Arts-based teaching of literacy

‘Invisible’ literacies are literacies for the future. What are they? Why is teaching them vital?

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“We have so much pressure on us to teach literacy in our classrooms. The arts are not valued at all except when it comes to public relations and open day”.(Arts teacher)

Improvement in literacy is high stakes in education today. Educators are constantly told literacy results are not good enough and that more testing will help solve the problem.

Tests can indeed tell us how students are achieving at one point in time in traditional or ‘visible’ literacies such as reading and writing text, spelling, punctuation and other language conventions. These are, of course, important basic literacies. However the constant literacy testing in schools focuses on a narrow conception of literacy and literacy skills. It leads to teaching to the test in many classrooms, and significantly it overlooks vital ‘invisible’ literacies that are used in the world today.

We believe these invisible literacies need to be given more prominence and practice in schools and should be more readily recognised by policy makers, curriculum designers and educational leaders as essential to every day life in the 21stcentury.

Our research interest lies specifically in the range of literacies involved in the arts and we have collaborated in a study to look more closely at what is happening in Australia, France and Canada with arts literacies. Our research findings have wide implications for future classroom practice.

What are ‘invisible’ literacies?

Discipline–specific literacies (literacies that are specifically needed in a discipline, for example, by an historian or a lawyer, in order for them to work effectively in their fields) have been the focus of much research. Content area specialists build knowledge in their field. They use ‘invisible’ and important literacies that go beyond traditional writing text, spelling, punctuation and other conventional literacies. These include other modes (such as collaboration or demonstration) or semiotics (signs, marks) present in different subject areas.

In orderto become an ‘artist’, a ‘scientist’ or an ‘historian’ in the classroom students need to know how knowledge is built through sophisticated uses of a range of modes in the way that such specialists do. Students need to understand the literacy demands placed upon them when reading historical artefacts, scientific reports or laboratory work and/or artworks such as sculptures or musical scores. They also need to know how such specialists go about their work and make meaning of information through various communicative methods.

Invisible literacies in the arts

In the arts for example, teachers support students to interpret others’ artworks and create their own. Students work towards being an artist by the end of their schooling by critically viewing and discussing artistic-aesthetic elements of art.

Arts-literacies are important because they can enable unique ways of looking at the world that aren’t available in any other subject area. American education philosopher, Maxine Greene, calls this way of knowing ‘being wide awake’. Arts literacies help students develop design-thinking, creativity and critical thinking—all skills said to be important for the future workforce.

Artistic practices intrinsically involve the reception-production of “signs” in a continuous process of “translation” from one ‘language’ to another. Of course, being able to talk, read and write about the arts and arts practice is important to the artistic process, however an artist uses much more than visible traditional literacies to create meaning.

They use arts-specific vocabulary, metaphors, embodiment, and other more demanding ways to express themselves through using their art. Additionally, collaboration and sharing are important aspects of arts classrooms. These literacies however, remain invisible, particularly in schools where high stakes tests are used constantly to check up on traditional visible literacies.

Our curriculums acknowledge the need for invisible literacies

In Australia, Canada and France school curricula acknowledge invisible literacies.

The Australian Curriculum for example highlights in the General Capability: Literacy that all teachers are teachers of literacy. The key concepts in this capability are given as text, grammar, word and visual knowledge. (Other modes such as aural, gestural and spatial that are used when we communicate with each other should be included here.) The arts curriculum includes the notions of responding to and making art.

In Canada, the digital arts have been a strong focus in the curriculum, emphasising how artists, arts professionals, and arts community organisations integrate digital tools as part of their practice. The Canadian curriculum is looking to the future on virtual reality and augmented reality for economic and social growth, as well as continuing their recent teaching and research focus on maker education (problem solving or project based learning)

Art and Cultural Education (ACE) in France, allows students to go beyond explore ‘les enseignements artistiques’ or artistic teachings allowed a common good for ‘classical’ school subjects. Two intertwined educational purposes include education about art,whichis about students’ acquisition of genuine artistic knowledge, and education through art, which allows studentsto develop themselves as cultural citizens that contribute to society.

But our research has revealed that teachers are being pressured to teach and practice traditional literacies at the expense of these important arts-literacies.

Why is it important to pay more attention to these ‘invisible’ literacies?

In our research, we argue that certain approaches to literacy are stifling teachers’ work within their disciplines. Rather than continuing to focus only on traditional literacies such as reading and writing in language/linguistic mode, we believe it is time to make ‘invisible’ literacies visible, that is, acknowledged and valued by schools.

Researchers around the world have spent decades looking at the relationships between the arts, well-being, and the ways we perform literacies on a daily basis. Philosophers of education such as Maxine Greene and Elliot Eisner have defended the need to pay more attention to the arts in both teaching and learning, and research, as it would have positive impact in the schooling of all students.  In classrooms it would mean more focus on important general capabilities such as personal and social capabilities, critical and creative thinking, and ethical and intercultural understanding.

More recently in Canada, work by Brock University Professor Jennifer Rowsell on the relationships between humans, literacy, and the arts as part of the community arts zone project has expanded the way educators understand the teaching of literacy and at the same time revitalised the literacy and arts community in Southern Ontario.

The work of this project can be summed up by one of the participating teachers:

I treat my classroom like it’s a studio, so it’s a place for them to work, so I give them the power…that they are the artists coming into this space, using this as a space, as an opportunity for them to create, and the time to create, and to dialogue with their peers about what they enjoy, and you know, be up to their necks in the creative process without any other distractions and I think that’s really important for them to grow. (CAZ visual arts teacher participant, December, 2013)

As Eisner said, “…the distinctive forms of thinking needed to create artistically crafted work are relevant not only to what students do, they are relevant to virtually all aspects of what we do, from the design of curricula, to the practice of teaching, to the features of the environment in which students and teachers live.”

In other words, communities develop their meaning-making skills by “doing stuff,” and playing with materials, sounds, video, images in order to make sense of the world and engage in contemporary understandings of what reading and writing is in curriculum studies.

What will happen if we don’t make ‘invisible’ literacies ‘visible’?

This necessary question invites a collateral one, which is: what happens when we make invisible literacies visible?  Canadian educators Professor Jennifer Rowsell, and Professor Maureen Kendrick brilliantly argued that the need to make invisible literacies visible depends on teachers understanding and using them in valid ways to articulate students’ motivations, goals, needs, and interests.

To the question what will happen if teachers and researchers do not adopt these types of practices, we answer that there is a high probability that educators will further marginalise young people who struggle with finding their “best mode” or modes of communication so they can articulate their motivations, goals, needs, and interests. As established researchers have found, these modes are often hidden.

For example, sociology of education research has observed how there is a ‘hidden curriculum’ for both students and teachers. That is, there are ways of interacting that implicitly support cultural and social awareness and encourage personal and professional growth, but are not stated in any curriculum. It includes how teachers ‘tune in’ to their particular student or students, and understand and encourage the different ways they can or may want to express themselves and communicate with others.

Maker education (problem based or project based learning) has also been a recent example of how literacies can be hidden. Maker work can include making meaning (using invisible literacies) by playing with sound, building structures, coding and playing with software, making 3D impressions. We must then ask what are the implications for post-millenial students in this day and age? What audiences are they making for, and what kind of citizens do they aspire to be?

Impact on the future

If we continue to focus on narrowed conceptions of literacy we are at risk of creating an educative space that is restrictive for students, particularly those from socio-culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The research has, for some time, suggested that young people need to have the opportunities to choose the best method of expressing meaning for themselves in assessment practices. Without acknowledging the inherent skills of students as well as what ‘could be’ through their engagement with the arts we are indeed providing a deficit approach (an approach that is based on labeling weaknesses or failures, in tests for example) to learning and teaching rather than one that supports the implicit and invisible and critical work needing to be done in the classroom.

 

 

Georgina Barton is Associate Professor (Literacies and Pedagogy) in the School of Teacher Education and Early Childhood at the University of Southern Queensland. She was a teacher in schools for over 20 years with experience as an Acting Principal, lead literacy intervention teacher and Head of Department, the Arts. She also spent time in South India teaching English and learning Carnatic music. She has over 80 publications in the areas of literacy, multiliteracies, multimodalities, the arts and culturally and linguistically diverse contexts including internationalisation. Between 2014-2016 she led an Office for Learning and Teaching innovation and development grant exploring international students’ work place experiences. She is a Fellow of the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association and is Conference Chair of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) 2017-2019. Georgina is on Twitter at @BartonGeorgina

Amélie Lemieux is Assistant Professor of Literacies at Mount Saint Vincent University. Her research interests revolve around visual and written literacies, aesthetics in art and literacy education, and literacy practices in the 21st century. Her original contributions to literacy and aesthetic reception were recognized by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), especially with the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholarships both at the Master’s and PhD levels. She completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the Centre for Research in Multiliteracies, Brock University. She now works towards shaping debates on the relevance of investigating and valuing subjectivity as a main denominator of meaning-making in multimodal literacies, and intends on further informing pedagogical practices in the literature classroom, specifically in light of fulfilling the competency of “exploring diverse texts of literature”, both at the college and high school levels. Amélie is on Twitter at @ame_lemieux

Jean-Charles Chabanne is Professor of Educational Science at the École Normale Supérieure’s French Institute of Education in Lyon.His academic background is French language and literature with a initial focus on literary and linguistic approaches to humour. He went on to research how language, literature and writing is taught, how language interacts with other disciplines, and how language serves as a form of knowledge, as a tool for thinking and learning, and as a working tool for teachers and mediators.He has directed the LIRDEF research lab (Interdisciplinary Laboratory in Teaching, Education and Training) in Montpellier, and currently leads the scientific programme Alféa(Arts, Language, Training, Teaching, Learning) at the ENS-IFE in Lyon. This programme investigates the form, place and function of language (verbal and other semiotic systems) within learning contexts involving art education or aesthetic experience. His work is situated in the shared space between art/cultural education and the fields of language, linguistics and literature.

 

Photo by Grant Sparkes-Carroll

Arts-based approaches to teaching literacy: stop all the testing and do this

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Millions of dollars have been spent on targeted programs to improve literacy and numeracy learning outcomes around Australia. However this year’s NAPLAN data shows stagnation in terms of data improvement, with a downward shift in performance levels for writing.

We don’t believe this lack of movement in data is matched by a lack of impact in the classroom. On the contrary, we believe the current focus on formal, regulated programs in reading and writing, including in early childhood education, is having an enormous negative impact. As we see it, there has been a narrowing of focus and a preoccupation with test results. The unfortunate flow on effect is increased anxiety and behavioural issues as children are labeled as ‘difficult’ or ‘slow learners’ and disenfranchised from their learning. There are huge increases in exclusions of children from the earliest ages. According to media reports more than 1,000 prep year students in Queensland were suspended for bad behaviour last year.

Adding to narrowing of what happens in the classroom is the current obsession with certain types of ‘evidence-based’ practice such as targeted programs in direct instruction, phonics, and atomised, decontextualized approaches to teaching writing as lists of grammatical features and structure. Schools are spending thousands of dollars on literacy and writing programs as well as systems to measure and monitor children weekly, even daily. However, these programs rarely translate to children becoming more confident communicators and ‘meaning makers’ who feel in control of the forms and means of their expression.

We are not claiming there are no literacy and writing programs out there making a difference. There would be many. But we are blogging to tell you about some we call arts-based approaches.

What is an arts-based approach?

Within education, the arts incorporate the five areas of Dance, Drama, Media, Music and Visual Arts. Each have specific processes, skill bases and disciplines that they draw on. These different arts areas have some similar elements and approaches, including knowing through doing and creating, with children learning to express ideas and emotions through voice, movement, actions and different expressive forms. The arts can be taught as discrete single discipline areas, or in combination with other learning areas or arts areas. So we can talk about arts learning but also ‘learning through the arts’. In primary schools, teachers may use arts processes and strategies to teach content in other learning areas and this often helps create more engaged and experiential learning.

Examples of arts-based approaches we have implemented include using drama to support learning in English, History, Geography and Science. In one example Sue Davis created a program where year 5 students were enrolled as ‘spacetroopers’ who have to research various planets to locate one where water might be found. They then had to prepare for a space trip to that chosen planet. Throughout the unit children were involved in writing in a diverse range of forms including written reports, letters and diary entries. At the end of drama sessions when children had ‘experienced’ the content and learning, they were sometimes running to their desks to pull out their books to write.

Positive impacts of working with an arts-based approach

There is a range of research that consistently demonstrates the positive impact of arts-based approaches for improved academic and social outcomes for students in schools. The international research includes Critical Links, an important compendium of findings from numerous studies on student academic and social learning through the arts. There are consistent positive associations between dramatic enactment with reading comprehension, oral story understanding and written story understanding.

More recent research from the US includes meta-analysis work that found Drama and arts-based learning programs can have a significant impact on improving language arts and academic learning programs. Another study with students who had learning difficulties indicated the use of drama strategies improved student motivation, narrative cohesion and language acquisition. A growing body of Australian research supports the international work ranging from the impact of arts programs, including research for the Songroom through to classroom based work with a focus on literacy development in the early years. This and other work in secondary schools by University of Sydney researchers shows the impact of arts-based programs can be substantial.

Sydney Theatre Company’s work with an arts-based approach in Australian schools

An example of an arts-based approach with positive results for student literacy and writing is the Sydney Theatre Company’s School Drama™ project. This program was pioneered by Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton, who were Co-artistic Directors of the Sydney Theatre Company at the time, with Professor Robyn Ewing from the University of Sydney. School Drama™ teams teaching artists (with performance and/or applied theatre background with an acting background) with a classroom teacher. They work together with primary school classes to use drama strategies and children’s literature to make English and literacy learning come alive.

A key feature of the program is to help build the participating primary school teacher’s capacity to use arts-based strategies. Each school and teacher begins the program with a particular literacy area they want to improve and they engage in careful benchmarking of pre and post literacy data.

John Saunders, Education Manager at Sydney Theatre Company, was an experienced secondary drama teacher when he then took on managing the School Drama program. He believes something very special happens when children are having so much fun with drama they forget they are learning. As they are busy enjoying themselves they are increasing their ability to visualise, comprehend and write. He tells a story about how, after working with the children’s book about the Stolen Generation called The Burnt Stick by Anthony Hill, children said they felt like they didn’t do any writing at all because they had had been ‘learning in our way, a fun way’. In fact they had been writing every lesson, but it hadn’t felt like ‘work’. Such programs are successful across whatever area of literacy is in focus, however children who are behind usually show the biggest improvement.

In his research John found that while the program leads to improvements in academic areas including literacy it also impacts on so-called ‘soft skills’ or ‘non-academic’ areas such as empathy building, confidence, motivation and engagement. Research by independent evaluator Robyn Gibson supports these findings.

When learning approaches such as these focus on experience and active learning, children become confident in using language and literacies within real and imagined contexts. Data on impact is growing and is providing insight into more innovative, transferrable approaches to teaching literacy.

Unfortunately politicians and policy makers rarely recognise our projects, including professional learning models we have piloted and researched, or any other arts-based approach. Arts-based programs are simply not acknowledged as vehicles for improving valued academic outcomes.

We believe if governments invested just some of the millions they invest in improving NAPLAN scores into arts-based programs, such as School Drama and related professional learning, the results would be astounding.

 

John Nicholas Saunders is a former secondary school teacher and the current Education Manager at Sydney Theatre Company.  He holds a Bachelor of Creative Industries (Drama), Bachelor of Education (Secondary), Masters of Research and is currently studying for a PhD.  John’s classroom work together with his research has focused on Drama as pedagogy and its benefits for student literacy, engagement, motivation and empathy.  John has extensive experience in Arts Education and has held positions as a senior curriculum writer, head of department; Board member of Playlab Press, President of Drama NSW and Drama QLD.  He currently holds positions as: President, Drama Australia; Honorary Associate, The University of Sydney; Chair, Australian Major Performing Arts Group (AMPAG) Education Network; and Drama representative, National Advocates for Arts Education.  In 2014 he was awarded the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Science (CHASS)  prize for future leader  in the field and in 2016 he published ‘The School Drama Book: Drama, Literature & Literacy In The Creative Classroom’ with is colleague, Professor Robyn Ewing. 

 

Susan Davis is Deputy Dean Research for the School of Education & the Arts at CQ University, Australia. Her research has focused on drama, arts-education, engagement and  digital technologies. She is one of the Co-Convenors of the Arts Education Research SIG of AARE and a Board member for Drama Australia and the Sunshine Coast Creative Alliance. Sue was previously a drama teacher and performing arts Head of Department and has created and managed many arts-based projects in collaboration with various education, arts industry and community groups. Susan was one of the convenors of a Creative Education Summit held at ACMI in 2016, with summit outcomes contributing to an Arts Education, Practice and Research group submission to the “The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training Inquiry into innovation and creativity: workforce for the new economy”. She was also invited to present further evidence at a roundtable for the inquiry. 

(Featured photo by Grant Sparkes-Carroll)

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