Disciplinary Literacy Journal 3 by

Elementary School

kapla357 — 2025-04-05 18:22:48 UTC

Despite what super pro-AI users want you to believe, art is a pretty accessible thing. From early ages children learn and experience things like shapes, colors, coloring, drawing in mud, etc. There is an inherit drive to learn about and create art from a very you age. There for most students enter Elementary school with a baseline amount of knowledge of lines, shapes, colors, and a few motor skills like cutting with scissors or drawing with crayons. Then on top of that since most elementary schools have every class and age group have art at some point during the week each grade level persists with similar background knowledge. It's a pretty even field during elementary school. Even but more so surrounding somewhat basic principles, rather than techniques.

Middle/High school

kapla357 — 2025-04-05 18:29:19 UTC

Middle and high school is where background knowledge starts to diversify and change amounts/levels from student to student. As students start to develop more opinions on likes and dislikes some spend more of their free time and attention on learning and creating different varieties of art mediums. This means that some students will start to stick out in terms of advanced knowledge or skills. Unlike with elementary school there is not just a few subject matters like shapes or colors to define background knowledge anymore. One student might know a lot about clay hand building techniques and another might not even know what a kiln is in regards to clay. So background knowledge at these ages groups is very broad.

Actions > Words

kapla357 — 2025-04-05 18:41:34 UTC

The concept of background knowledge on words for visual arts is interesting to think about. There's techniques and styles of art that all have names and definitions that can be verbal or written. However in the study of visual arts this knowledge often is and should be secondary to the motor skills that creation requires. A student might not know that the way they're building with clay is referred to as coil building but as long as they are doing it successfully I'd still consider it correct background knowledge.

Art Background is broad!

kapla357 — 2025-04-05 18:50:04 UTC

There is an inherit human drive to create. This is true even at very early ages. it is rarer to come across students of any age that do not have some sort of foundational knowledge in art basics (shapes, colors, and even some mediums/techniques). Art classes are very much supported by this inherit drive to create. Students wanting to engage with the subject matter of art is often times not something that visual arts educators have to fight for. Most students will engage in art classes since they have been exposed to art and creation at such young ages. Having strong foundational knowledge is something that inspires students to want to participate more in class and helps students feel more confident in what they are creating.

Happy?

kapla357 — 2025-04-05 18:54:06 UTC

My thoughts regarding background knowledge for visual arts is two big thumbs up. I think as humans grow older they have less of a drive to create, or at least the time to do so, so this want to learn the subject matter of art makes me happy. it also in turn inspires me to want to create as well. As I mentioned before art is super accessible. Well some mediums are which makes the possibility for background knowledge so much greater. So over all I love background knowledge and building off of what students already have brewing in their brains.

Physical subject

kapla357 — 2025-04-05 19:40:44 UTC

Since art comprehension is so heavily rooted in the physical techniques, comprehension is not reliant only on fluency or verbal skills. This is something that is so so awesome about visual arts. it's visual! Therefore learning 90% of the subject matter can be done by watching rather than just listening. Yes there's vocab and background but the quality of creation or understanding of physical technique is not reliant on this knowledge.