How the Arts Motivate Students to Read

With good reason, it seems like every school district across the nation has a motion toward a literacy action plan. It can feel like a "push" for literacy bombards many teacher preparation days and takes the front seat to many initiatives. However, it is of import to define literacy as more than than existence able to read and write. It is about being able to express oneself and interpret the world around us using written, spoken, or heard linguistic communication. Because of its broad nature, literacy is like art. Information technology connects all the other discipline areas at some indicate or another.

As art educators, nosotros are non merely responsible for the creative do of our students, merely also literacy practice also.

The adept news is that literacy practice in the fine art room doesn't take to be some big fancy initiative involving laborious training. We can employ what nosotros are already doing with our students and add a literacy twist.

Every bit long every bit students are engaging writing, reading, listening, or speaking skills equally they interact with their artwork, they are engaging in literacy skills. It is a win-win.

Here are 5 easy means to bring literacy into your art classroom today.

1. Use Exit Slips

Before students leave the art classroom, have them write a reflection or specific information learned during the class on a modest piece of paper. Students will hand in this "slip" before they "exit." An effective method (particularly for younger artists) is to provide a sideslip with a starter judgement for students to fill in.

• "Today I created…"
• "2 examples of complementary colors are…"
• "One fact about Vincent Van Gogh I remember is…"

Go out slips are very effective, not only for student reflection and recollect but also for teacher reflection and planning.

For example, if a lesson with a focus on warm versus absurd colors results in inappreciably any students writing down correct examples of warm or cool colors on their exit slips, you have reviewing to practise. Exit slips are as well a meaningful mode to spend those last few minutes of class when students' focus may require redirection.

You can find three downloadable exit slip examples in theLiteracy Strategies in the Art Room PRO Learning Pack. In this resource, I also share many more ideas and specific lessons most how to bring literacy into the classroom.

2. Curate an Art Book Library

Many art rooms have "free drawing," fine art games, and/or building activities to go along students busy and creative when they finish a chore. An fine art volume library encourages students to take, look, and read as they please. It can pique their involvement and is a great connection between fine art and literacy. It is besides a great way for students to exercise pick. Equally a bonus, it is a teaching library for lesson inspiration and planning. Finally, students Dearest to revisit books used in lessons for previous projects.

• 10 New Books You Need in Your Classroom Library
• ten Books Every Fine art Teacher Needs
• seventy Children'south Books About Famous Artists

iii. Have Students Do Sequence Writing

Even in the simplest of fine art projects, there are steps. As art educators, we are education students concepts, techniques, and processes step-by-pace. Students are much more than likely to recollect the steps when they write them down.

Equally they write, they practice the literacy skill of sequencing. "Kickoff, Next, Then, and Finally" written statements are very insightful and advisory. Sequence writing tin can likewise human activity as both determinative and summative assessment tools for you and your students. For case, if you inquire your students to sequence the deed of joining two pieces of clay together and they become the club wrong, you know you need to revisit the concept.

You can utilise the download below to go started with this activity in your classroom correct away.

Download Now!

4. Assign Artist Statements

Information technology may seem obvious, but request students to write well-nigh their artmaking is a way of engaging in literacy. Creative person statements accomplish iii tasks essential to art and literacy. Starting time, students are using language to define the visual work they take created, thus adding depth to their creativity. Second, by using proper judgement structure and word choice, students are figuring out the all-time way to communicate about their creative work to others. Finally, artist statements show you what students have learned, making them an constructive assessment tool.

There's a smashing End-of-Project Reflection available in the Peer Feedback Strategies PRO Learning Pack that would exist the perfect tool to utilize for an artist statement. You tin can likewise discover more specific strategies for uncomplicated kiddos in5 Hints for Helping Young Students Generate Artist Statements.

5. Incorporate Storytelling

"A picture is worth a thousand words…" Right? Any project that has a central focal bespeak of a person, animal, or graphic symbol tin exist a catalyst for an original story told by the artists themselves. Young artists, especially those at the elementary level, love to use their imagination to make upwardly their own narratives and descriptions.

Using graphic organizers to help scaffold young artists' ideas is very helpful to go the story off the ground. Works with people, animals, or imaginary creatures are great places to get-go. Ask students to requite the subject of their artwork a name.

• Where did they come from?
• Where are they going?
• Who are their friends?
• What problem practise they run into?
• How is it resolved?
• What happens adjacent?

Both you lot and your students volition bask the variety of anecdotes that can come from using their own storytelling skills. Storytelling is as well an excellent fashion to tap into some other form of inventiveness, this time in writing. For example, a student's drawing can be difficult to decipher because of their level of motor command. But once they clarify that the large black blob in the corner is, for example, a spider who ate too many flies and at present needs to take a nap, y'all've cracked the lawmaking. The students are using their creativity and edifice their literacy skills at the same time.

Art and literacy can exist parallel concepts in the art classroom. At first, making intentional connections may seem like more work. But often, providing opportunities for students to practice their literacy skills with existing artmaking units may be easier than y'all think.

What literacy connections do you use in your classroom?

How are you effectively getting your students to read, write, speak, and listen nigh their artwork or that of others?

Magazine manufactures and podcasts are opinions of professional teaching contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Teaching University (AOEU) or its bookish offerings. Contributors utilize terms in the manner they are nigh oftentimes talked most in the scope of their educational experiences.

dabneyarler1948.blogspot.com

Source: https://theartofeducation.edu/2018/12/10/5-ways-to-bring-literacy-into-the-art-classroom/

Share this post