Fusing Literacy and the Arts to Meet Common Core Standards

Abstract

The literacy demands of current elementary students continues to increase through the use of state testing and Common Core State Standards while the time devoted to creative exploration suffers on the sidelines. As a way to bridge this increasing gap, educators may look towards new means of integrating literacy with the fine arts to produce a creative, fresh appearance to literacy instruction beyond that of traditional reading and writing instruction. The fine arts can serve either as literacy or as a component to a literacy lesson. This project researches the benefits of including the fine arts in some capacity to literacy instruction while also providing twelve lessons that utilize the fine arts to increase student learning. Each lesson combines literacy skills with a fine art focus, not to use art as part of the lesson assessment but as a tool to increase the student understanding, all while remaining aligned to Common Core State Standards.