The following is a case study from art-integrated language arts lessons from CPS, showing insight to the practice and effects of including the arts in the classroom.

To portray the rich and varied landscape of the integrated arts approach in Chicago and Chicago Public Schools (CPS), practitioners were asked – What is your own definition of arts integration? How do you describe the methodologies and principles that guide your program? What is it like to be in a classroom where a successful arts integration experience takes place? The result is the following set of case studies. They bring to life the recommendations for best practices, planning, and collaboration.

Like many arts integration educators, Lichtenstein believes that deep learning occurs during instruction as two subject areas are being integrated. She has found this learning process to be more valuable than having students work throughout a unit to create a final product or performance. “Arts integration is about making audacious connections and relationships between and among disparate concepts, questions, people and places, thoughts and feelings,” she says, “and using them to arrive at new descriptions of a shared world and new expressions for complex ideas.”

When creating a program, Lichtenstein draws from many sources of inspiration, synthesizing ideas and creating engaging hands-on curriculums that “invites provocation around big ideas and questions about those big ideas.” She plans dynamic processes and expects transformative results. “All projects begin with generative questions that change as we change. As we begin to grapple with materials to explore our questions, we change perspectives and we make new meanings.”

To put this practice and philosophy into action, Lichtenstein partnered with Project AIM/CCAP in a program to explore where and how rules are defined and made across disciplines. She observed clear benefits to this arts integration approach: “Shuttling across disciplines, students in eighth grade began to unravel the concept of rule making—by breaking and bending them.” The project led to an experimental book structure featuring poems based on mathematics.

Challenges: To put this practice and philosophy into action, Lichtenstein collaborated many other teachers and teaching artists, including math teacher Luke Albrecht, a group of experimental writers who used mathematics principles to create poems and other writings. Finding these partnerships and collaborations can be challenging, especially if the school is not see the importance of learning the arts. Teachers can create collaborations close to home with fellow teachers and schools in the district who are passionate about the arts, or create individual integration plans, permitted that they have the time and resources to do so.

Benefits: Through these lessons, students learn to make connections between disparate concepts, questions, people and places, thoughts and feelings. Students are allowed – and even encouraged – to arrive at a variety of creative outcomes; there is no one right answer to restrain students. As they grow and change, their perspectives and discoveries grow and change with them. Hands on curriculums that encourage participation and get students active in their own learning.

The following are lesson plans from ARTSEDGE: The Kennedy Center’s Arts Education Network. These lessons serve as examples for how to include the arts using integration in the classroom.

Alexander Calder: Master of Balance

How do balance and motion connect art and science?

Students will learn about the function and form of levers. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the function of levers by viewing the mobiles created by sculptor Alexander Calder. They will build a simplified mobile, experiment with balancing levers and discuss finding equilibrium. Grades 5-8; 1 hour and 45 minutes; math, science, visual arts.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Name the functions and parts of a lever.
Understand the difference between the three types of levers.
Differentiate between potential and kinetic energy.
Study and interpret the mobiles of Alexander Calder.
Make connections between science and sculpture.
Build a simplified mobile.
Balance objects by changing and moving objects on a lever (simplified mobile).
Discussion
Visual Instruction

Teaching Methods

Discovery Learning
Hands-On Learning
Simulations and Games
Discussion
Visual Instruction

Challenges: Finding the time to create something artistic is always challenging when there is so much in the curriculum to cover. However, if you replace the time your students spend in class completing worksheets and readings with a hands-on experience, you might be surprised at how much you can get done (and how much of the information they will actually retain.)

Benefits: Students tend to retain information better when they have a physical experience or memory to relate it to. Name the functions and parts of a lever and understand the difference between the three types of levers is a difficult task to complete through worksheets, and a lesson on differentiate between potential and kinetic energy is nothing without a live demonstration. You could show your kids a video on potential and kinetic energy – or, you should teach them how to design something completely new that will teach them about the energy principles in the process in a way that they are more likely to understand. By putting together levers themselves, students will gain a better understanding how they work and what they are used for. They will also gain a new appreciation for the art of movement sculptures through this lesson and will probably think about movement and mobiles differently in a more informed, scientific (as well as artistic!) way in the future.

Character Life Box

Getting to know your characters through words and images

This language arts lesson offers a hands-on opportunity for students to understand characterization in literature and to connect historical and contemporary culture. Through research and study of Shakespearean England, student pairs get to know about the life of a character in the book Shakespeare Stealer. Students collect props and clues to create a “life box” and a poem about their character. Using props adds a visual and physical dimension to their learning while using words engages mental facilities, making this a whole brain activity. Students must communicate their clues and interpret others clues to reveal character’s identities. Grades 5-8; 1 hour and 15 minutes; history, literature, theater, visual arts.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

Create a character life box for a character in The Shakespeare Stealer
Research information about their character or his/her job and historical context
Write a rhyme royal to describe the character depicted in their life box
Present their character life boxes to the class
Learn about the value of character development in literature

Teaching Methods:

Demonstration
Cooperative Learning
Hands-On Learning
Research
Direct Instruction

Challenges: Finding all the materials for a character box could pose a challenge – but remember what you are teaching you students. Get creative! Many teachers might shy away from seemingly complex art projects because it is just too difficult to find good materials, or it costs too much to buy them out of pocket. Remember, however, that they don’t have to be perfect. Children will appreciate a creative project in most all forms, and finding cheep craft materials at a local dollar mart is all you need to create a fun and memorable art integrated lesson for your students.

Benefits: In this lesson, students will combine research with hand-on learning, a combination that is greatly needed in the real world but often overlooked in classrooms settings when students sit stationary in seats all day.