African Strand, P.S. 156, The Waverly School of the Arts

The African strand represents one segment of our school’s yearly multicultural strand calendar. It also is the prototype strand being used to introduce our arts program to other schools in our district and city. This strand will serve as the model for showing them how to incorporate multicultural art and arts education into every aspect of the school’s curriculum.

With this in mind, the main activities of the African strand can be divided into two basic parts:

Part A. Sharing Our African Strand Activities

• As a network school for the Center for Arts Education, we are committed to sharing our expertise in this approach to education. In early September, opportunities will be provided for our schools to share our past and current experiences in the arts with our sister school, P.S. 73.
• An assigned group of our staff will meet with visiting artists from Lotus Music & Dance, the Teachers & Writers Collaborative, and parents to begin a series of sessions that will assist P.S. 73 in facilitating an effective integration of the arts into their curriculum using the African strand as the prototype.
• Intervisitations, workshops, discussions, demonstrations, modeling, and other activities will continue while all strand-related activities are in process. Assistance is provided until their final strand presentation.

Part B. In-House African Strand Activities

• Continue to have planning and strategy meetings
• Pick a theme and region of focus in the Africa continent
• Set goals
• Do research
• Compile and share resources
• Each student continues to keep a journal
• Classroom teachers keep a class journal
• With 12-week program in full swing, group continues to work with students
• Draft of final presentation is shared and reviewed by the group
• With rehearsal also in full swing, focus is set for finale
• Strand leader, consultants, teacher, parents, and students all collaborate and share to meet all the goals and standards that have been set previously
• Trips are conducted on a continuous basis
• Students write pre- and post-trip experiences into their journals
• Writers, teachers, and students work on final draft for publication of the strand’s anthology
• Pre-established assessment measures are continuously administered to measure student achievement and to what degree various standards are being met
• The Grand Finale Day: The Never-Before-Seen Performance
• Participating staff, parents, consultants, and administration meet for an after-the-strand evaluation