Multiple Literacies and The Arts: More Than One Way To Be Smart!!!!!

"Our minds are designed to work in a cross modal manner, shunting information back and forth from one mode or representation, or literacy, to another."

This means that the more ways students are encouraged to explore and investigate experience and feel phenomena, ideas, mental systems and emotions the fuller and broader their life perspective can become.

It is good to encourage the student to explore the world multi-modally both when creating and when "consuming" Art. If the student experiences sufficient depth and breadth of stimulation the learner is more likely to "hit on" an appropriate means of unique self expression. Internal and external environments become richer and have a wide variety of expressive options available through them.

Often at school our Art Class is a journey. One day for example; we may begin at the sand pit where the students are encouraged to explore fantasy and inner dreaming. They create sculptures freely. Soon we walk through the school stopping for a drink where we share about what we have made. Sharing often turns into story or sometimes even acting out and mime. Having replenished both physically and inspirationally we trek over to the art room where the students may draw their ideas in crayon and paint. If we return to the class room in time we write down some of the story or even share songs that we have made up and sung on the way.

This multi modal way of exploration stretches across Literacies and Intelligences.

Multiple Intelligences refers to "Eight Kinds of Smart we all have inside us. They are a normal part of our biology and neurology.

The Arts are capable of connecting all of these ways of knowing, feeling and sensing. Creative Arts play the role of connector in curriculum as well as in the school community.

Through the Arts communities are able to experience 'self' as whole in ways that would have been difficult to access without them. Not surprising the new found enthusiasm and support for the Arts in Schools in an era when all are calling for justice, relevancy and quality in the curriculum.

Aug 24, 2006 6:06 PM

Khadijah Ali-Coleman :

It's so important for those who work with students to understand and operate from this understanding. Thanks for presenting this in this forum.

-Khadijah

Aug 27, 2006 9:23 AM

Irene Taylor :

Hi Jo,

Excellent article on multiple intelligences. I really love that list of 8 different kinds of intelligence. I think that all teachers should be aware of those and keep in mind that children can excel in many different and varied ways!

Great job!

Irene

Aug 27, 2006 1:47 PM

Jo Murphy :

Hi Khadijah
Thank you for your comment.
I have just come back from a weekend training where we used dance (perhaps more truthfully movement) as an access point for meaning making.
I used to find dance difficult but have stuck with the process.
Great things happen when we approach learning from a variety of different angles,
Jo

Aug 27, 2006 1:49 PM

Jo Murphy :

Thanks for the comment.
(Nice to be able to post again.)
I am lucky enough to be a part of a teachers network where we dialogue different approaches to using the arts as entry points for learning.
Being aware is the beginning and then sharing information about how to use the knowledge is the fun part.

I am much enthused.

Thank you,
Jo

Dec 20, 2006 12:30 PM

Dorit Sasson :

Hi Jo,

Excellent points you raised. some books in EFL Great article. I use now seem to embrace multiple intelligence as a concept but it is a challenge for EFL teachers to breathe life into those words and pages of text. I'm always looking for the inner waves of potentially rich stimuli underneath a text and beyond its picture. Until I am convinced differently, multiple intelligences for my professionas EFL teacher, equals creative art therapy. Am I on the right track of thinking?

Thanks again,
Dorit

Dec 20, 2006 9:56 PM

Jo Murphy :

Hi Dorit,
You know I used to get muddled by the words Art Therapy. Therapy is best understood as 'conversation'
I see teaching literacy as 'starting a conversation'
So if I were teaching EFL I could start the conversation by creating a character.
With no words at all I could put it into a little strip.
<a href="http://artseducation.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_make_a_comi c_strip">
comic strip</a>
From there the conversation would start.
I think what we are talking about is engagement.
We do a lot of group therapy in the hope that this might draw them into connecting with each other and braodening the conversation.

How we get them engaged in something that really grips is always the question for any teacher.
It is fun that way isn't it?
Acting out stories, even putting on shadow puppet versions of what they are reading.
One student mirroring as the other attempts to read a story.

I have been experiencing a lot of this lately - it just takes time to get it out onto paper.

So yes - I think Art Therapy is the way to go so long as we have an understanding of the word Therapy as...... "facilitated conversation"

Thanks for dropping by I like chatting on the boards,
Jo