Samples of Student Art #1.

For the “free response” part of their AP exams, students are given green booklets that contain the questions and pink booklets in which to write their answers. They can scribble whatever they wish in either book, but the pink ones get sent off to be scored while the green ones end up in my file cabinet.

It’s always interesting to flip through the green booklets to look at the artwork my students created after writing undoubtedly perfect answers to the free response questions. Rather than double-checking their work during those precious few minutes at the end of an exam that could save them time, money and effort in college, these students chose to create windows into their souls for all posterity to gaze through.

A sampling:

	A helicopter approaches a large boat with one passenger and a cross on its sail. This student seeks adventure, pure and simple.
$after van Gogh\'s \"Starry Night\"$	This student is simply a fan of van Gogh’s The Starry Night.
	This student’s environmental awareness is admirable. He draws a beautiful shore on a beautiful ocean, and the sun wears sunglasses to protect itself from its own harmful UV rays. Note that this was drawn on recycled paper, and there are no human beings to ruin the image.
	This student was so intrigued by the comparative advantage question, he actually drew the specialized production processes. Note that both countries use the same exact machine to produce bicycles and hats.
	Reminiscent of gangland graffiti. This suggests a strong sense of identification or “oneness” with the course. This student will probably shiv someone in prison over the true shape of a Laffer curve.
	This student is struggling with his identity. The crossing-out of the first drawing of Iron Man indicates rejection of the self. The second drawing of Iron Man attempts assertiveness (“I am Ironman”), but being smaller and having a gun pointed at his head suggest the persistence of denial. The tank means nothing.
	This student suffers from several mental incapacities. He is illiterate (“You’re” as possessive) and thinks I’ll marry a bowlegged woman with no face. He may, however, be an idiot savant because he does recognize that any future wife of mine will enjoy economics and the Chicago Bears.
	This student is clearly delusional and has been referred to the Behavioral and Human Services Division.
	A large bear, or… perhaps Mickey Mouse, is riding on the back of a bus in the rain while a bored man with a flat head stands top of a… net? You’ve got me.
	Well… this one certainly throws a kink in my assumption that students only doodled after acing the answers, doesn’t it? This student may have been “pretty good at drawing,” but last I checked, I’m not three times the size of my students and I rarely carried a stick around this year.
	This self-portrait is atrocious. The student’s hair is longer in real life, and has never had a blue closed eyelid in her speech bubbles.