The 14th St. School is an Artist in Residence Program bringing practicing contemporary artists into schools around Los Angeles to facilitate studio visits, guide critiques, and lead workshops with young artists. We use a semiotic and phenomenological method aimed at enhancing our students’ capacities to look at and speak about the work in front of them. Our work aims to highlight connections between image, ideology, history, and aesthetics in an effort to foster critical dialogues within the arts and provide students with a robust understanding of the context in which their work is being made.