The purpose of this project was to design and implement a visual art course parallel to the U.S. history course required of all 11th grade students at the John F. Kennedy High School in New York City, New York. The study also attempted to determine if a non-linguistic, instructional methodology, such as that used in visual arts instruction, could be integrated with the traditional teaching approach in other disciplines. This project measured the effect of this parallel approach on students, as it determined the effect of the art instruction on the students' comprehension and retention of the social studies concepts and content. The same social studies curriculum was taught to three classes, but only one class was paired with an art course. The paper includes a description of methodology, statistical analysis, a sample test, and student evaluations and assessments. Contains 38 references. (DQE)