Artistic and Creative Literacy

Objectives:

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Characterize artistic literacy;

• Discuss the value of arts to education and practical life;
• Identify approaches to developing/ designing curriculum that cultivates the
arts and creativity among learners;
• Formulate a personal definition of creativity; and
• Design creative and innovative classroom activities for specific topic and grade
level of students.
Artistic literacy is defined in
the National Coalition for Core
Arts Standards: A Conceptual
Framework for Arts Learning
(2014) as the knowledge and
understanding required to
participate authentically in
the arts.
The flexibility of the forms comprising
the arts positions students to embody a
range of literate practices to:

 use their minds in verbal and nonverbal

ways;
 communicate complex ideas in a variety
of forms;
 understand words, sounds, or images;
 imagine new possibilities; and
 persevere to reach goals and make
them happen.
Engaging in quality arts education experiences
provides students with an outlet for powerful
creative expression, communication, aesthetically
rich understanding, and connection to the world
around them. Being able to critically read, write, and
speak about art should not be the sole constituting
factors of what counts as literacy in the Arts
(Shenfield, 2015). Considerably, more dialogue,
discussion, and research are necessary to form a
deeper picture of the Arts and creativity more
broadly. The cultivation of imagination and creativity
and the formation of deeper theory surrounding
multimodality and multi-literacies in the Arts are
paramount.
Eliot Eisner posited valuable lessons or benefits that
education can learn from arts and he summarized
these into eight as follows:

1. Form and content cannot be separated. How

something is said or done shapes the content of
experience. In education, how something is taught,
how curricula are organized, and how schools are
designed impact upon what students will learn. These
“side effects” may be the real main effects of
practice.
2. Everything interacts; there is no content without form and no form without content.
When the content of a form is changed, so too, is the form altered. Form and content are
like two sides of a coin.

3. Nuance matters. To the extent to which teaching is an art, attention to nuance is

critical. How a word is spoken, how gesture is made, how a line is written, and how a
melody is played, all affect the character of the whole. All depend upon the modulation of
the nuances that constitute the act.

4. Surprise is not to be seen as an intruder in the process of inquiry, but as a part of the
rewards one reaps when working artistically. No surprise, no discovery, no discovery, no
progress. Educators should not resist surprise but create the conditions to make it happen.
It is one of the most powerful sources of intrinsic satisfaction.
5. Slowing down perception is the most promising way to see what is actually
there. Speed in its swift state is a descriptor for those we call smart. Yet, one
of the qualities we ought to be promoting in our schools is a slowing down of
perception: the ability to take one’s time, to smell the flowers, to really
perceive in the Deweyan sense, and not merely to recognize what one looks
at.

6. The limits of language are not the limits of cognition. We know more than
we can tell. In common terms, literacy refers essentially to the ability to read
and to write. But literacy can be re-conceptualized as the creation and
meaning- use of a form of representation that will enable one to create
meaning- meaning that will not take the impress of language in its
conventional form. In addition, literacy is associated with high-level forms of
cognition. We tend to think that in order to know, one has to be able to say.
However, as Polanyi (1969) reminds us, we know more than we can tell.
7. Somatic experience is one of the most important indicators that someone has gotten it
right. Related to the multiple ways in which we represent the world through our multiple
forms of literacy is the way in which we come to know the world through the entailments
of our body. Sometimes one knows a process or an event through one’s skin.

8. Open-ended tasks permit the experience of imagination, and an exercise of the

imagination is one of the most important of human aptitudes. It is imagination, not
necessity, that is the mother of invention. Imagination is the source of new possibilities. In
the arts, imagination is a primary virtue. So, it should be in the teaching of mathematics,
in all of the sciences, in history, and, indeed, in virtually all that humans create. This
achievement would require for its realization a culture of schooling in which the
imaginative aspects of the human condition were made possible.
Characterizing Artistically Literate
Individuals

How would you characterize an artistically literate student? Literature on art education and art
standards I education cited the following as common traits of artistically literate individuals:
 use a variety of artistic media, symbols, and metaphors to communicate their own ideas
and respond to the artistic communications of others;
 develop creative personal realization in at least one art form in which they continue
active involvement as an adult;
 cultivate culture, history, and other connections through diverse forms and genres of
artwork;
 find joy, inspiration, peace, intellectual stimulation, and meaning when they participate
in the arts; and
 seek artistic experiences and support the arts in their communities.
Issues in Teaching
Creativity
In his famous TED talks on creativity and innovation,
Sir Ken Robinson (Do schools kill creativity? 2006;
How to escape education’s death valley?, 2013)
stressed paradigms on the education system that
hamper the development of creative capacity among
learners. He emphasized that schools stigmatize
mistakes. This primarily prevents students from
trying and coming up with original ideas. He also
reiterated the hierarchy of systems.
1. Most useful subjects such as Mathematics and
languages for work are at the top while arts are
at the bottom.
2. Academic ability has come to dominate our
view of intelligence.
Because of this painful truth, Robinson challenged educators to:

educate the well-being of learners and shift from the conventional learnings toward
academic ability alone;
give equal weight to the arts, the humanities, and to physical education;
facilitate learning and work toward stimulating curiosity among learners;
awaken and develop powers of creativity among learners; and
view intelligence as diverse, dynamic, and distinct, contrary to common belief that it
should be academic ability-geared.
 In “First Literacies: Art, Creativity, Play, Constructive Meaning-
Making,” McArdle and Wright asserted that educators should make
deliberate connections with children’s first literacies of art and play. A
recommended new approach to early childhood pedagogy would emphasize
children’s embodied experience through drawing. This would include a
focus on children’s creation, manipulation, and changing of meaning
through engaged interaction with art materials (Dourish, 2001), through
physical, emotional and social immersion (Anderson, 2003). The authors
proposed four essential components to developing or designing curriculum
that cultivates students’ artistic and creative literacy.
 1. Imagination and pretense, fantasy and metaphor

A creative curriculum will not simply

allow, but will actively support, play, and
playfulness. The Teacher will plan for
learning and teaching opportunities for
children to be, at once, who they are not,
transforming reality, building narratives,
and mastering and manipulative signs and
symbol systems.
2. Active menu to meaning making

A creative curriculum requires a creative teacher, who understands the creative

process, and purposefully supports learners in their experiences. Intentional teaching
does not mean drill and rote learning and indeed, endless rote learning exercises
might indicate the very opposite of intentional teaching . What makes for intentional
teaching is thoughtfulness and purpose, and this could occur in such activities as
reading a story, adding a prop, drawing children’s attention to a spider’s web, and
playing with rhythm and rhyme. Even the thoughtful and intentional imposing of
constraints can lead to creativity.
3. Intentional , holistic
teaching

In a classroom where children

can choose to draw, write,
paint, or play in the way that
suits their purpose and or mood,
literacy learning and arts
learning will inform and support
each other.
 4. Co-player, co-artist

Educators must be reminded of the

importance of understanding
children as current citizens, with
capacities and capabilities in the
here and now. It is vital for teachers
to know and appreciate children and
what they know by being mindful of
the present and making time for
conversation, interacting with the
children as they draw. Teachers
must try to avoid letting the busy
management work of their days take
precedence and distract them from
the ‘being.’
Becoming a 21 Century
st

School
 As Sir Ken Robinson
stated, “Creativity is not
an option, it’s an absolute
necessity.” Therefore, we
must find ways to bring
creativity into learning.
Integrating and Supporting the Arts and
Creativity
 Physical Environment- design physical
environment to support creativity.

Integrating
and Supporting Emotional Environment- take time to create
and maintain a climate of respect and caring
the Arts and and that supports making mistakes.

Creativity
Project-based learning- introduce choice,
freedom and space for creativity. The PBL
units you design should be relevant, rigorous
and real world in order to achieve the highest
levels of student motivation, engagement and
learning.
PBL COMPONENTS
Teach Creative Thinking Skills- first teach students about “metacognition”-
“thinking about thinking.”
Alternative Assessments- instead of a
worksheet or an assignment in which every
student creates a poster (about the same
thing), provide plenty of leeway for students
to create products in a medium of their
choice!

Scheduling- project-based curriculum and

performance-based assessments require
adequate time.

Student-Centered and Personalized Learning-

give students voice and choice as much as
possible regarding what they will learn, how
they will learn it and how they will
demonstrate what they have learned.
Incorporate the Arts- seamlessly integrate music, art, drama and dance
into your PBL curriculum. Try not to make creativity time be separate
from the rest of the curriculum, but let these disciplines become a
vehicle for delivering the curriculum while developing creativity.
Integration of Technologies- student blogs and web sites, Glogster Voice Thread,
student publishing, video game design, coding, filmmaking, photography, global
collaborative classroom projects using Google Hangouts.
QUIZ ½ CROSSWISE
Test I. Multiple Choice. Read the following questions carefully and
write the correct answer.

1. The following examples are authentic assessment in arts EXCEPT

ONE.
a. Poster interpretation
b. Interpretative dance
c. Mural painting
d. Song writing
2. “Form and content cannot be separated.” Which of the following
statements supports this phrase?
a. How something is said or done shapes the content of experience.
b. When the content of a form is changed, so too, is the form
altered.
c. There is no content without form and no form without content.
d. We know more than we can tell.
3. It is one of the most powerful sources of intrinsic satisfaction.
a. Discovery
b. Progress
c. Surprise
d. Art
4. It is the arts’ primary virtue.
a. Imagination
b. Experience
c. Creativity
d. Passion
5. The following are common traits of artistically literate individuals
EXCEPT ONE.
a. use a variety of artistic media, symbols, and metaphors to
communicate other people’s ideas.
b. develop creative personal realization in at least one art form in
which they continue active involvement as an adult.
c. cultivate culture, history, and other connections through diverse
forms and genres of artwork.
d. seek artistic experiences and support the arts in their communities.
6. “Creativity is not an option, it’s an absolute necessity,” is quoted
by?
a. Eliot Eisner
b. Sir Ken Robinson
c. McArdle
d. Wright
7. It gives students voice and choice as much as possible regarding
what they will learn, how they will learn it and how they will
demonstrate what they have learned.
a. Student-Centered and Personalized Learning
b. Project-based learning
c. Alternative Assessments
d. Student voice and choice
8. Who asserted that educators should make deliberate connections
with children’s first literacies of art and play?
a. McArdle & Wright
b. Sir Ken Robinson
c. Anderson
d. Dourish
9. What makes for intentional teaching is ______________.
a. Thoughtfulness and purpose
b. Passion and commitment
c. Love and passion
d. Good intentions
10. A creative curriculum will not simply allow, but will actively
support, play and playfulness.
a. Imagination and pretense, fantasy and metaphor.
b. Active menu to meaning making.
c. Intentional, holistic teaching.
d. Co-player, co-artist.
Test II. Modified True or False. Write TRUE if the statement is
correct but if it’s false, write FALSE and change the underlined word
or group of words to make the whole statement true. (2 points each
item)

11. Open-ended tasks permit the exercise of imagination, and an

exercise of the imagination is one of the most important of human
aptitudes.
12. Parents must be reminded of the importance of understanding
children as current citizens, with capacities and capabilities in the
here and now.
13. Project-based Learning give students voice and choice as much
as possible regarding what they will learn, how they will learn it and
how they will demonstrate what they have learned.
14. Eliot Eisner challenged educators to facilitate learning and work
toward stimulating curiosity among learners.
15. Artistic literacy is defined as the knowledge and understanding
required to participate authentically in the arts.