Aesthetic Literacy Through The Avant Garde

The purpose of this exploratory case study is to identify, develop, and posit an aesthetically responsive curriculum theory as a praxis approach for preparing K-8 pre-service teachers in aesthetic literacy throughout their teacher education program. I explore two approaches in the literature that have thus far consisted of the (1) practitioner and (2) theorist models of arts-integration. In this study, these two approaches are fused together as a praxis to posit a solution to the problem of the arts being removed from the curriculum in times of budget cuts. From my analysis of the survey data from pre-service K-8 teachers (n = 37 in 2012; n = 34 in 2014) and my analysis of a broad selection of the literature in curriculum theory, aesthetics, and teacher education, I developed what I call archeophisomorphic (ArchPM) theory for a praxis model of arts-integration for social studies in particular. I designed an ArchPM-based curriculum product in the form of an illustrated book as an example to begin implementing a new aesthetic literacy through the integration of the arts into social studies and language literacy. Through this theory-driven practice of aesthetic literacy development, teacher educators may foster exploration of aesthetics as an applied philosophical inquiry in which its application is in the form of curriculum products for teaching aesthetic literacy.