Critique in the Artroom

Art criticism is an aspect of art school that can seem daunting and unpleasant to students.  Developing successful discussion and critique of student work in the art classroom needs to be facilitated by the teacher.  The readings discuss how important it is for the teacher to guide the students in taking control over the critique and helping them to learn something along the way as well.  Barrett states that it is the role of the teacher to ask the right kinds of questions which allows students to delve deeper in discussing works of art made by their peers.  A structured discussion is critical, especially if students are not sure where to begin or what to say besides claiming if they simply like the art or not.  Nancy House categorized these questions as "points of entry" in the discussion.  They are similar to the way I have tried to structure my "motivation" teacher activity when writing lesson plans.  These guiding questions can lead the discussion in the direction that we as teachers know is going to be important in learning specific information.  Of course, we hope that students will begin with answering these questions but will be able to make inferences of their own that we have not already thought of for them.  Much as we like to have students "make their own decisions" when it comes to art-making, we also strive for them to come up with their own interpretations or explanations of a piece in a critique.
While I wholeheartedly agree with Barrett's advocacy for leading questions, I wonder at the claim that the artist should not include his/her own meaning of his/her own work in a discussion.  I understand that hearing the artist's statement first would defeat the purpose of having students interpret the work, however if at the end of others' comments the artist wishes to reveal his/her initial meaning, I do not see this as being such a negative thing.  I have been in critiques where students correctly understand the artist's intentions and other times do not, however either way I find it interesting to hear what the artist has to say about his/her own work.  Sometimes when viewing contemporary art in galleries or museums I can not appreciate the work as much until I know what the artist intended.  I suppose Barrett is only trying to convey the importance of students interpreting what they see in front of them to stimulate conversation in the artroom.