LOUISIANA
KIDsmART
Arts Integration in Primary Sources (2021)
In this project, KID smART provided educators with sustainable teaching skills in arts integration and gave teaching artists and classrooms teachers the skills to use Library of Congress primary sources in their lesson plans. Additionally, City Lore co-led the professional development sessions that provided support to teaching artists with self-presentation, writing arts-integrated lesson and unit plans, multi-artist collaborations, strategies for teaching mixed-level and multicultural students, and ways to facilitate artmaking inspired by student research into family and community. KID smART made possible the following activities: Arts Experience in Schools (AXIS) plenary with City Lore; Primary Sources Refresher at Teaching Artist Meeting; and AXIS Small Learning Group: Integrating the Arts with Thinking Routines & Primary Sources. Educators left the sessions with a set of engaging routines that deepen student thinking, strategies for integrating the arts with Primary Sources, and ideas on how to elevate culturally responsive pedagogy in their classrooms.
Contact: Stephanie Heriger
Arts Integration through Primary Sources (2019)
In this project awarded to KIDsmart, teachers learned that blending the arts and primary sources into the academic curriculum is an effective way to build dynamic, engaging, and rigorous lessons that encourage critical and creative thinking in students from a variety of backgrounds and abilities. To this end, the project incorporated workshops from consortium members including STEM to STEAM and Who Am I? Photography and the Self, which explored visual literacy using an overview of the history of photography. Additionally, the focus on using primary sources with arts integration continued with four sequential workshops that can also be presented as standalone workshops, as well as a submission to a national conference for a presentation on the use of this work.
Arts Integration through Primary Sources (2018)
In this project by KIDsmART, participants learned about a specific historical moment by closely examining primary sources available from the Library of Congress. They crafted personal poems that embodied the voice and mind of fictionalized and historical characters. They also created unique characters through tableau, pantomime, scripting, and costume design. These exercises provided participants with tools to teach students how to study a lived or imagined experience from multiple points of view. Sequential workshops were offered to educators working with students in grades 1–5. An education consultant advised small learning group leaders and led three days of plenary workshops on training educators to use primary sources.
Contact: Elise Goldman
Southeastern Louisiana University
Women’s Voices: Lessons on the Suffrage Movement Summer Institute
This project awarded to Southeastern Louisiana University delivered an open course institute and disseminate information via webinars throughout the state, specifically focusing recruitment of K–12 teachers currently employed in underserved schools identified as Comprehensive Intervention Required (CIR) or as Urgent Intervention Required Academics (UIR Academics). The objectives were to 1) support in-service teachers in implementing a TPS curricular framework, 2) aid teachers in creating engaging lesson plans about the women’s suffrage movement, and 3) increase awareness of women’s suffrage, as well as its effect on today’s laws.
Contact: Jordan Ahrend