas

AAA student Kat Leiss reads an original poem inspired by Norman Rockwell’s painting Rosie the Riveter at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Leiss used the FTC Palette Norman Rockwell’s work of art Rosie the Riveter.
At Arkansas Arts Academy (AAA), Arts Integration Director Aaron Jones works with teachers to incorporate the arts into core subjects. A method that has proven to be successful for middle and high school subjects is the use of the FTC Palette. Students are introduced to Dr. Renee Sandell’s FTC Palette using a work of art. Using the FTC Palette for research allow students to approach a work of art and make meaningful connections with the core discipline being taught. The FTC Palette ensures a higher understanding and contextualization of the work of art is achieved, affording the students to compose beautifully, descriptive narratives that examine the structural composition of the work and express the artistic intention and describe the journey of the artist through the creative process.
“We shall not cease from exploratoin
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to find ourselves where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
T.S. Elliot
International School of Beijing, China
Art Instructor Brian Reverman at The International School of Beijing, uses FTC integration in his high school International Baccalaureate (IB) art program. He has created numerous videos to guide students in decoding and encoding art, including Discovering Art: Search for Meaning and Discovering More About Art: The Search for Meaning. Reverman’s recent Art-o-matic 3.0 is the latest generation of the graphic annotation and analysis tools for teaching students about analyzing art. It contains electronic versions of the FTC template with links to other templates, free software, and student examples, revealing creative approaches to critical response. His latest FTC videos for middle school provide art-o-matic templates for beginning students to use FTC and one for writing an artist statement, integrating FTC with the 8 Studio Habits.
Find Videos under the category “Discovering Art” on Brian’s Art History Channel below.
University Classroom and Gallery Teaching:
Professor Susan Bickford, University of Maine, Augusta
Interactive Game:
“Mantles in the Museum” by Jason Cox,
University of Toledo and Lillian Lewis, Youngstown State University
How do you find meaning in art? In this edu-larp (Live Action Role-Playing), players are members of a diverse arts community that is responsible for sending three works to a prestigious exhibition hosted by the United Nations. The game is built to make art and art criticism more accessible, and is appropriate for people of any level of knowledge. Most players of Mantles in the Museum are not expected to be art experts, even though they are playing characters that are. One way we make the act of art criticism approachable is by using the FTC Palette to examine works in several different ways, decoding them into components that may connect with a player’s actual experience as well as their imagined ones. The Palette specifically focuses on three qualities (Form, Theme, and Context) that can be used to help formulate questions and ideas about the different attributes in a work.