Incorporating Aesthetics into Literacy Lessons Ashley Porter Literacy and Learning

What does the word aesthetics mean? Aesthetics can be defined as the ability to perceive and respond to beauty through our senses. In the classroom this means creating and responding to beauty through audible, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic means.

Aesthetic use in the classroom Some of the aesthetic tools used in the classroom environment include: 1. Drama 2. Visual arts 3. Media resources 4. Learning centers

The effects of aesthetic use By using techniques such as drama, visual art, music, and other hands-on activities, students will derive personal meaning and experience from their literacy lessons The use of these activities will stretch students and cause them to think on a new level By being actively involved student interest and achievement will rise Students will have a new intrinsic motivation for learning and for their personal use of literacy

The use of drama in literacy Drama is one of the most affective tools in literacy development Drama actively involves children in the learning experience causing them to be more interested in the subject at hand Drama incorporates numerous learning styles including visual, aural, and kinesthetic means

Drama and verbal development When students are involved in drama activities they are putting into practice the vocabulary and literary parts learned from literature By publicly speaking and acting, students develop verbal fluency and therefore, confidence in reading ability Drama is a non-threatening way for students to exercise vocabulary, word order, and phrasing

Drama and life connections Drama creates real-life connections between students and text If literature “comes to life” for students they will be more interested and have a higher level of achievement By hearing and seeing the vocabulary and literature acted out students will derive meaning and purpose from the text Drama also means group work which causes students to communicate, compromise, work with and learn from one another

Ideas for incorporating drama into literacy lesson plans Have students act out stories that were read in class Use passages of literature from different time periods and have students adapt them to modern day language and style, write the adaptations, then act them out Use vocabulary words to have students practice speaking or acting out in different tenses, styles, emphasis Take a theme or lesson learned from a story in class and have students relate it to a personal experience

Visual arts and literacy The incorporation of visual arts in literacy is one of the easiest ways to involve aesthetics For young children storybooks are full of visual images that help spur their interest and understanding of the story’s meaning The creation of visual art enhances personal meaning of a piece of literature Students can create the underlying significance, feeling, and themes of literature through visual art

Visual literacy By creating a visual image of a book or literacy lesson students have a high chance of remembering what they read Visual arts can be incorporated into the literacy of nearly all subject areas Visual art works to provoke thought and conversation hence developing vocabulary and speech skills Visual art helps students to make the connection between what they see in every day life and what they have read or written in literacy lessons

Ideas for incorporating art into literacy lesson plans Students create images from stories they have read Connect famous works of art to children’s stories Create an abstract piece of art depicting how a poem or story made the student feel Have students create a comic strip about a funny life story

Media resources and literacy Children today watch more television than ever before, however, all the effects are not negative Educational television programs have proven to be beneficial to students’ literacy development Incorporating television into literacy lessons can actually improve achievement and motivation Students have also shown an increase interest in computers and other multi-media resources

How to incorporate media into literacy Give students task variability in their literacy lessons Allow students to respond to reading through creating power point presentations, a video, musical compilation, or a media slideshow

Learning centers and literacy Learning centers help to make literacy seem useful and purposeful Centers incorporate different styles and uses of literacy while creating an enjoyable, education atmosphere

Ideas for learning centers and literacy Create a center where students work together to form a short story by going around a circle adding once sentence at a time Have a center for vocabulary words in which students have to play a matching game (memory) with the words and definitions Students read poems aloud to the group at that center practicing their aural skills and sense of rhyme and rhythm Have a music center where students sing songs about the parts of speech