Arts integration

When the arts become a route into other subjects, students get two kinds of learning at once: a firmer grasp of the subject and a deeper command of the art form itself.

What it means

Arts integration describes an approach to teaching in which the fine and performing arts become the main routes through which students learn. It parts company with traditional arts education in a specific way: an arts integrated lesson deliberately pairs an arts discipline with another subject. A class might use improvisational drama to examine conflict in a short story, or use the principles of visual composition to represent a process in science. The arts are not decoration added after the fact. They carry part of the thinking.

Why it works

The aim runs in two directions at once: students deepen their grasp of a subject and, at the same time, come to understand and value the arts more fully. A growing research base supports the approach. It finds that students do well when someone shows them why and how to work with music, visual art, drama, dance, theatre and writing, both to express ideas and to make sense of them. Working in more than one medium gives students additional ways to hold an idea and additional ways to show what they understand.

In Initiative schools

Arts integration was one of several approaches that grew across the network as schools designed their own instructional models. It appeared in academies and small schools with an arts focus, and it informed the way teachers in other subjects planned their units. The Applied Practices page places it alongside the other approaches that took root, and the school directory shows where these practices lived.