This past weekend I attended the conference Arts Matters: Integrating Arts Across the Curriculum hosted by Brock University. The focus of this conference was on valuing the arts and their integration across the curriculum. I found the conference to be extremely valuable in that we were able to see how the four arts disciplines could be carried through cross curricular teaching, and how consolidation with the arts will help students become highly reflective, holistic thinkers.
What I found most interesting about the workshops was that each discipline was related back into language arts in some way. For example, in drama we were read to or given texts and with our groups we were to regurgitate our understanding and present with action what we understand of that story. In dance we had a similar experience, but instead we put related our understanding to actions which came out in body movements with music. It is this interweaving of the curriculum that has been highlighted and how we can generate comprehensive responses to stories by consolidating with the arts.
What our key note speaker, David Booth, discussed prior to our activities, was the idea of "How One Story Can Generate A Thousand Responses through the Arts." He discussed a study he did with thousands of teachers in different countries with versions of the book The Selkie. His presentation was based on the variety of ways teachers generated a thousand different responses with the same story, using the arts. What I found most riveting about his presentation was that through creative expression, students were able to attend to their deeper levels of connection of text to self. The arts are creative mediums for comprehension; they are forms of communication, an extension of the person who has created it, a way of expressing internal feelings or thoughts, and a way of demonstrating understanding.
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| Letters between lovers, imagined by first grade student, Phoebe. Image: Chamberlain, Julia (c) |
In developing the knowledge and skills to have students become effective readers. The Ontario curriculum says that, "An effective reader is one who not only grasps the ideas communicated in a text but is able to apply them in new contexts. To do this, the reader must be able to think clearly, creatively, and critically about the ideas and information encountered in texts in order to understand, analyse, and absorb them and to recognize their relevance in other contexts."
When we think about reading and comprehension strategies, within this realm of being an effective communicator by relating text to new contexts, integrating the arts allows for another outlet for comprehension. When the reader is able to consolidate their understanding through illustration, song or body movement they are automatically applying their comprehension to new contexts that is reflective of what they know. The article, "Using Art to Teach Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension" by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), discusses how the arts is used as a form of expression for students with learning disabilities that have a difficult time expressing thoughts through speech and words and when we integrate the arts, these students can begin to illustrate their ideas through movement or spatial understanding, or textures. Ellen Holtzblatt, who is a student, teacher, and art therapist says, "I start with text and then use a combination of the other modalities to deepen the students' experience. Art bypasses verbal limitations and intellectual expectations." The arts allow for a freedom of expression that some students may not be able to convey otherwise, being limited with their verbal abilities. A lesson with arts consolidation would opt for an improved Universal Design for Learning.
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| Education Possible. 5 easy ways to Ignite Kids' Creativity. Nov 6 2013. Accessed: October 27, 2015. URL: http://educationpossible.com/5-easy-ways-ignite-kids-creativity/ |
So how does a seven year old know about such love? How was Phoebe able to read The Selkie and comprehend her understanding of the text by imagining a love so vast that the two characters simply just could not bare to live without each other? There is something the arts activates between prior knowledge where students can question, visualize, synthesize and preform what they know to be true. In Phoebe's case, this act of role playing allowed her to imagine these star-crossed lovers, which she expressed on an extremely deep level. The arts have this wonderful ability to allow us as creators to dig deep within ourselves and to express what we find, and use that expression to tell stories. So it is true what Dr. Booth says about one text generating a thousand responses, and the arts is a way to take stories and generate what we understand to be their meaning.
References:
Ferguson, Kristen. Performing Poetry: Using Drama to Increase the Comprehension of Poetry. Ontario Ministry of Education Research Monograph #52. March 2014. Accessed: October 27, 2015. URL: https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/WW_PerformPoetry.pdf
Ministry of Education. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1 -8: Language. 2006. Accessed: October 7, 2015. URL: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf
STEP=UP (Special Teachers and Exceptional Pupils = Urban Promise). Using Art to Teach Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension. University of Illinois at Chicago. Vol 4 Issue 4. September 1, 2007. Accessed: October 27, 2015 URL: https://www.uic.edu/orgs/stepup/documents/NewsletterSeptember2007.pdf
Used Books in Class. Teacher's College 87tth Reunion: David Booth and a Thousand Stores. October 22, 2014. Accessed: October 27, 2015. URL: http://usedbooksinclass.com/2014/10/22/teachers-college-87th-reunion-david-booth-and-a-thousand-stories/
