Advanced 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students at the Gifted Resource Center (GRC) in a suburban Chicago public school district are regularly engaged in various types of activities. The GRC uses language arts units for high ability students created and developed as a base curriculum at the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary. In this curriculum, literature, writing, language study, and oral communication are integrated. Shared inquiry lessons, literary criticism, vocabulary development, and textual analysis are commonplace. Students use journals, literature webs, essays, and visual projects to express their in-depth ideas on the literature they read. How does one begin the process of looking beyond these curricula to integrate performance? The process is not as difficult as it might appear, especially with the use of such a solid, curricular base. Suggestions for integral foundational pieces prior to incorporating actual teaching techniques are discussed.