Arts Integration in Diverse K-5 Classrooms: Cultivating Literacy Skills and Conceptual Understanding

by Liane Brouillette

Overview

This practical resource emphasizes the special contribution that visual art, drama, music, and dance can make to student literacy and understanding of content area reading assignments. Focusing on those areas where students tend to struggle, this book helps K—5 teachers provide an age-appropriate curriculum that is accessible to an increasingly diverse student population but does not ignore other important aspects of healthy human development. Without detracting from the rigor of a demanding curriculum, Brouillette demonstrates how arts integration allows students to engage with concepts on their own developmental level. Each chapter focuses on a skill set that is fundamental to literacy development, suggests age-appropriate arts integration activities that will build that skill, and offers guidance for fostering a sense of community.

“A thoughtful look into issues surrounding arts integration as a viable strategy for increasing students’ achievement and access to higher education and career pathways.”
—Kristen Greer-Paglia, CEO, P.S. ARTS

“An excellent guide to teachers aspiring to integrate the arts into their curriculum, it is both a delightful and useful read!”
—Liora Bresler, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807777985
Publisher:	Teachers College Press
Publication date:	07/26/2019
Series:	Language and Literacy Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	809 KB

About the Author

Liane Brouillette is a professor at the School of Education, University of California, Irvine and editor of the Journal for Learning Through the Arts.

Table of Contents

1 Deepening Understanding Through Arts Integration 1

Understanding Arts integration 1

Benefits of Comprehensive Education 5

2 Making Meaning Through Verbal Interaction : Laying the Foundation for Literacy 11

The Critical Importance of Oral Language Development 12

Supporting English Language Learners 15

Integrating Drama and Dance Activities 19

Visual Thinking Strategies 23

3 Making Meaning of Narrative Text 27

How Written Narrative Influences Thinking 28

Deepening Children's Understanding of Narrative 32

Classic Story Structures 42

4 Making Meaning from Informational Texts 45

Using the Arts to Teach Close Reading 46

Meeting the Challenges of Content Area Texts 48

Using the Arts to Scaffold Science Lessons 52

A Crucial Dimension of STEAM 57

5 Building Effective Oral Communication Skills 59

Learning Oral Communication Skills Through Puppetry 60

Introducing Children to Social Studies 61

How Music Builds Rapport 66

Viewing the Past from Multiple Perspectives 71

Introducing Varied Perspectives in K-5 Social Studies 74

6 Expression Through Narrative Writing 77

Combining Images and Writing in the Primary Grades 78

Images as Inspiration for Writing 78

Using Memories for Inspiration Within Classrooms 84

The Poets of El Sol Academy 85

Writing Stories from Personal Experience 89

Skills-Based Gains in Student Writing Abilities 91

7 Expression Through Informational and Persuasive Writing 95

Teaching Writing Through the Arts 97

Responding to Literature 99

8 Building Executive Function Skills with Arts Activities 107

What Is Executive Function? 107

Evidence from Research 111

9 Bringing the Arts Back to the language Arts 121

Choosing Arts-Based Activities That Reinforce learning 122

Exploring Human Relationships Through Stories 123

Teaching Abstract Concepts to Concrete Thinkers 124

The Acquisition of Narrative Skills 125

Making Connections and Revealing Underlying Structure 126

Enhancing Executive Function 127

Arts Integration Versus Transfer 128

References 131

Index 143

About the Author 154

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Arts Integration in Diverse K-5 Classrooms offers a thoughtful look into both theoretical and practical issues surrounding arts integration as a viable strategy for increasing students’ achievement and access to higher education and career pathways. This book is especially timely in the context of a widespread focus on equity and inclusion as teachers are facing more diversity in the classroom than ever before."
—Kristen Greer-Paglia, CEO, P.S. ARTS

“This book, offering a rich buffet of art-based activities grounded in critical ideas about teaching and learning, includes topics as oral language development, visual thinking strategies, making meaning of narrative and informational texts, and expression through narrative and informational writing. An excellent guide to teachers aspiring to integrate the arts into their curriculum, it is both a delightful and useful read."
—Liora Bresler, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

Editorial Reviews

It is obvious that this book will be of great use to the classroom teacher looking to expand student success through the application of theoretically sound and practically successful arts integration strategies. It is also an important contribution to the general field of the arts in education.”

—Journal for Learning through the Arts, UC Irvine

“With a particular focus upon language literacy, the author depicted arts integration strategies found to enhance student performance by offering opportunities for meaning-making (learning to listen, speak, and interact with text) and effective expression (learning to communicate as speakers and writers). A strength of the book is that the author advocates for a co-equal cognitive form of integration where arts learning and language learning are equally emphasized within learning contexts. This emphasis is important because arts educators are understandably critical of approaches that place the arts in a subservient role, or of situations where the arts subjects are replaced by arts integration altogether. A strong arts curriculum is necessary to ensure that students develop high skill levels in each of the arts, a key to effective integration.”

—Teachers College Record

“Overall, Arts Integration in Diverse K–5 Classrooms: Cultivating Literacy Skills and Conceptual Understanding offers in- and pre-service teachers a rich platter of texts, activities, and lesson plans that integrate arts in literacy instruction.”

—Journal of Language and Literacy Education

From the Publisher