Writing about the teaching artist practice should mean writing about art making. As both teacher and artist, the authors are required to be cognizant of their own art-making processes, both how it works and why it is important to them, in order to make this process visible to their students. They also need the same skills to write about how and…

This article describes a project in poetry and visual art that leads students to explore metaphor in generative and novel ways. The author shares what she and her teaching partner Ronna Pritikin have learned about fostering brave and joyful student artist and poets. "Be an Artist With Your Words" is a twelve-session residency, in which the author…

In this article, the author, a poet and teaching artist, shares how he successfully brought slam poetry to College Hill Middle School in Texarkana, Arkansas. In 2001 he discovered slam poetry--a poetry-reading format in which poets compete in dramatic readings of their works--and went to Slam Nationals in Seattle on the Arkansas slam team. He…

Support from school partners is absolutely necessary. Every teaching artist knows this, and every arts education organization strives to cultivate this support. In this article, the authors create some powerful strategies for achieving this support, such as agreeing at the outset about the focus of the residency. Lessons that develop meaningful…

This article looks at an inner city playwriting project that brought professional writers and artists into inner city classrooms to help students explore the cultural history of their community and begin to find their own voices as writers. This project was set up by Larry Hunter, an African American playwright who worked as a writer-in-residence…

Fifth grade students explore the public and private dimensions of poetry through the medium of poetry banners. The author maintains that poetry belongs in public spaces and serves as a counter to the "junk text" that surrounds us. A poetry banner is a nice addition to other banners and messages that students, teachers, school administrators, and…

During Winter/Spring of 2004, Danielle Cione, a 5th grade classroom teacher at New York City's PS 199, and Tanya Witek, a Teaching Artist for the New York Philharmonic School Partnership Program, planned and implemented a series of lessons exploring the relationship of the Writer's Workshop as taught in the schools and the process used by…

People can learn as much from what they do not do right as what they do. This article describes such a failure. The author had gathered six students together for an interview concerning art and their lives--and things became so chaotic, he thought it was all a wash... until he went back and listened to the tape. Only then did he realize that what…

In this article, the author talks about the "December 7, 1941 Project," a partnership between Honolulu Theatre for Youth (HTY) and a local elementary school. The project brought together 4th and 5th grade students and teachers with community elders, artists and parents, using oral history and drama education to investigate memories surrounding the…

As a Teaching Artist (TA) for the past 12 years, the author has visited hundreds of schools in western Pennsylvania. She has had an opportunity to work with many talented and dedicated classroom teachers, arts teachers and administrators who all share an enthusiasm for making the arts central to quality education. The teachers and administrators…

In this article, the author describes Neighborhood Bridges, The Children's Theatre Company's (CTC) critical literacy program that gives young people from the most impoverished and troubled neighborhoods in Minneapolis the courage and power to speak their minds both orally and through the written word in such a daunting setting. The 2003-04 school…

Throughout history, visual artists have consciously pulled away from the mainstream hustle and bustle to concentrate, be alone and get work done. Many students in traditional school settings do not have the opportunity to experience those work conditions, given the numbers of students in a typical classroom and class period time restrictions. Even…