Teacher Tips
Initial Steps: Building Community Through Inquiry Questions
By Mario R. Rossero, M.S. in Education
Administrator, Fine and Performing Arts Magnet Cluster Program
Chicago Public Schools
There are many approaches to arts integration, but central to all is the need to build good relationships. An arts integration model that connects learning across subjects and classrooms calls for a connection between teachers as well. In order to collaborate with fellow teachers when brainstorming and planning arts integrated units, I offer the following thinking tool to act as a catalyst for community building amongst school faculty.
Begin by collectively deciding upon a central idea that teachers can use across subject areas, such as "inheritance" or "discovery." From here, brainstorm possible connections to each subject area by creating a Word Web. (See Figure 1.) Place your central idea in the middle circle and radiate related subjects outwards. Under each subject, brainstorm lists of words that connect back to the big idea. Your goal is to transform these newly generated ideas into inquiry questions that you and your colleagues can then use to teach integrated units that are united under the same central idea.
Figure 1: Example of Word Web
Next, create a chart with three columns entitled, Noun, Verb, Noun. (See Figure 2.) Choose words from your bank of ideas on the Word Web to fill in the noun columns. Now generate verbs that are "agents of change" or "transformative." Place these under the verb column. Use question words, such as "How" or "Why", to create the inquiry questions. Experiment by switching around words and creating new combinations.
Figure 2: Example of Inquiry Questions Chart
By utilizing easy, yet effective educational tools, arts teachers can create opportunities to connect with classroom teachers when planning integrated units.
Integrating the Arts
By Debra Hannu, M.A
President-Elect, Art Educators of MN
Duluth, MN
Any of us who has worked with, or currently works with, small children knows their great potential for creativity. Picasso said, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain one when he becomes an adult." In childhood, information is not yet compartmentalized. An adult might notice a sliver of a moon in the sky. The toddler not only notices, but sees a banana!
Arts integration in the K-12 classroom is natural for student learning. Art teachers are using content for instruction anyway, so why not pull that content from a social studies lesson; or from science or language arts? I am currently teaching about foreground, middle ground, and background in our second grade art curriculum, so why not ask students to use these elements to create an environment for the dinosaur they are learning about in their science class? Could that poem from their reading class be illustrated using specific composition skills? How could a sculpture be crafted, within certain parameters, to teach the public about a specific social problem?
Does integrating the arts somehow "take away" from art education? One has only to look at the world of art for the answer; art is not and cannot be created in vacuum. From the recording of a historical event to the expression of emotion, from the design of a well-crafted piece of jewelry to a political cartoon, art is ALWAYS integrated with all that is around us and within us. Integration is a natural way to learn about art and about the world.