There is currently a debate as to whether academic content at kindergarten crowds out time spent in creative arts, free play, and physical activity. Analyzing kindergarten teachers' reports of their instruction from the ECLS-K:2011, this study examined whether core academic content or advanced academic content in math or English language arts…

The unprecedented onset and extensive spread of COVID-19 has affected the lives of citizens around the globe. Children, in particular, have been thrust into modified and new learning environments. Although the global lockdown has confined so many, it also has connected people from different but shared experiences. One program that supported such…

The author pushes two desks together in the front of the class and pile supplies on them: markers, drawing paper, rulers, and pencils. As the students enter a combined English language arts (ELA) and English as a New Language (ENL) tenth-grade classroom, they select what they need and settle in to their work. As an ELA educator who is also a…

This article describes a unit of work framed by a rationale for activating English language learning through arts-based practices that are suitable for preservice teachers who are nonnative speakers of English (seeking certification for teaching English as a second language). Because teachers of English are expected to use language arts to promote…

Curricular demands and best practices for middle school require interdisciplinary units. Arts integration can provide motivation and a new pathway to learning. This unit focused on inquiry into the natural history of artifacts and rocks recovered from the exposed subsoil of an area near Cedar Falls, Iowa that had been bulldozed as part of…

In this article, I highlight findings from a nine-day unit embedded within a larger, four-month long qualitative action research study set in a public middle school. My goal in conducting this research was examination of relationships between visual culture and art integration as a method of fostering students to find voice while taking risks. A…

The purpose of this study is to determine the strategies used by pre-school teachers in order to raise curiosity in children. Based on this aim, sample is composed of 52 pre-school teachers working in kindergartens affiliated to Ministry of National Education. Study data were collected via qualitative research methods. Research data were gathered…

When a language arts curriculum provided students with the opportunity to translate meaning across sign systems (that is, from poetry to dance), numerous benefits were noted. Transmediation, the translation of meaning from one sign system to another, led students to analyze compositional structures and to enhance their use of academic language…

Many artists visit national parks to draw, paint and take photographs of some of the most amazing scenery on earth. Raw nature is one of the greatest inspirations to an artist, and artists can be credited for helping inspire the government to create the National Park System. This article features Thomas Moran (1837-1926), one of the artists who…

Graphic art can be a tough subject approach with seventh- and eighth-graders, but by mixing a little language arts into the studio lesson, they can have fun with the art of words in a whole new way. In this article, the author describes how students created a graphic design using a word. The purpose of the graphic art is to educate--to teach an…

With standardized English Language Arts exams on the horizon, the author thought a game of Antonyms would provide not only a quick language arts activity for her sixth graders, but also a nice segue to an art lesson in contrast. In this article, she describes a project, a simple saucer on a pedestal base, which required students to demonstrate…

One of the biggest present challenges for teachers, especially in primary classrooms, is the need to address the content standards in all subject areas with the same amount of instructional time. While curriculum integration continues to be a powerful strategy to meet this challenge, teachers often find it difficult to bridge the gap between…

Middle grades teachers should create meaningful learning activities involving stimulating literature and interesting composition prompts. This article describes a unit in which eighth graders read short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Using multiple learning and teaching approaches, they expanded their vocabularies, responded artistically to "The…

The authors elaborate on the experience of creating for high school students effective multisensory, hands-on learning centers that address a full range of elements from the English language arts curriculum. Allison P. Movitz and Kerry P. Holmes detail the centers Movitz designed for a Mostly Medieval unit to show how learning centers can help…

Discusses five guiding principles (from scholars' work in semiotics) for helping teachers explore the arts and literacy instruction, intended as a framework for understanding representation of meaning, in whatever sign system or art form. Discusses why understanding semiotic systems is important to language arts instruction that represents meaning…