| 1.
What did your project set out to do? What outcomes did you identify for your
project? |
We set out to launch a theater program at our school, introducing teachers, staff, and students to the basics of teaching theater in the classroom. We also wanted to explore the history of our Garden City community, celebrate the area for the students who live and attend our school in GC, and create a forum for the entire community of GC including students, parents, school staff, families, and anyone else living and/or working in GC. Because Garden City Community School is the first public school in GC, we wanted our students to build a connection to the area. |
| 2. What
did the project accomplish? Who was served and how did they benefit?
|
Anna Marie Boles began her residency with an in-service training for the teachers and staff, introducing them to the same concepts the students would be introduced to later. Boles then taught the same theater skills to our target group of 3-4th graders (two classes.) She worked with GCCS Arts and Community Integration Coordinator, Rebecca DeMeritt (formerly Harris), who used the same class curriculum with the other classes in the school. Our goal was to have uniformity in the experience, giving every student the same introduction to theater arts concepts with the idea of bringing together all the classes into one final performance for the GC community at large. |
| 3. How
do you know that your project accomplished these things? What evaluation
methods did you use?
|
The students and teachers, working either with Boles or DeMeritt, wrote the scripts for each unique class presentation. All lessons tied to Idaho state standards in the arts (music, visual, dance, theater), math, literacy, science, and history. The kindergarten and 1st-2nd grade classes studied the flora and fauna of the area and researched river ecology. They wrote scientific facts about their findings and created poems, paintings, and drawings. These students made masks and developed animal characters they presented on stage. The 3-4th graders incorporated Idaho History lessons into a presentation of the Snake and Boise River areas and the people who lived and settled there. The 7-8th graders researched Garden City history and wrote skits around significant events. The 5-6th graders wrote poems about themselves, their families, and living or going to school in GC. The class projects were tied together in a series of tableaus, bringing the audiences through time and into the present and future of GC. We ended with a public forum involving the GC mayor and council members, school board members, and other members of the GC community.
Teachers assessed these projects through various creative methods: rubrics, observation, performanced-based documentation (books, videos, cds, documentatioons walls) as well as various quizzes for subject matter. |
4. How
will you share the results of your program with others?
(These might be other school personnel, parents, press/media, PTO/PTA,
local or state policy makers, etc.) |
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Our performance culmination of this amazing collaborative and arts-integrated project was performed for a full house at the Community Center, the same location that has served GC community for years - according to the history findings of the 7-8th grade class. The entire community of Garden City was invited. Students and families attended as well as the mayor, city commissioners, chamber of commerce members, Boys & Girls Club employees (who we partner with for many events), etc.
Our project was documented by Anne Cirillo who is helping our staff learn more about performance-based documentation as an evaluation tool in the classroom. A beautiful book "Garden City, Alive!" has been published to record the entire student and teacher learning process which started with our ICA/NEA artist-in-residence grant. (Funds for the books were made possible through another grant we received for marketing.) The book includes full-color pictures, original brainstorming ideas of students (shown their collaboration acitivities, personal sketches, beginnings of research notes, parts of the scripts), completed art (masks, props, costumes, murals) interviews with students, staff, school board, and community members. Copies of this have been given to the Idaho Commission on the Arts. We also filmed the event which has been used for public advertising, school open houses, charter school promotions, and Community Circle sharings. These visual aides are now being compiled to share at educational workshops and with influential government groups.
In order to market that we are an arts-based charter school, our director created 5" x 11" postscards using photos of the artwork created through this project and the children acting in the final performance. These are now being used to recruit students and public relations. In order to encourage legislators and the department of education to understand the importance of the arts to learning and the brain, we are preparing presentations for many groups in the near future. We feel it's time for high-stakes one shot tests to guide learning to take a less important role in the lives of children, so we are now "putting our money where our mouth is"!
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Please
attach photographs (please limit to 400 pixels wide) or other documentation
that helps others to understand your project. Label the documentation with text
that explains what it is and how it shows the project’s accomplishments.
 | Artist-in-residence, Anna Marie Boles, starts our grant by teaching the GCCS staff the acting skills of "tableaus" so they will be able to develop their students skills.
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 | Students created sketches & researched their part of the units. |
 | Each class practiced their skits, songs, tableaus, poems for the final performance. |
 | Props, costumes, masks were designed and created by students. |
 | Students, families & community all enjoyed the final performance. Books and videos have since been created to document and share the results of the grant and the learning process!
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