1

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of this module, you are expected to:
1. Define arts and creative literacy
2. Identify the seven habits of highly creative people
3. Explain eye-hand coordination and some associated disorders, interventions and
developments
4. Compare and contrast visual and verbal creativity
5. Cite ways on how to integrate arts and creative literacy in the curriculum
6. Draw relevant life lessons and significant values from a personal experience in
creating an artwork or presenting a performance critiqued by others
7. Analyze research abstract on creative literacy and its implications to teaching learning
process.
8. Create an art work and evaluate it using self-made assessment rubric

CONCEPTS
Teachers need to be creative by all means because teaching entails critical thinking
and creativity not only in presenting lessons but perhaps in all facets of instructional
endeavor. Therefore, students' creativity potential should be honed through various
pedagogic techniques, classroom activities and student engagement. Teachers have to
understand creative literacy deeply to guide them in assessing their own creativity and that of
their students.

Arts and Creative Literacy

Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value. Moreover, creativity
is the ability to see the world in new ways. Therefore, creative individuals exhibit the ability to
switch between different modes of thinking and shift their mental focus that suggests a
connection between creativity and dynamic interactions of brain networks (Sun et. al, 2019).
Likewise, creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality.
Henceforth, it is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden
patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate
solutions. It involves two processes: thinking, then producing (Naiman, 2011).
As such, creativity is a combinatorial force: the ability to tap into one's 'inner' pool of
resources, such as knowledge, insight, information, inspiration; and the fragments in the
mind to combine them in extraordinary new ways (Popova, n.d. in Naiman, 2011). It is also
the process of bringing something new into being that requires passion and commitment.
Creativity begins with a foundation of knowledge, learning a discipline, and mastering
a way of thinking. It can be learned by experimenting, exploring, questioning assumptions,
using imagination and synthesizing information.
The ability to generate creative and innovative ideas is not merely a function of the
mind, but also a function of five key behaviors that optimize brain for discovery: (1)
associating or drawing connections between questions, problems, or ideas from unrelated
fields; (2) questioning or posing queries that challenge common wisdom; (3) observing or
scrutinizing the behavior of others to identify new ways of doing things; (4) networking or
 2

meeting people with different ideas and perspectives; and (5) experimenting or constructing
interactive experiences and provoking responses to see what insights emerge
(https://www.creativityatwork.com/2014/02/17/what-is-creativity).
Developing literacies of the arts and creativity involves design of physical learning
environment, the emotional environment, scheduling, organization and implementation of
curriculum and instruction and attention to the body and the brain. Therefore, teachers
should be empowered in developing these literacies among students with the support of the
administrators, parents, and other stakeholders.

Seven Habits of Highly Creative People

Naiman (2014) opined that if a person makes a habit of the seven practices, he/she will
be highly creative in his/her field. Thus, these would help teachers attain highest possible
level of creativity.
1. Prepare the ground. Creativity requires an absorbed mind, a relaxed state of focus
and attention by giving the self sufficient time and space needed while letting the
desire to create from the pleasure of creative expression and inspiration.
2. Plant seeds for creativity. It is important to put attention on what you want to create,
not on complaints and set an intention to produce the desired results.
3. Live in the question. Ask questions, instead of trying to find immediate answers and
pay attention to questions that other people ask.
4. Feed your brain. Get interested in something that later can provide you wisdom and
ideas if you learn to make connections between people, places and things that are not
usually connected.
5. Experiment and explore. Follow your curiosity, experiment with ideas, and learn
from your mistakes therefore, the quality of your creativity will improve.
6. Replenish your creative stock. You must learn to be self-nourishing and translate
hobbies, talents and skills into wonderful potentials.
7. Liberate your creativity. Your child's play provides the clue to your creativity,
potentials and passion.
In general, creativity takes on many forms in business, art, design, education and
science. When you express your creativity in these domains, you have the ability to make life
indeed a work of art (Naiman, 2011).

Eye-Hand Coordination
In most of our creative activities and endeavors, we integrate eye-hand coordination as
we inhibit our usual body functioning.
Eye—hand coordination (also known as hand—eye coordination) is the coordinated
control of eye movement with hand movement and the processing of visual input to guide
reaching and grasping along with the use of proprioception of hands to guide the eyes. Eye—
hand coordination can be observed in diverse activities, such as the movement of objects,
handwriting, catching a ball, sports, performance, music, reading, computer gaming, typing,
and others. In short, it becomes part of the mechanisms of performing everyday tasks.
Without it, people would be unable to carry out even the simplest actions in daily life.
Eye-hand coordination therefore, is the ability of the vision system to coordinate the
information received through the eyes to control, guide, and direct the hands in the
accomplishment of a given task. It is also a complex cognitive ability as it unites visual and
motor skills, allowing the hand to be guided by the visual stimulation that the eyes receive. It
is the ability to do activities that require simultaneous use of hands and eyes, like an activity
that uses the information that eyes perceive (visual spatial perception) to guide the hands in
 3

carrying out a movement.

Hand-eye coordination is important for child development and academic success,
which is equally important among adults to use in countless activities on a daily basis. Most
activities in day-to-day life use some degree of eye-hand coordination, the reason why it is
really important to develop it as possible. Obviously, visual information is used to correct an
inappropriate behavior in a situation.
We use our eyes to direct attention to a stimulus and help the brain understand where
the body is located in space (self-perception). Reciprocally, we use our hands to
simultaneously carry out a determined task based on the visual information that our eyes
receive (https://www.cognifit.com/science/cognitive-skills/eye-hand-coordination).

Examples of eye-hand coordination

1. In writing. When making lines, the eyes send visual information to the brain to tell
where the hand is placed and if handwriting is legible.
2. Typing on a keyboard. Although the types of movement are different, but visual
information is used to tell the brain how to guide the hand or if a mistake needs to
be corrected.
3. When driving. It uses visual information to move the hands on the wheel, keeping
the car in the middle of the lane and avoiding accidents.
4. In sports. In any sports, the eyes usually coordinate with the movement of some
parts of the body called "motor coordination". Depending on the sport, either hand-
eye coordination (basketball, tennis, football, etc.) or foot-eye coordination (soccer,
track, etc.) will be more dominant. (https://www.cognifit.com/science/cognitive-
skil/s/eye-hand-coordination)

Problems and disorders related to poor eye-hand coordination

Hand-eye coordination can also work poorly even if the person's eyes and vision are
not affected and if their motor control skills work properly. It is possible for someone with a
perfect vision to have hand-eye coordination problems that will only manifest when they use
both the visual and motor systems together.
Any alteration to the visual or motor systems can significantly affect hand-eye
coordination, like visual or muscular problems, such as strabismus (crossed eyes),
amblyopia, muscle hypotonia, balance problems, or crossed laterality. Brain damage to the
motor areas of perceptive areas may also cause eye-hand coordination problems.
Poor hand-eye coordination can affect activities that may lead to developmental
disorders, learning disorders (related to reading, writing and playing sports), in academics
(making mistakes when they take notes, poor hand-writing, poor attention), professional
areas (in typing or assembling objects), and problems with daily activities.
Hence, poor hand-eye coordination can have variety of causes, but the following are
two main conditions for inadequate hand-eye coordination.
1. Vision impairment. It is a loss of vision that makes it hard or impossible to perform
daily tasks without specialized adaptations caused by loss of visual acuity, in which
the eye does not see objects as clearly as usual.
2. Movement disorders. These are characterized by impaired body movements caused
by variety of causes, such as ataxia, which is characterized by lack of coordination
while performing voluntary movements; and hypertonia, a condition marked by an
abnormal increase in muscle tension and a reduced ability of a muscle to stretch.
https://www.cognifit.com/science/cognitive-skills/eye-hand-coordination.
 4

Hand-eye coordination development stages

Between birth and three years
1. Between birth and three years of age, infants can accomplish the following skills and
can:
1.1 start to develop vision that allows them to follow slowly moving objects with
their eyes;
1.2 begin to develop basic hand-eye skills, such as reaching, grasping objects,
feeding, dressing;
1.3 begin to recognize concepts of place and direction, such as up, down, in; and
1.4 develop the ability to manipulate objects with fine motor skills.
Between three and five years
2. Between three and five years of age, little children can:
2.1 continue to develop hand-eye coordination skills and a preference for left or
right handedness;
2.2 continue to understand and use concepts of place and direction, such as up,
down, under, beside;
2.3 develop the ability to climb, balance, run, gallop, jump, push and pull, and
take stairs one at a time; and
2.4 develop eye/hand/body coordination, eye teaming, and depth perception.
Five to seven years
3. Children between five and seven years old can:
3.1 improve fine motor skills, such as handling writing tools, using scissors, etc.,
3.2 continue to develop climbing, balancing, running, galloping and jumping
abilities;
3.3 continue to improve hand-eye coordination and handedness preference; and
3.4 learn to focus vision on school work for hours every day.
(http://www.healthofchildren.com/G-H/Hand-Eye-Coordination.htmt#ixzz5xFc4rsqG)

Visual Literacy
In the advent of the Internet, students must develop the necessary visual literacy
skills to navigate the image-intense world.
Therefore, visual literacy refers to interpreting and creating visual images and
usually about communication and interaction.
Visual literacy is the ability to read, write and create visual images. It is a concept
that relates to art and design and has much wider applications. It is about language,
communication and interaction. Visual media is a linguistic tool, with which we
communicate, exchange ideas and navigate our highly visual digital world.
The term was first coined in 1969 by John Debes, who was the founder of the
International Visual Literacy Association Debes explains: "Visual literacy refers to a group of
vision-competencies a human being can develop by seeing, having and integrating other
sensory experiences. "
According to Oxford Research Encyclopedia, visual literacy is the ability to interpret,
negotiate and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image, extending
the meaning of literacy, which commonly signifies interpretation of a written or printed text. It
is therefore, based on the idea that pictures can be read and the meaning can be through a
process of reading.
Serafini (2017) asserted that visual literacy is a set of visual competencies or cognitive
 5

skills and strategies one needs to make sense of visual images. These visual competencies
were seen as universal cognitive abilities that were used for understanding visual images
regardless of the contexts of production, reception, and dissemination. More contemporary
definitions stress that visual literacy is a contextualized, social practice as much as an
individualized, cognitively based set of competencies. It is also a process of generating
meanings in transaction with multimodal ensembles that include written text, visual images,
and design elements from a variety of perspectives to meet the requirements of particular
social contexts.
Theories of visual literacy can be integrated across disciplines. Therefore, visual
literacy now incorporates sociocultural, semiotic, critical, and multimodal perspectives to
understand the meaning that are potential of the visual and verbal ensembles encountered in
social environments (Serafini, 2017). Digital technology has greatly impacted our
understanding of visual literacy as we now see children growing up with tablets and
computers and what appears to be highly developed Visual literacy instincts.

Verbal Creativity
In view of the rapidly increasing complexity of the world, creativity is more important
now than ever before and is even considered as a useful and effective response to
evolutionary changes, since it allows the individual to flexibly respond to the continuously
changing conditions around (Runco, 2004 in Fink, et. al., 2015). Torrance (1969) in Hasan
(2017) recognized creativity as important for the development of a fully functioning, mentally
healthy, well-educated and vocationally successful individual. It is because of growing
recognition of the importance of creative functioning and there is sufficient evidence of the
universality of creativity.
Scott et. al (2004) cited that creativity-related skills can be improved by providing
specific rules, techniques or strategies to develop appropriate cognitive skills for the domain
at hand. This could be realized through creative ideation trainings or divergent thinking
exercises (Coskun, 2005; Benedek et. al, 2006), which aim at stimulating effective search,
retrieval, and integration/combination of remote associations related to a given stimulus
word. Divergent thinking is a useful concept for identifying, supporting and measuring
creativity as a process to actualize one's self, manipulate internal and external symbols as
creation of illustrative ideas based on his/her knowledge senses regarding people and
objects to produce on (Hasan, 2017).
The four major components of divergent thinking are fluency, flexibility, originality and
elaboration, which are very useful for an operational concept. Fluency refers to the total
number of ideas, options and solutions generated for an open-ended problem; flexibility is
the number of conceptual categories; originality is the aspect of created or invented works
and is about statistical infrequency of responses related to the task compared with original
ideas; and elaboration is the ability to expand on an idea with details and the ability to create
an intricate plan.
Fink et al (2012) explained that cognitive stimulation through common or moderately
creative ideas was effective in improving verbal creativity, and most importantly, stimulation
effects were also apparent at the level of the brain. As such, a widespread creativity-related
neural network includes left middle and superior temporal gyri along with right parietal cortex
being sensitive to cognitive stimulation.
 6

Integrating Arts and Creativity Literacy into the Curriculum

The following are strategies and initiatives in embedding arts and creative literacy in
the curriculum.
1. Physical environment - Design a physical environment to support creativity, such as
castle-designed school building, well-architecturally designed edifice, roofs and
ceilings, creative murals, beautiful garden landscape, colorful blocks and benches in
the math and science garden, structured music and arts studio, an atelier, student
lounge, amphitheatre, etc.
2. Emotional environment - Take time to create and maintain a climate of respect, caring
and support to someone when making mistakes.
3. Project-based learning (PBL) - Provide students time, space and opportunity to
express themselves - their ideas, emotions and insights through arts. Design and
plan any projects that are relevant, rigorous and real-world to attain motivation,
engagement and learning.
4. Teach creative thinking skills - Teach students about "metacognition" or "thinking
about their thinking" even to the little ones through the process of brainstorming,
reasoning, comparing and contrasting, problem-solving, concept mapping, analyzing,
evaluating and more.
5. Alternative assessments - Instead of just a worksheet or an assignment, provide
different authentic assessment like performance, systems design, product/output
making, visual arts creation, task-based, project-based, portfolio and others provided
with rubrics and other forms of metrics.
6. Scheduling— Project-based curriculum and performance-based assessment need
ample time and proper scheduling in either structured or unstructured manner.
7. Student-centered and personalized learning - provide students freedom to choose on
what they will learn, how they will learn it and how they will demonstrate what they
have learned.
8. Incorporate arts - Integrate seamlessly music, art, drama and dance into the
curriculum to develop creativity.
9. Integration of technologies — Encourage students to create and utilize blogs and
websites, Glogster, VoiceThread, student publishing, video game design, coding,
filmmaking, photography, global collaborative classroom projects using Google
Hangouts, etc.
10. Preparing the body and brain for creativity — Create activities that induce body-mind
integration, such as yoga, ballet, jazz, zumba, calisthenics, etc.

Excerpt from the book of De Leon, E.B. (2020). Building and Enhancing New Literacies
Across the Curriculum. pp 179-193. Lorimar Publishing.