A few months ago I had a teacher of Kindergarten students tell me that ever since she started using movement with text, the students were noticing more details in the stories they read together.  Music to my ears!  The more students interact with the text the more they notice as they read.  The Common Core State Standards are here and call for students to be reading more complex text and increasing their ability to analyze text citing specific evidence.  By integrating the arts into the core curriculum, the students get more practice with those skills of analyzing text and supporting answers with examples from the text.  They also find new ways to comprehend and connect to text.

Learning about the art of illustrations, dramatizing scenes from stories, and noticing and imitating the movement of characters all draw students in and make them more observant, critical readers.  Creating art based on a story or examining the art inherent in the story forces students to think about the text in a new and engaging way.  Even nonfiction can become more engaging by involving the arts.  Examining the photographs, acting out a process, moving like a creature all help students process and comprehend text.

In graduate school I was creating an arts integrated unit around the theme of transformation.  I was doing some research about butterflies and examining a photograph of a butterfly wing.  At first look I saw lots of white on the wing.  Upon closer inspection I could not believe how many different colors made up what first appeared to be simply white.  When I set out to try to draw the wing, it was quite a challenge to find all the right shades that comprised just one tiny part of the wing.  That noticing of minute detail led to many other discoveries as I continued my research and led to lots of new ideas for my unit of study.  It is this level of observation and interaction with content we want to inspire in our students.

Not only can art help engage students to really interact with text and foster deeper comprehension but studying art allows students to practice those important analysis skills called for in the CCSS.  Just as we expect students to provide evidence when interpreting text, we should expect that same level of evidence when interpreting a work of art.  Whether it be visual art, a play, a musical selection or a piece of dance choreography, the students should be able to discuss what they think the piece was about and cite specific evidence from the art work to support their opinion.

Students need to have the vocabulary related to the art form to in order to discuss the works of art and once they do it may help to inform how they analyze and discuss other subjects as well.   Much of art requires the perceiver to make inferences rather than having the ideas explicitly stated.  That can be a very difficult skill for some to master but art draws one in and invites each person to bring him/herself to the piece.  Art can inspire inference in a way some text may not.  However, once students are confident in their ability to infer and support their inferences from their experience with art, they may feel more confident using those same skills with written text.

So, all you dedicated Arts Integration professionals, don’t forget how beautifully the arts and the core curriculum complement and inform one another.  Be sure to encourage your students to apply those high level skills of analysis to art and text alike and see how those students transfer those skills and create meaningful connections across the curriculum!text analy