The author discusses the benefits of nontraditional assessments and shares how she has used them in her 5th-grade classroom in rural South Carolina. The examples include doing a Gallery Walk, writing poetry, integrating the arts into other subjects, having students reenact historical scenes, using social media, and rewriting popular songs with…

Budget constraints, political will, narrowed curricula, and a continued emphasis on high-stakes testing in public schools have resulted in a continued loss of instruction in fine arts. Fine arts instruction is known to improve student achievement, but the contribution to achievement in the elementary schools after accounting for demographic…