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The Arts In Every Classroom: A Video Library K-5

Professional Development > The Arts In Every Classroom: A Video Library K-5 > 6. Developing an Arts-Based Unit > 6.1 Activities and Discussion

Arts

K-2, 3-5

Developing an Arts-Based Unit Activities and Discussion

Students in the first and second grades create their own drama as a year-end project at Lusher Alternative Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Suggested Activities and Discussion

Consider these questions for reflection:

  • Do you believe that it is valuable to teach the arts for art’s sake? How would you convince a parent, teacher, or principal of the value of teaching the arts?
  • Consider asking your students to create a “program” for a performance or film or television show they’ve seen. What are all those jobs? Who does them in school performances? Can they be careers?
  • One of the teachers in this program shares her reason for being a teacher — to help the children who need it most. Why did you become a teacher?

Improving Practice
Here are some additional ways you can build on the ideas in this program:

Professional Development for Teachers

  • Identify the skills that would help teachers work together on a multigrade or multi-arts team. Plan a workshop or course around these skills.
  • Partner with a community arts institution to develop a workshop or seminar to help teachers use the Internet or other tools to research artists and works of art in various art forms.
  • Organize a skills-sharing session for members of your planning team.

Series Directory

The Arts In Every Classroom: A Video Library K-5

Credits

Produced by Lavine Production Group in collaboration with KSA-Plus Communications and the Southeast Center for Education in the Arts. 2003.
  • ISBN: 1-57680-581-6

Sections

6.1 Activities and Discussion

Supplementary: Developing an Arts-Based Unit

Arts Library Video Guide

Programs

Program 0 Introducing Arts Education

This program includes three segments: Is Arts Education? What Are the Arts? In How Do You Know They're Learning?

Program 1 Expanding the Role of the Arts Specialist

Three arts teachers work with colleagues around their schools, using collaborative techniques that go beyond the traditional work of arts specialists. Kathy DeJean is a dance artist at Lusher Alternative Elementary School in New Orleans; Mary Perkerson is the visual art teacher at Harmony Leland Elementary School in Mableton, Georgia; and Amanda Newberry is the theatre specialist at Lusher.

Program 2 Teaching Dance

Two teachers with contrasting training and approaches to teaching bring rich dance experiences to students at their arts–based schools. Kathy DeJean, the dance specialist at Lusher Alternative Elementary School in New Orleans, promotes inquiry and self-expression in a multi-grade dance class. Scott Pivnik, a former physical education teacher at P.S. 156 (The Waverly School of the Arts) in Brooklyn, New York, uses African dance as a gateway to geography, writing, and personal growth for a class of second–graders.

Program 3 Teaching Music

Two music specialists from arts–based schools demonstrate different approaches to serving diverse student populations. At Harmony Leland Elementary School in Mableton, Georgia, all 500 students study the violin. Their classes with Barrett Jackson become lessons in character and discipline. At Smith Renaissance School of the Arts in Denver, Sylvia Bookhardt and a class of fifth–graders explore the Renaissance through choral singing.

Program 4 Teaching Theatre

Two specialists work on basic theatre skills with children of various ages, and use theatre education as a gateway to other kinds of learning. At Lusher Alternative Elementary School in New Orleans, Amanda Newberry's lesson in improvisation with a third–grade class stimulates students' imagination, heightens language and listening skills, and encourages critical thinking. At Barney Ford Elementary School in Denver, George Jackson teaches basic movement skills to a first–grade class, invites fourth–graders to take center stage as they explore a script, and works with fifth–graders to create masks that reveal inner feelings.

Program 5 Teaching Visual Art

Two visual art specialist teachers use contrasting interpretations of the human face to explore inquiry–based instruction and various techniques in visual art. Pamela Mancini, the visual art teacher at Helen Street School in Hamden, Connecticut, uses portraits to foster inquiry and self-expression with a class of fifth-graders. At Ridgeway Elementary School in White Plains, New York, MaryFrances Perkins introduces mask–making to a second–grade art class. In making their own masks, students examine the concept of symmetry, study the vocabulary word for the day, and learn that masks are found in cultures throughout the world.

Program 6 Developing an Arts-Based Unit

A team of first– and second–grade teachers at Lusher Alternative Elementary School in New Orleans plans a year–end project that will let students show what they have learned in science, math, and English. The students write and perform an original play, using a painting by Breughel and an opera by Stravinsky as their starting points.

Program 7 Working With Local Artists

Students and teachers at P.S. 156 (The Waverly School of the Arts) in Brooklyn, New York, benefit from the school's established relationships with artists from local organizations. This program focuses on a first–grade class creating original works with visiting artists — a dancer and a writer.

Program 8 Collaborating With a Cultural Resource

A fourth–grade teacher and a museum educator in New Orleans collaborate to develop a unit of study with ties to language arts, social studies, and visual art. Students explore the work of a well–known artist, visit an exhibition of his work, meet for a drawing lesson alongside the Mississippi River, and create poems and pictures that they proudly display to their parents.

Program 9 Bringing Artists to Your Community

Successful collaborations between classroom teachers and artists who come for a residency enrich the curriculum of this rural school in Idalia, Colorado. A visiting actor brings story–telling and vocabulary to life for kindergarten and fourth–grade students and their teachers, while a musician engages first– and third–grade students in writing songs that relate to subjects they are studying.

Program 10 Students Create a Multi-Arts Performance

A team of arts specialists and classroom teachers at Lusher Alternative Elementary School in New Orleans guides kindergarten and fourth–grade students in creating an original work based on Cirque du Soleil's Quidam. The program presents highlights of the creative process, including brainstorming about characters' emotions, creating speech and movement for the characters, constructing costumes, and performing.

Program 11 Borrowing From the Arts To Enhance Learning

To add vitality and context to day–to–day learning experiences, three teachers use techniques drawn from the arts that engage their students' minds, bodies, and emotions. In Denver, a teacher uses rhythm, color, movement, and hands–on projects to engage her class of fourth– and fifth–grade boys. In White Plains, New York, third–grade students create short skits that help them understand the concept of cause and effect. In Lithonia, Georgia, a fifth–grade social studies unit on family history culminates with students using favorite objects to make visual representations of their lives.

Program 12 Three Leaders at Arts-Based Schools

Three administrators provide instructional leadership and solve day–to–day challenges at arts–based schools serving diverse student populations. In Brooklyn, principal Martha Rodriguez–Torres describes her role as "politician, social worker, parent, and police officer," and says that her primary responsibility is to "provide teachers the resources they need to fulfill the program." In Georgia, principal Sandra McGary–Ervin encourages use of the arts to achieve the school's priority goal of literacy. And in Denver, assistant principal Rory Pullens uses his own arts background to ensure that the arts play a prominent role in day–to–day learning.

Program 13 Leadership Team

At Lusher Elementary School in New Orleans, principal Kathleen Hurstell Riedlinger works closely with a Leadership Team of classroom and arts teachers. The team's central role in management is part of a long–term strategy to protect the school's commitment to arts–based learning. We meet individual members of the team and see them work together on a diverse agenda, including the school's annual Arts Celebration, the increased demand for enrollment from outside the school's neighborhood, and orientation of new teachers to the school's arts–based curriculum.

Supplementary The Arts in Every Classroom

Arts Library Video Guide