Arts Education

(Developed in association with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts)
National Roster with The Kennedy Center

Content: (Music/Social Justice-Social Studies)

Teachers: 3 hours of Instruction Time for each workshop (may be presented alone or as a pair)
Maximum Number of Workshop Participants: 35
Grade Levels: 1-6

Students: 45 – 50 minutes per class
Residency Length: Minimum of 5 days
Maximum Number of Students per Class: 25

Workshop I: India, Senegambia (a West African region), and Brazil
Workshop II: The Yoruba people of Cuba, Ga people of Ghana, West Africa and
Shona people of Zimbabwe, South Africa
Workshop III: Native Americans (Cherokee, Hopi, and Crow)

These are culturally-responsive workshops that give teachers a tremendous new way to bring young people into the living, breathing vitality of other cultures. Teachers examine ways to help students learn about the rich diversity of cultures from Asia, Africa, South America, and North America. All workshops reflect the importance of global awareness and support collaboration, creativity, and cross-cultural learning skills. Teachers are guided in an immersive and authentic learning process to explore the vibrant variety of cultures through traditional children’s songs (using call & response), rhythms, stories, and artifacts. Students learn about the lifestyles and values of children in these faraway countries and come to appreciate the similarities and differences between these cultures and their own. Bringing this type of cultural integration into the classroom strengthens students’ sense of identify and promotes curiosity in acceptance of other cultures with a better understanding of how we are all connected.

(Developed in association with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts)
National Roster with The Kennedy Center

Content: (Music/Reading-English Language Arts)

Teachers: 3 hours of Instruction Time
Maximum Number of Workshop Participants: 35
Grade Levels: 2-8

Students: 45 – 50 minutes per class
Residency Length: Minimum of 5 days
Maximum Number of Students per Class: 25

This course is also being offered as an asynchronous online course. 1.5-2 hours of online instruction time.

Enhance student learning by using sound and rhythm to explore new paths to help students develop reading comprehension strategies and make connections between music and language. Teachers are guided through a process to help students create a Soundscape – a way to retell the story that connects students to the story’s tone, mood, setting, and the characters’ culture(s). This learning process will help students create sensory images, use questioning strategies, develop inference skills, and determine importance, which helps students develop a better understanding of the text. Students will develop listening skills, build interpretation and oral presentation proficiency, and improve reading fluency. See how music can make full use of these skills through students’ aural, visual, analytical, creative, and social intelligence. Your students will attain a new level of comprehension when they experience seeing, hearing, and feeling through reading!

(Developed in association with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts)
National Roster with The Kennedy Center

Content: (Music/Writing-English Language Arts)

Teachers: 3 hours of Instruction Time
Maximum Number of Workshop Participants: 35
Grade Levels: 3-8

Students: 45 – 50 minutes per class
Residency Length: Minimum of 5 days
Maximum Number of Students per Class: 25

Teachers learn to immerse their students in the rich history of jazz, as they trace its roots and influences through African traditional chants, work songs, spirituals, ragtime, the blues, swing and bebop. Experience what happens when two cultures, African and American blues, collide to create an exciting new experience built on the musical elements of “repetition” and “call & response.” Explore strategies that are aligned with Writer’s Workshop to engage students in writing their own blues songs that express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Giving voice to children’s thoughts and feelings is an integral part of their social-emotional development. Writing personal narratives with an understanding of the stories told in musical forms that led to the development of jazz will encourage students to connect their emotions to the content of writing.

Content: (Music/Writing-English Language Arts)

Teachers: 1.5 hours of Instruction Time
Maximum Number of Workshop Participants: 35
Grade Levels: 3-8

Students: 45 – 50 minutes per class
Residency Length: Minimum of 5 days
Maximum Number of Students per Class: 25

This fascinating workshop demonstrates the importance of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement that spanned the 1920’s and 1930’s, through its music, literature, and visual arts. Discover the contributions of the icons of this era and relive this exciting period through a timeline of historical events. Listen to Langston Hughes’ poem Bound No’th Blues and discuss its content as well as the form of the poem. Participants will compose their own poem based on their interpretation of Langston’s work, using the same form.

Content: (Music/Social Studies)

Teachers: 3 hours of Instruction Time
Maximum Number of Workshop Participants: 35
Grade Levels: 1-8

Students: 45 – 50 minutes per class
Residency Length: Minimum of 5 days
Maximum Number of Students per Class: 25

This fun and interactive workshop features an introduction and understanding of the evolution of the different styles in jazz music. It traces the roots and origins of jazz, and its eras, from African chants and work songs, to spirituals, blues, swing, and bebop. Learn songs from each era and feel the richness and importance of this vital aspect of American culture and how it has affected us. Create your own timeline of each era. By the end of this session, you will have strategies on how to bring jazz into the classroom, the importance of this American music, the culture and times from which this music occurred, and how this musical genre has affected us.

Content: (Music/Writing-English Language Arts)

Teachers: 1.5 to 3 hours of Instruction Time
Maximum Number of Workshop Participants: 35
Grade Levels: 3-8

Students: 45 – 50 minutes per class
Residency Length: Minimum of 5 days
Maximum Number of Students per Class: 25

This exciting hands-on workshop invites teachers to dig deep into storytelling, using proverbs and Adinkra symbols from Ghana, West Africa, as visual makers that express their beliefs, attitudes and thoughts. Draw upon traditional literary genres that models expressive use of language. Learn the importance of proverbs and symbols as a tool which aids students in building their own stories that reflect their understanding of moral values and illustrates their creative ideas, aspirations, and thoughts.

Content: (Music/Visual Arts)

Teachers: 1.5 hours of Instruction Time
Maximum Number of Workshop Participants: 35
Grade Levels: 3-8

Students: 45 – 50 minutes per class
Residency Length: Minimum of 5 days
Maximum Number of Students per Class: 25

Examine ways to help students interpret non-objective art through the use of vocal sounds and body rhythms. Using the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky, explore ways to help students learn how to create rhythmic phrases to colors, shapes, and lines to give a deeper meaning to the imagery.