ARTISTIC AND

CREATIVE LITERACY

Prepared by:
ASST. PROF. VANESSA B. ZABALA
Faculty, DTTE
College of Education
MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology
Objectives:
• At the end of this unit, students 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
• Appreciate the importance of artistic and creative literacy as
a future teacher.
ARTISTIC LITERACY
• The knowledge and
understanding required to
participate authentically in the
arts.
• Artistic literacy requires that an
individual engage in artistic
creation processes directly
through the use of materials and
in specific spaces.
 ARTISTIC LITERACY
• Researches have recognized that there are
significant benefits of arts learning and
engagement in schooling.
• Arts have been shown to create environment and
conditions that results in improved academic,
social, and behavioral outcomes for students,
from early childhood through the early and later
years of schooling.
• The flexibility of the forms
comprising the arts, positions
students to embody a range of
literate practices to:
• Use their minds in verbal and non-
verbal 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.
Elliot Eisner’s posited 8 valuable lessons or benefits
that education can learn from arts:

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.
Elliot Eisner’s posited 8 valuable lessons or benefits
that education can learn from arts:

2. Everything Interacts
• There is no content without form and no form without
content.
3. Nuance Matters
• To the extent to which teaching is an art, attention to
nuances is critical. It can also be said that the
aesthetic lives in the details that the maker can shape
in the course of creation.
Elliot Eisner’s posited 8 valuable lessons or benefits
that education can learn from arts:

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.
5. Slowing down perception is the most
promising way to see what is actually there.
Elliot Eisner’s posited 8 valuable lessons or benefits
that education can learn from arts:

6. The limits of language are not the limits of

cognition. We know more than we can tell.
7. Somatic experience is one of the most
important indicators that someone has gotten
it right.
Elliot Eisner’s posited 8 valuable lessons or benefits
that education can learn from arts:

8. Open-ended tasks permit the exercise 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.
CHARACTERIZING 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.
CHARACTERIZING ARTISTICALLY LITERATE
INDIVIDUALS
• Develop creative
personal
realization in at
least one art form
in which they
continue active
involvement as an
adult.
CHARACTERIZING ARTISTICALLY LITERATE
INDIVIDUALS

• Cultivate culture,
history, and other
connections
through diverse
forms and genres
of artwork.
CHARACTERIZING ARTISTICALLY LITERATE
INDIVIDUALS

• Find joy, inspiration,

peace, intellectual
stimulation and meaning
when they participate in
the arts.
CHARACTERIZING ARTISTICALLY LITERATE
INDIVIDUALS

• Seek artistic
experiences
and support the
arts in their
communities.
 Issues in Teaching Creativity
• Curriculum competencies,
classroom experiences and
assessment are geared
toward the development of
academic ability. Students
are schooled in order to
pass entrance exams in
colleges and universities.
 Issues in Teaching Creativity
• Because of this, Ken Robinson challenge educators to:
• Educate the well being of learners and shift from the conventional
leanings 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.
 Enhancing Artistic and Creative Literacy
• Educators should make deliberate connections with children’s
first literacies of art and play (McArdie and Wright). The
following are the proposed four essential components to
developing or designing curriculum that cultivates students’
artistic and creative literacy by McArdie and Wright in the article
“First Literacies: Art, Creativity, Play Constructive Meaning-
Making”
1.Imagination and pretense, fantasy, and metaphor
2. Active Menu to Meaning Making
3. Intentional Holistic Teaching
4. Co-player, co-artist
 Enhancing Artistic and Creative Literacy

Imagination and
pretense, fantasy, and
metaphor
-A creative curriculum
will not simply allow,
but will actively
support, play and
playfulness.
 Enhancing Artistic and Creative Literacy

Active menu to meaning

making
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.
Enhancing Artistic and Creative Literacy

Intentional, Holistic
Teaching
A creative curriculum
requires a creative
teacher, who
understands the
creative processes,
and purposefully
supports learners in
their experiences.
Enhancing Artistic and Creative Literacy

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.
ACTIVITY 6: On Artistic and Creative Literacy
• Choose a year level and topic: Design instructional plan
showing creative classroom activities that will engage learners.
• Parts of Instructional Plan
• Title:
• Learning Objectives
• Instructional Sequence:
• Introduction
• Motivational Activity
• Assessment/Evaluation
• Assessment Tools