Improving the Cultural Responsiveness of Visual Thinking Strategies

Abstract

Visual Thinking Strategies is a thinking strategy created by Philip Yenawine and Abigail Housen to combat the lack of cognitive intake museum goers and art viewers felt after looking at art. Now, it is used in classrooms as well as museums to develop critical thinking skills and visual literacy amidst other skills such as communication and writing. While reviewing this thinking strategy, I wondered how it would fit and adhere to Culturally Responsive Teaching, a pedagogy curated by Geneva Gay to view academic achievement, skills, identities, and experiences by multicultural students through a holistic view rather than a deficient, “what are they lacking”, point of view. In this essay, I suggest methods to improve the cultural responsiveness of Visual Thinking Strategies in the hopes that they will create a more culturally responsive form of VTS to be used in future classrooms. I have also taken my findings and thoughts from throughout my analysis and created a photomontage which is attached and explained at the end.