Teaching visual literacy provides students with tools for questioning and understanding the world while creating meaning through visual art. Wanting to know how students make meaning together while making art, this article centers the convergence of collaboration and visual literacy in early childhood artistic practice. Approximately 200 students…

In this article, the author discusses how video games can be studied in the Media Arts/Arts classroom in terms of their educational potential through three steps of visual literacy to effectively deconstruct a video game for critical thinking. She first looks at how games demonstrate visual representation; second, how games teach visual…

Storing data and interpreting data are two very different endeavors; interpreting data is necessary for its transformation into actionable knowledge and new questions. On its own, data are not meaningful information. However, data visualization, like art making, offers another means to create order from chaos; it is an opportunity to identify…

In this era of rapid development in multimedia and technology, there is a growing awareness of the use of multiple semiotic resources in meaning-making (Fei, 2004). Music videos specifically harbor meaning within their semiotic features of visual communication. They also exert an enormous influence on the popularity of music (Fei, 2004). Music…

The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution suggests that all speech is constitutionally protected. The right of free speech has been broadly defined by the court system, legislatures, and stakeholders in the field of education. Speech has been defined in many ways, but it is most commonly agreed on that speech, in its purest sense, is a basic…

A primary goal of substantive art education is to communicate visually--to decipher art for meaning and to construct meaning through images and objects. Strategies available to engage students are the interdisciplinary activities found in performance, visual and written forms of creative expression, and related disciplines such as ethnography,…

In February and March 2007, the author investigated the possibilities of visual culture art education in two Greek Primary schools in Athens with students in Grades 5 and 6. One of her goals was to determine whether or not the telenovela genre was appropriate as curriculum content in primary art education. She chose telenovelas because they are a…

Traditional skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic may not be adequate for preparing students to enter today's highly technological and visual society. The role of the art educator is crucial in developing the visual skills which are increasingly necessary in a world of visual communication. (IS)

Describes "Contemporary Art Start," a year-long, curriculum-based art-education program designed to provide students with an in-depth understanding of contemporary art as a form of visual communication, personal expression, and social commentary. Discusses curriculum structure, the curriculum guide, how to engage teachers and students, using…

Critical media literacy art education teaches students to: (1) appreciate the aesthetic qualities of media; (2) critically negotiate meanings and analyze media culture as products of social struggle; and (3) use media technologies as instruments of creative expression and social activism. In concert with art education practices oriented toward…

Data visualization enables users to transform data into visually compelling graphics that tell a rich story for effective communication (Vora, 2019). Data visualization's visual and artistic nature has also attracted artists and educators, leading them to explore its application in artistic creation and education (e.g., Bertling et al., 2021; Dean…

Article discussed the background for an art program that focused on the powers of communication that the visual language of art provided. (Author/RK)

As an art specialist intern at a museum-based preschool, the author facilitated an art studio session every afternoon for 5-year-old students. She naively envisioned children creating artworks that followed her lesson plans and instructions. However, as she embarked on this journey and began teaching these sessions, she witnessed two startling…

This article demonstrates how Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) art discussions and subsequent, inspired artmaking can help reach the goals of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, & Technical Subjects (CCSS-ELA). The authors describe how this was achieved in a remedial…

Many students in the art classroom view making art, and creativity, as innate abilities rather than something to be learned. When students take risks, and fail, many believe they are flawed and do not belong in an art class. These moments of vulnerability need pedagogical and curricular attention from art educators to create a psychologically safe…