Research
2008-2009 Funded Project
Threads: Threading experiences in the arts directly into the school curriculum
Madeleine Grumet, professor of education and former dean and professor of communication studies, is working with the administration and faculty of Central Elementary School (Orange County Schools) to augment the Arts in Education project that the Carrboro Arts Center is bringing to the school. This project funded by the Arts Center, is bringing drama productions and teaching artist residencies tailored specifically for each grade to classrooms throughout the school. Professor Grumet has been asked by the Carrboro Arts Center to provide four faculty workshops throughout the year to support the teachers’ work, connecting these arts experiences to the ongoing work of their classrooms. The RTSP grant offers Central Elementary School the opportunity to deeply investigate and implement an integrated arts curriculum that extends the art experiences offered by the Carrboro Art Center and the North Carolina Symphony.
With the resources provided by the RTSP grant, Grumet and her graduate students are offering to work with grade level teams and individual teachers to identify those places in their curriculum where movement, improvisation, imagery, sound games, and dramatic play can be utilized to draw the excitement and engagement that the children will experience in the performances and residencies into their daily work of reading and writing.
This project joins those above in its commitment to working with teachers so that the arts work in their classrooms conforms to their teaching emphases, and it offers ongoing consultation so that the language that links the arts to instruction may be developed and used both to design instruction and evaluate students’ literacy development. Threads also offers opportunities to SOE graduate students and undergraduate students to address methodologies of arts integration instruction and research.
