News
2011 Whole School Initiative Fall Cluster Meetings focused on the arts
Posted Nov 21, 11:18 AM
Last month, over 120 teachers, administrators, artists and parents gathered at Tupelo Middle School in Tupelo, St. Richard Catholic School in Jackson and the City Centre in Laurel to explore ways to use the arts within the new Common Core State Standards. The Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC) and the Whole Schools Initiative (WSI) believe that every child deserves to be taught in and through the arts, thus nurturing the imagination and creating impacting lifelong learning. Arts integration is a teaching strategy that encourages students to deepen their educational experience in the classroom by engaging in an art from while they are learning about another subject. The WSI focuses on arts integration in the classroom through professional development for teachers.
The arts integrated lesson plan, presented during the workshop, used the new Common Core State Standards and focused on English Language Arts. The workshop was created in collaboration with the Mississippi Department of Education and the Mississippi Arts Commission. The content was piloted in a fourth grade classroom at the Clarkdale Attendance Center. During the Fall Cluster Meetings, attendees created artwork using the technique of collage, created new dramatic characters and wrote/acted/directed their own scene based on children’s literature. The arts integrated lesson plan will be implemented in Mississippi classrooms throughout the month of November. Feedback will be given from the teachers to MDE and MAC to ensure the lesson plan is effective and successful in meeting the Mississippi State Standards. The final lesson plan, with video of students and teachers, will be posted on the Whole Schools Initiative website later this winter for all Mississippi teachers to access.
