https://www.satocommunity.

org/art-literacy

Students actively participate in these fields through physical engagement and creation as well as
through reading and interacting with source materials.

Art is more than an escape from traditional classroom work. Studies have found that benefits
from participation in the arts include:

 Improved student performance on standardized tests

 Stronger academic motivation

 Improved social skills

https://thereadingtub.org/literacy/creative-literacy/#:~:text=Creative%20literacy%20is%20a
%20concept,more%20focused%20on%20broader%20learning.

In many cases it is an activity that on the surface doesn’t even look like it’s related to
literacy or learning to read. A couple quick examples:

 Holding crayons helps develop fine motor skills later used for writing.
 Drawing is a way to visually represent ideas and stories. Kids can build entire
stories around a single object they drew. Scribble has meaning to them, too.
 Singing songs (especially rhyming ones) reinforce letter sounds and build
vocabulary

http://becominga21stcenturyschool.weebly.com/blog/arts-and-creativity-new-21st-
century-literacies

 Integrating and Supporting the Arts and Creativity

1.       Physical Environment - Design a physical environment to support creativity.

For the school building or facility itself, create Maker Spaces, a DaVinci Studio (art
and science), Living Schoolyards , a Labyrinth, Multimedia Production Studio, Lecture
Hall for student presentations, Student Conference Room, Outdoor Amphitheater, an
open area Plaza, and lose the cells and bells ![ii]  What other places, inside and
outside, can you create or identify, at home or at school, where children can go to
daydream, reflect, design and create?

Rearrange the furniture in your current campus, library or classroom to incorporate

the concepts of the Watering Hole, the Campfire and the Cave.   See this article  also
about the Da Vinci, Einstein and Jamie Oliver studios.

2.       Emotional Environment – take time to create and maintain  a climate of

respect and caring and that supports making mistakes.  A former principal told us,
“The man who makes no mistakes, makes nothing.”

3.       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. 
Preferably, they are interdisciplinary.  Begin by brainstorming a theme, topic, issue or
idea you’d like the students to explore, then brainstorm the possibilities for each
discipline.

4.       Teach Creative Thinking Skills – first teach students about “metacognition” –

“thinking about their thinking.”  You can teach that to the little ones, too; they love
being able to know such a big word!  Teach them how to use Edward DeBono’s Six
Thinking Hats, how to brainstorm, compare and contrast, problem-solve, concept
map, analyze, evaluate and more!  (Just “Google” thinking tools for K-12!)

5.       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!  For example, a student-
produced video, film, television or radio broadcast;  a student-written and produced
play;  a debate;  a public service announcement;  design a product;  create a
marketing campaign;  a mock trial;  write and publish a class book;  simulations; 
digital or multimedia portfolio;  student-organized conference;  dinner theatre for the
community (Shakespeare or Charles Dickens?);  create a board or video game;  a
musical production . . .

Note:  these assessments are not something students will do in or two class
periods, but are final performances, or products, which demonstrate
and celebrate what they have learned throughout all (or a significant portion of) their
project-based curriculum unit.  In the meantime, you can conduct simple, quick
formative assessments, mainly through close teacher observation.
 6.        Scheduling – project-based curriculum and performance-based assessments
require adequate time.  The most effective learning and teaching will take place
when you create Smaller Learning Communities, for example, six teachers with
expertise in various disciplines who work with the same group of students all day
every day.  Another option, although not as effective, is creating a block schedule. 
Students will attend 3 classes per day instead of 6, and for 90 minutes each instead
of changing class every 45 minutes.   A daily schedule of 7 or more 45-minute class
periods per day is absolute anathema to creativity and learning!

7.       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.  

8.       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.  Here's how.

9.       Integration of Technologies – student blogs and web

sites, Glogster , VoiceThread , student publishing, video game design, coding,
filmmaking, photography, global collaborative classroom projects using Google
Hangouts . . . 

10.   Preparing the Body and Brain for Creativity - offer students (and faculty)
opportunities such as yoga, tai chi, ballet, jazz,  pilates . . .
 A Small Sampler of Recommended Resources

Web Site - Project-Based Learning Themes  – a small, but growing, web site with
suggestions for various PBL themes and topics as well as recommended resources
and activities.  Subscribe at no charge.  

Blog – Becoming a 21st Century School

Video - Even if you’ve seen it before, this very powerful TED Talk is excellent.  “Are
schools killing creativity?”  by Sir Ken Robinson.
Online Tool for Students -SketchUp – online tools for designers, architects, builders,
makers and engineers.

Teacher Toolkit - Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit   plus more resources  from

the dSchool at Stanford University’s K12 Lab.

Teacher Guidebook - The Director in the Classroom  – the best resource I’ve seen to
helping students learn filmmaking.  Also available at Amazon .

Thinking Tools – 6 Thinking Hats, Concept Mapping, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Design

Thinking, (Just "Google" thinking tools for K-12)

Article - Fasko, Daniel.  Education and Creativity (2001)

Article - Dickinson, Dee.  Learning Through the Arts - excellent discussion relating
learning through the arts to the human brain, intelligence, individual differences,
visual arts, music, dance, drama, the workplace and life skills.

Connecting to Nature - these are listed  for families, but most of them can be done at
school!  On Richard Louv's web site.  If you haven't seen it, his book  Last Child in the
Woods  is an invaluable resource for parents, educators and community members.

Drumming Classes - students and teachers love them, and they are excellent stress
reducers.  The Youth Villages Inner Harbour has West African Drumming classes  for
their students.  They are invorating and fun for everyone!  Behavioral problems are
drastically reduced, even for students with severe behavioral and emotional
challenges.  Just "Google" drumming for schools.  Don't just hire someone to come
in to do a workshop, get someone on staff to hold regular classes.  Read this
article  and see the images for other amazing ways this school fully integrates the
arts into their curriculum!  They have yoga classes, too!

Yoga for Schools -  yoga improves students' behavior, physical health and academic
performance, as well as attitudes toward themselves. See article  in Wall Street
Journal.

Tai Chi for Schools - excellent for improving physical health, calmness, focus,
 relaxation, communication and team-building, self-discipline and self-awareness.
TaiChiforKids.com   

Parents and Community Members - these people are a veritable gold mine, and
would love to contribute, so use them!  You can find qualified volunteers to come to
your school a hour a day to teach a class on yoga, pilates, ballet and jazz, Tai Chi or
West African Drumming.

Compasses to Creating 21st Century Schools – including Critical Attributes of 21st

Century Education, Multiple Literacies for the 21st Century, and Tony Wagner’s 7
Survival Skills for the 21st Century.
https://www.twinkl.com.ph/teaching-wiki/visual-literacy#:~:text=After%20all%2C%20visual%20literacy
%20helps,means%20that%20images%20are%20abundant.

visual literacy refers to our ability to read, write and create images, in much the same
way that we do with the written word. Easy, right?

It’s most talked about in design, and not without good reason - it’s a big part of what
designers do - but it’s an important skill for the rest of us as well. After all, visual literacy
helps us to communicate (just think about emoji!), exchange ideas, and find our way in
the modern world.

In fact, visual literacy is probably as big as it ever has been. We’re often surrounded by
screens and digital devices, which means that images are abundant. From advertising,
to art and just about everything else, they seem to be wherever we look, yet visual
literacy is still something we take for granted. In other words, we’re immersed in images,
but we rarely stop to think about how we might use and understand them better.

https://www.meshguides.org/guides/node/228

What should teachers know about visual literacy?

The scope of visual literacy in education now extends beyond illustrative content, symbols,
diagrams and charts to encompass drawing and painting, moving images, animations and
multimodal media.

Although the main thrust of education is still text based, there has been a dramatic shift in the
the way we interact with information that is not primarily text based. We have become a much
more visually affected and engaged society. YouTube provides many with an alternative to the
text based canon, indeed it is the search engine of choice for many young people. Real time
information, both personal, and as news, is shared instantly in real time using visual devices and
platforms. Educational communications have developed from text based forms such as email to
live video conferences and use social media platforms. Educational events are broadcast and
annotated live, presentations uploaded for all to access.
Today visual information is inextricably linked to digital tools and platforms, whether that be for
consumption, creation, publishing and sharing; or any combination of those. It is unlikely they
can ever be completely separated.

Visual literacy strategies like concept mapping and creating videos have a large impact on
student dispositions (attitudes, interest,) and achievement (Hattie, 2009). Visual literacy is
especially important in the elementary or primary school years as learners make the transition
from viewing and speaking to formal language acquisition and incorporate the rules of speaking
and writing, and from making marks and drawing to letters, language and text-based learning.
Concept maps and graphic organizers are effective tools for meaningful learning (Novak and
Canas, 2006), critical thinking (Beaudry, 2014); engaged, high-quality reasoning processes (e.g.,
comparison, analysis, design) and products that mark the progression of knowledge for teachers
and learners.

Concept maps are flexible tools for allowing students to reveal the active construction of new
understanding by generating and answering their own questions, to make novice errors, to
support students’ collaborative dialogue, and to focus teacher-expert feedback on students’
individual formative assessment products.  Misconceptions can be revealed to the teacher in an
efficient and precise manner, with a quick look.  During this process students learn how to make
focused revision, and teachers gain another source of data for students to triangulate with other
sources like interviews, students’ writing, other performance skills, and tests and quizzes.
(Beaudry and Wilson, 2009). The potential impact of visual literacy is quite large, with a major
impact on students’ engagement and dispositions, and short- and long-term memory. See Figure
2.

Figure 2: Phases of Visual Thinking and Concept Mapping (Beaudry, 2014)

https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/
classroom-resources/articles-and-how-tos/articles/collections/arts-
integration-resources/arts-integration-and-21st-century-skills/
21st Century Skills
With the vast social, cultural, technological, and economic changes
our nation is experiencing, as well as those we have yet to imagine,
many are reconsidering what knowledge and skills students need to
be successful in the 21st century. The question under consideration is
how to create “a new learning environment consistent with the
cognitive and expressive demands of the 21st century.” 3
Answers are coming from various places. The Partnership for 21st
Century Skills (P21) has been working since 2002 with educators,
civic and community groups, and business leaders to define and
advocate for the knowledge and skills they perceive as essential for
21st century success. In 2011, there are sixteen P21 Leadership
States4 and numerous organizations such as Pearson, Apple, and
Blackboard, involved as Strategic Council Members5. The Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development/ASCD developed a
position statement in 2008 titled “Educating Students in a Changing
World”6 and in 2009 dedicated an issue of Educational Leadership to
teaching for the 21st century7. Other groups have been examining the
needs of 21st century learning, including The College Board’s National
Task Force on the Arts in Education8 and The American Institutes for
Research with the Metiri Group and the North Central Regional
Educational Laboratory9.
What are 21st Century Skills?
Many organizations have described 21st century skills. This article
focuses on the skills articulated in P21’s Framework for 21st Century
Learning10. The Framework identifies four overarching Student
Outcomes as well as the Support Systems needed11. The Student
Outcomes include (1) the Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes;
(2) Learning and Innovation Skills (also known as the 4Cs -
communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity); (3)
Information, Media, and Technology Skills and (4) Life and Career
Skills.
How do the arts/arts integration contribute to the development of
21st century skills?
1. Core Subjects and 21st Century Themes
 The arts are one of the core subjects in 21st century learning. To
demonstrate how learning in and through the arts builds 21st
century skills, P21 has also collaborated with six arts education
professional organizations to create a Skills Map for the
Arts12 that provides examples of how the four arts areas (dance,
music, theatre, and visual arts, which collectively include the
media arts) help develop many 21st century skills and outcomes
including curiosity, imagination, creativity, and evaluation skills.
The introduction to the Skills Map states:
“Collectively, the examples in this document demonstrate that
the arts are among society’s most compelling and effective paths
for developing 21st Century Skills in our students.”13

The Arts Skills Map also describes how all the 21st Century
Themes (global awareness; financial, economic, business and
entrepreneurial literacy, civic literacy, health literacy and
environmental literacy) are supported by arts learning.

2. Learning and Innovation Skills/4Cs

One of P21’s central goals is to fuse the core subjects with the
4Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and
creativity. This “fusing” suggests an interdisciplinary approach to
teaching and learning. Arts integration is inherently
interdisciplinary; it demonstrates ways to accomplish this
“fusion.” Through arts integration, students develop dual content
knowledge (in both an art form and another area of the
curriculum) as well as develop skills in the 4Cs.
Communication
The first C in the P21 Framework, learning to communicate, is
central to arts integration. Students communicate their emerging
understandings through an art form. The medium for
communication is the art form itself. Each art form has a
language and symbol system through which students interpret
information and communicate their ideas. For example, acting,
storytelling, puppetry, and performance poetry develop skills in
oral communication. Students develop written communication
skills through such art forms as playwriting and poetry and
develop non-verbal communication skills through dance, music,
theater, and the visual arts. Additionally, arts integration engages
students in metaphorical thinking, which enlarges the power of
their communication.
Collaboration
The Framework’s second C is collaboration. When students
engage in arts integration they usually collaborate in small
groups to solve problems. Even when students work individually,
they also draw on peer input. In all cases, students enlarge their
understandings when they see how others think and react to
their thinking. Arts integration provides opportunities for students
to learn to be open and responsive to diverse perspectives, work
respectfully with their peers, make necessary compromises, and
share and accept responsibility.
Dennie Palmer Wolf’s research has documented the extensive
collaboration (and communication) inherent in arts experiences.
The research found that when students create original operas
they were engaged in “more sustained and coherent
collaboration over time”14 than when they were involved in other
curriculum areas.
“…students progressively develop judgments about how well
their work is expressing what they want to say and they find
ways to talk to one another about it and to make decisions about
how to adjust the work to enhance the quality.” 15
Critical Thinking
The Framework’s third “C” is the ability to reason effectively,
make judgments and decisions, and solve problems, among
other things. When students are involved in arts integration, they
develop critical thinking skills as they make judgments about how
to solve problems that have no single right answer.
Creating in the arts involves critical thinking and “sophisticated
intellectual engagement:”16
“The arts are not just expressive and affective. They are deeply
cognitive. They develop essential thinking tools: pattern
recognition and development; mental representations of what is
observed or imagined; symbolic, allegorical, and metaphorical
 representations; careful observation of the world; and
abstraction from complexity.”17 –David Sousa
Creativity
The Framework’s fourth “C” is the ability to think creatively, work
creatively with others, and implement innovations, among other
things. Creativity is a hallmark of arts integration. Students
engage in the creative process as a way to construct and
demonstrate what they know and understand. The creative
process requires students to solve problems by imagining a wide
range of solutions; by exploring and experimenting with the most
promising solutions; by creating a product (e.g., dance, musical
composition, collage, digital story, poem); by reflecting on,
assessing and revising their products; and sharing them with
others.

Judy Willis, in her Whole Child blog, points to research that

shows that creativity correlates with the brain processing
associated with the highest forms of cognition. She states:

“…neuroscience and cognitive science research are increasingly

providing information that correlates creativity
with intelligence; academic, social, and emotional success; and
the development of skill sets and the highest information
processing (executive functions) that will become increasingly
valuable for students in the 21st century.”18
Although the creative process exists in many fields, the arts are
one of the most accessible and powerful ways to build the
creative mind in the classroom. Stanford University’s Elliot Eisner
makes the case that our encounters with the arts are critically
important because the arts are a way to cultivate our imaginative
abilities, offer a variety of means for representing our imagination
in material form (inscription), and provide opportunities to edit
and adjust the representation to achieve the quality, precision,
and power for effective communication. 19
3. Information, Media, and Technology Skills
The arts include the use of media and technology as means of
communication. When students are engaged in arts integration,
 they develop skills in accessing and evaluating information (in
both the art form and the other curriculum area). They
communicate their developing understandings using a variety of
ways including digital media and technology.
4. Life and Career Skills
The P21 Framework identifies Life and Career Skills which
include various dispositions or habits of mind20. These
dispositions are aligned with those developed through arts
integration. Students have opportunities to:
 Solve problems having more than one right answer.
Through arts integration students engage in the creative
process which develops flexibility in thinking, tolerance for
ambiguity, and a perspective that experimentation involves
missteps which are a natural part of learning.
 Develop initiative and self-direction to solve problems and
manage their work with increasing independence. When
students are engaged in arts integration, they make
choices and direct their own work with ongoing feedback
from the teacher or other students. Over time they accept
increasing responsibility for their learning.
 Work collaboratively and develop social skills. Through arts
integration, students gain experience in clearly stating their
ideas, and listening to and respecting their peers’ ideas.
 Be both productive and accountable. In arts integration,
students learn manage their projects so they can produce
results within a limited timeframe. They learn to set and
meet goals, prioritize, and engage in a process that leads
to a product.
 Take on leadership roles. Arts integration is student-
centered learning. As a result, students have many
opportunities to lead as well as to be a responsible group
member. Since arts integration thrives in a supportive
learning environment, students learn to encourage others
to do their best.
Conclusion
Arts integration makes a significant contribution to the development of
21st century knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Through the
development of critical thinking, creativity, imagination and innovation,
arts integration offers a powerful way to create “a new learning
environment consistent with the cognitive and expressive demands of
the 21st century.”21

https://literacyideas.com/teaching-visual-texts-in-the-classroom/

Why is Visual Literacy Important?

Much of the information that comes to our students is a combination of both written text
and images. It is essential that our students are fully equipped to process that information
in all its forms.

Considering how visually orientated we are as humans, it is no surprise that images have

such a powerful impact on us. Research shows that there is a wide range of benefits
derived from improved visual literacy including:

Visual Information is More Memorable

One of the most effective ways to encourage information to make that important jump
from the limited short-term memory to the more powerful long-term memory is to pair
text with images. Studies show that we retain approximately 10-20% of written or spoken
information, but around 65% of the information when it is presented visually.

Visual Information is Transferred Faster

Information presented visually is processed extremely quickly by the brain. The brain is
even being able to see images that appear for a mere 13 milliseconds. Around 90% of the
information transmitted to the brain is visual in nature.

Helps Students Communicate with the World Around Them

Traditionally, we think of teaching literacy as the two way street of reading and writing.
We can think of visual literacy as involving the similar processes of interpreting images
and creating images. In a fast-moving world, with an ever-increasing diagnosis of
attention deficit disorders, we increasingly rely on images to quickly convey meaning.

Enriches Understanding

While images can be used in isolation, they often accompany text or audio. Images can
greatly enrich the students’ understanding of a text or other media, but to be able to
interact with these deeper levels of meaning, students must possess the necessary skills to
access those depths.

Increases Enjoyment

Not only does increased visual literacy enrich the understanding of our students of the
media they consume, but it can also enrich their enjoyment too – especially of visual art.
If you have taken younger students to an art gallery you may have heard protests of ‘This
is boring!’

However, when students have a deeper understanding of the ‘meaning’ behind the art
pieces, or are familiar with the context around the art, insights into the lives of the artists,
or experienced with some of the techniques that produced the pieces, students often
derive greater pleasure from their visit.

The same is true of their engagement in terms of visual literacy. As informed readers of
images in a range of modalities, students are opened up to an exciting dimension of
shape, color and texture and more.

Creates More Educated Image Readers

In an era of fake news and ceaseless advertising, a responsible approach to the duty of
educating our students must involve encouraging them to become informed viewers of
the world around them, including the media they engage with. Through the teaching of
visual literacy we can help students understand the different ways the images they
consume can be used to manipulate their emotions and persuade them to act in a given
way.

Supports EAL Learners

The use of images in the classroom can be of great benefit to students who come from
non-English-speaking backgrounds. As these students travel on their road to fluency in
English, images can provide an effective bridge in that learning process. While the use of
images in the forms of flashcards, writing frames etc for the purposes of teaching EAL
learners may be obvious, the creation of images by the students themselves can also be a
great way to assess their understanding of more abstract concepts and vocabulary.