Culturally Relevant Instruction and Literacy in Art Pedagogy

Strategies for instance, differentiation or scaffolding as a tool to support literacy in the Art classroom. This research project concluded the analysis of my student teacher’s practicum experience in the 2021 – 2022 school year. I spent the year in a multi-grade (9th to 12th) secondary school Digital Arts classroom. The research details an analysis of these three questions: How have differentiation, culturally relevant pedagogy, and inclusive education changed my Art classroom? How can scaffolded instruction be used to develop an inclusive lesson plan? How does literacy adapted to Art pedagogy inform content-specific strategies in the classroom? Data was compiled from journal entries, formal observations, formative and summative assessment, and lesson plans. This paper includes an introduction, philosophy of education, literature review, research methods and presentation of data, as well as implications and concluding thoughts. To curate a strong literacy of a subject, one must first define and teach the expectations of the classroom. Art content specifically is not special, as most literacy strategies will adapt to support the gradual release of responsibility being taught. Keywords: art pedagogy, literacy, differentiation, scaffolding, gradual release of responsibility