ABSTRACT
When students engage in the arts, a number of literacy demands are placed upon them. Literacy demands include how to effectively ‘read’ artworks and also respond to them. Additionally, when students create their own artwork, certain aesthetic-artistic requirements are needed in order to express meaning effectively. This chapter firstly explores what literacy demands are, including the notion of curriculum literacies. It then explores the idea of reading and writing in the arts and how teachers can support their students’ learning outcomes. The chapter is framed around the Context-to-Text literacy model highlighting the fact that texts/artworks are created within particular social and cultural environments. It also analyses information related to text, grammar including cohesion and word knowledge in language mode. It shares discussion about the other modes of meaning including auditory, gestural, spatial and visual, and how these can be manipulated in text composition.
