Research into Practice Assignment—Visual Arts By: Lauren Donovan Inquiry Question A burning question that I have had for quite some time now is how can educators successfully integrate the arts into the curriculum and what are the benefits of doing so? Lived Experience As a preservice teacher, I am always trying to incorporate different subjects into my lessons. One challenge that I came across was incorporating art seamlessly into the curriculum. Whenever I have taught art, it was always its own entity, never a part of another subject. This is why I am really interested in strategies of art integration. One way that I first attempted to incorporate art into other lessons was when I was teaching about Black History Month and I had to prepare an arts based activity surrounding the theme. Therefore, I had the students try and think of a symbol that represented Black History Month that meant something to them and with that symbol, they created Pop Art. The students thoroughly enjoyed this activity, but I still felt weary of how I could incorporate art into other subject areas such as science, math, geography, and history. This is when I decided that I would delve into the literature to see what I could learn about art integration into the curriculum. Course Readings One course reading that really stood out to me regarding my inquiry question was the Cornett & Smithrim (2001) article, An Introduction to Teaching with, About, In, and Through the Arts. The article stated that art should be integrated into the curriculum because it allows students to, “be smart in a different way” (Cornett et. al., 2001). This is extremely important because not all students learn the same way or display their intelligence in the same way. Integrating art into the curriculum is a perfect example of differentiated instruction, especially if a student prefers to show their work through visuals. The authors also state that participating in art helps students to express how they are feeling or what they are thinking without words (Cornett et al, 2001). This article demonstrates that there are definite benefits for art integration into the curriculum. Therefore, educators must acknowledge that integrating art into the curriculum is very beneficial for student learning and be prepared with strategies for implementing art into the curriculum within their own classroom. Research The article by Barry (1996), discusses the importance, and benefits, of arts integration into the curriculum. Barry states that the arts provide students with the opportunity to be creative and express themselves. Therefore, as educators, we must be activists for integrating arts into the curriculum in order to increase motivation and enhance student learning (Barry, 1996). The article goes on the discuss all the different ways that arts integration benefits students and suggests that, “through the arts, students have myriad opportunities for self- expression” (Barry, 1996). This article is very beneficial because it goes onto provide different
Research ThearticlebyBarry(1996),discussestheimportance,andbenefits,ofartsintegrationintothecurriculum.Barrystatesthattheartsprovidestudentswiththeopportunitytobecreativeandexpressthemselves.Therefore,aseducators,wemustbeactivistsforintegratingartsintothecurriculuminordertoincreasemotivationandenhancestudentlearning(Barry,1996).Thearticlegoesonthediscussallthedifferentwaysthatartsintegrationbenefitsstudentsandsuggeststhat,“throughthearts,studentshavemyriadopportunitiesforself-expression”(Barry,1996).Thisarticleisverybeneficialbecauseitgoesontoprovidedifferent
