Topic: Arts encompass our culture, heritage and society. Arts experiences in primary education contexts embrace diversity and integrate Indigenous perspectives.

Order Description The assessment requires you to write a 1500 word persuasive essay addressing the following: Arts encompass our culture, heritage and society. Arts experiences in primary education contexts embrace diversity and integrate Indigenous perspectives. Reflect critically upon current values and beliefs about arts education in primary education settings, including the ethical and cultural considerations around implementing the arts. Through this assessment task you will be able to demonstrate your understanding of the role and value of the arts in the primary education context and reflect and clarify your own beliefs about Arts education as an integrated and creative curriculum that supports children’s development. The assessment is due on Monday, however, I have to submit it to Turnitin (the University's plagiarism checking site) on Sunday evening, before I can submit it on Monday. Does your company guarantee authentic, original work that will not be detected by universities or plagiarism checkers? Preparing for AT1 The following questions and information has been prepared to get you thinking about A1, and allow you to start making some plans towards developing your argument. To best support your engagement in the ‘To Do’ components (detailed in Blue) you should have: - Read the assessment task description and rubric - Engaged with the week 1 and 2 learning materials These ‘To Do’s will form the basis of our activities in the Collaborate session on Monday evening. 1. WHAT IS THEORY? Basically, theory means a guide to practice or as a way of making sense of the world. Why do we do the things we do? How might I explain someone’s behaviour or actions? If I look a situation from a developmental theory perspective, I might explain their behaviour in alignment with my understanding of developmental theory; whereas if I look at it from a psychological theory perspective I would make sense of it through that perspective. Without theory, we cannot make sense of practice, and there are lots of different theories that relate to Arts Education contexts. You will come across lots of examples throughout the readings and learning materials. While they may not be labelled explicitly with 'this is an Arts education theory', keep in mind the understanding that a theory is a guide to practice. This is not about finding one right or best answer. There are many different and diverse theories that can underpin or guide our approach to Arts Education. In turn, how we can be guided by these to embrace diversity and integrate Indigenous perspectives in and through Arts experiences in primary education contexts will also vary. Consider: • How might theory apply to the Arts? I have ideas about why I do things in the way I do them, and I can only have these ideas by thinking about my purpose and intended outcomes. • What is the difference, if any, between theory and information? TO DO: Make some notes about possible theories that could underpin approaches to Arts Education (teaching and learning in, through and for the Arts), and how these might be applied to embrace diversity and integrate Indigenous perspectives in Arts experiences in the primary education context. 2. UNPACKING THE ESSAY PROMPT In your essay, you will need to ensure that you develop an argument that is informed/supported by relevant literature. You will also need to explicitly address the two parts of the question. Arts encompass our culture, heritage and society. – You should ensure you link to relevant examples of this: in the media, in the arts, in history, in news or research articles. Unpack and explain the links. Arts experiences in primary education contexts embrace diversity and integrate Indigenous perspectives. – As this is a persuasive essay, you may decide to persuade for or against this argument. In either case, you will need to provide concrete sources to support your argument. This will need to also include reference to the Australian Curriculum and an Australian context, however may look more broadly as well. For this task students must develop an argument and write to persuade us of the veracity and validity of their argument. One way of persuading us is through the use of evidence, and so students must read widely and support their claims with evidence. We are not looking for a 'right' answer - what we are looking for is an argument. An argument is 'expressing a point of view on a subject and supporting it with evidence' (The Writing Center). It will help if you use the language of the task – for example, what exactly are 'Arts experiences'? What does it mean to 'embrace' diversity? How well are Indigenous perspectives 'integrated' into curriculum? Note that this statement has been designed around the articles that form the reading from Week 1 and 2. It is a good idea to read through a range of contentious articles (including your own research) and then reflect on your own viewpoint and discuss with others (even by playing devil's advocate), may help you to consider what best makes a persuasive essay, as the perspective need not necessarily be their own viewpoint. TO DO: Make a note of a couple of points from curriculum/ curriculum review documentation and discourses that you might use to inform your argument. 3. DESCRIBING OR PERSUADING. What students have a tendency to do in essay arguments is to rather than persuade. The essay must be a persuasive essay, not merely a description of Arts education. A description will not meet the requirements of the task. Consider: • What does describing something to someone enable me to do? • How might I persuade someone to align themselves with my argument? In the Collaborate session, I will run through a quick activity with you where we describe something (an object), and then explore how we might try to persuade someone to buy it. TO DO: In preparation to contribute to the activity around describing or persuading, note down your current understanding of what it means to describe something, and what it means to persuade someone 4. PLANNING YOUR ESSAY The introduction - A good introduction is really important (see Writing a good introduction Quick Guide. It is important because a good introduction is like a plan or map of your essay. Your introduction should tell the reader what is going to happen in the essay and what your essay is going to be about. An essay isn’t a mystery or a detective story. It is better to tell the reader explicitly what you are going to be talking about than to leave them guessing. A good introduction will give your reader an orientation to the topic. Your introduction should include a thesis statement: a one-sentence answer to the argument position being taken. This should be your answer that you have thought carefully about based on the information you have read and discussed with others in the unit. The introduction will then introduce the arguments they will unfold in the essay, and this then forms the basis of the structure of the essay. The body - The body of your essay should take up most of the word count. In the body you take up each main point you have identified in the introduction and develop it in one or more paragraphs. You should develop each main point in the same order as you mentioned it in the introduction. You develop each main point in the same way until you have run out of points. The points you make need to be supported by evidence from the reading and research you have done on the topic. The conclusion - Your conclusion then, in a way, tells the reader what your essay has been about. It summarises what you have found out, discovered and concluded. Where the introduction predicts for the reader what is to come the conclusion reinforces for the reader the main points of the body. The conclusion ties the essay together by pointing backwards and connecting back to the introduction and body. No matter which way you choose to argue, you should relate your argument to the essay objective and not write in general terms. We will be looking for evidence of your engagement with the learning materials in your argument, including the readings. Those who don't make any links with any of the topics or readings explored in the unit will not be able to do very well, no matter how well-written the essay is. This assessment descriptors go far beyond good writing. TO DO: Start thinking about what your beliefs are as to the role and value of the Arts in the primary education context. Prepare a short formative statement about your own beliefs regarding Arts education as an integrated and creative curriculum that supports children’s development. You will have the opportunity to share these in small group discussion. 5. THE HOLISITC RUBRIC When you take your first look at the assessment documents you might notice that the rubrics for the assessments are different from a traditional rubric. What you’ll see instead of the usual analytic rubric, is a holistic rubric. Holistic rubrics view assessment tasks as ‘whole’ entities and give credence to the fact that an object is more than just the sum of its parts. It is difficult to assess the Arts for genuine evidence of purposeful and authentic learning by compartmentalising it into criteria. For this reason, we model appropriate Arts Education teaching practice through the assessment tasks with descriptors that are written that describe the whole task at a passing level or at a Credit level, etc. Please note, that as with all descriptors these You must achev are guidelines only. You will notice on the rubrics provided that students must achieve ALL the descriptors within a standard before they can achieve the next standard. This means that a student cannot perform extremely well in two or three areas to compensate for one substandard area, and thereby hope to slide up into the next standard of achievement. Allowing time to critically reflect on your work as you prepare and undertake provides an important opportunity to deepen and enrich the learning you can obtain through completing assessment tasks. If the submission meets all of the descriptors in one standard, does it meet all descriptors in the next standard? One point about assessing this task. The rubric is a holistic one and so there is no Turnitin rubric. We won't be giving you a breakdown of marks for each criterion as this doesn't fit with the notion of a holistic rubric. TO DO: Read the holistic rubric for A1 and make a note of any points that you are unsure of. Be prepared to pose a question and share your interpretation of what you think the point might mean/require. 6. COMMON QUESTIONS RE ASSESSMENT TASKS • How many references should I have in my essay? One of the questions students often ask is 'how many references do I need'. The reason this makes as much sense as asking 'how much petrol do I need in my car' is because that will depend on where you're traveling to in your car. So, how many references students 'need' depends on how many claims they make. All claims made should be substantiated with reference to supporting literature. As a very subjective guideline (in alignment with the above observation), about 10 -12 might be considered an appropriate amount for a standard for an essay of this length. However – quality/depth of engagement with supporting literature is always more valuable than quantity. • What perspective/voice should my essay be written in? Read on for an explanation of first, second and third person writing grounded within the context of the story about Grover the Muppet in The Monster at the End of this Book, written by Jon Stone (2003) First person- Usually reserved for reflective writing, or other academic tasks that ask the writer to identify his/her own position/perceptions. This is when the writer is referring to him or herself. You will see 'I,' 'me,' 'my' and 'mine' in first person. An example of first person writing: “I do not think it is a good idea to read this book. In fact, I’m not even going to open it because I have heard that there is a monster waiting at the end of the book”. Second person- Very uncommon in academic writing tasks. This is when the reader is directly addressed with 'you,' 'your' and 'yours.' An example of second person writing: “If you do not turn any pages, we will never get to the end of this book. And that is good, because there is a monster at the end of this book”. Third person- Most common in academic writing tasks. This is where the writer doesn't refer to him or herself - as in first person - and isn't addressing the reader - as in second person. Instead, you get an observer's perspective and lots of 'she,' 'he,' 'her,' 'his,' 'their' and 'theirs.' An example of writing in third person: “It has been said that the book in question has a nasty surprise at its’ conclusion. The end of the book brings with it a monster, and the monster is of such a nature that it has been known to devour readers”. You can see from this how much more formal and objective third person writing is. Your essay is to be written in third person. • What qualities/requirements characterise formal/academic writing? This means writing complete sentences, using consistent tense, using an active voice where appropriate (and knowing the difference between active and passive writing), using apostrophes correctly, carefully considering word choice (vocabulary), working through the stages of planning, drafting, editing, and proofreading, using accurate language, avoiding casual or colloquial language, etc. Please do not get hung up on formatting/referencing at the expense of the quality of the content of your assignment. Although formatting/presentation is important, remember the task as a whole. • Can I exceed the word limit? For an essay of this length (1500 words), this means you can exceed the word limit by 150 words without incurring a penalty. • Are in-text references included in the word count? Yes, everything in the essay except the reference list is included in the word count. • Can we use headings or dot points? Avoid these.