Title: Connecting with the arts
Description: Disc 1. Program 1. Revealing character. A language arts teacher and a visual art teacher ask eighth-graders to demonstrate their understanding of a novel's characters by creating unusual ceramic place settings -- Program 2. Breathing life into myths. A language arts teacher draws on puppetry techniques and help from her school's theatre teacher to engage her sixth-graders in exploring Greek myths -- Program 3. Two dance collaborations. In a first-time collaboration, a dance teacher and a science teacher combine forces to explore the laws of motion with a seventh- and eighth-grade dance class. At another school, a dance teacher and a math teacher work with sixth graders on imaginative interpretations of the idea of circles -- Program 4. Constructing a community. A visual art teacher and a social studies teacher use the distinctive architecture and history of their school's neighborhood to help eighth-graders see their community in a new light.

Disc 2. Program 5. Making connections. Teachers of music, visual art, and theatre build thoughtful connections to topics their seventh-graders are working on in social studies and language arts -- Program 6. Exploring Our Town. Seventh and eighth-grade students explore Thornton Wilder's classic play Our Town from the perspectives of theatre, music, visual art, language arts, and social studies -- Program 7. Creating a culture--the story begins. Sixth-graders develop their own cultures, complete with language, clothing, artwork, and rituals. Weeks of hard work culminate in a surprising twist. This program is the first of two parts -- Program 8. Analyzing a culture--the story continues. Students become archaeologists, analyzing artifacts from other student-created cultures. They then design a museum exhibit from those artifacts. This program is the second of two parts.

Disc 3. Program 9. Folk tales transformed. A visiting theatre artist works with a language arts teacher and a visual art teacher to help eighth-graders transform folk tales into original scenes that the students perform -- Program 10. Preserving a place for the arts. When faced with budget cuts, the staff of a rural middle school finds innovative ways to keep the arts a viable part of the curriculum -- Program 11. Can frogs dance? A dance teacher and a science teacher ask seventh-graders to compare the anatomy of frogs and humans. Then a language arts teacher coaches the students in a lively debate about whether a frog should be allowed to join a ballet company -- Program 12. Finding your voice. Drawing on themes of conflict and genocide that eighth-graders are studying in their World Cultures class, four arts teachers organize an interdisciplinary unit that encourages students to use their artwork as a form of protest.
Subjects: Arts, Study and teaching (Middle school), Arts in education, Curriculum planning, Interdisciplinary approach in education, Creative thinking in children
Places: United States