7 Reasons Why Arts Integrated Teaching Through Puppetry Works!
First, exactly what is Arts Integration?
According to the Kennedy Center, “Arts Integration is an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both.”
That sounds complicated!
It’s hard enough just to reach objectives in one subject area!
Why bother involving the arts at all?
Why not just teach the target subject?
From My Experience, it’s easier than you think, AND worth it!
When my puppet theater performance work in schools led to invitations to lead classroom puppet workshops as teaching artist, I always asked on what theme material the teacher would like me to focus. In collaboration, a topic was selected, including specific goals and objectives.
For Example:
REQUEST: The class has read ________ fable as we study literature genres. I would like the class to make puppets to perform the story for another class.
Goals and Objectives addressed in reading story alone:
Reading: Key Ideas and Details; Craft and Structure; Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Goals and Objectives addressed through target curriculum PLUS Arts Integration (puppetry):
The simplest and most basic presentation using the simplest, quickest paper puppets, in front of a peer audience can instantly integrate the following goals:
Language Arts: Speaking and Listening: Comprehension and Collaboration; Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas.
Comprehension of text further deepens through experience of improvised dialogue.
Theater Standards:
Explore and express various emotions in interpersonal settings
Interact in group situations and show differentiation of roles through experimentation and role playing
Life Skills practice in: Collaboration - Cooperation - Experience that practice leads to mastery - Problem solving - Creative thinking - Commitment - Self motivation
Visual literacy through the construction of the puppets, allowing deeper comprehension through visual interpretation of text.
Memorable learning: Text is also made more memorable through the active learning that is an integral part of puppet theater.
And, a wide variety of curriculum areas can be integrated with the arts.
Following are a few projects I have created and led. I prepared any worksheets, etc. Some took research and time, but once it was done, it could be repeated. And, by the way, I will be sharing these regularly in this blog.
I list the materials used to show how simple they are. I always spend as little time as possible making the puppets so that the project focus is the preparation of the culminating performance, which is generally the assessable finale.
Literature: Compare and Contrast Greek and Egyptian mythology
Third grade students made shadow puppets to perform stories from mythology
MATERIALS: black construction paper, bamboo skewers, tape, scissors, cardboard box with cheap white plastic shower curtain screen, and simple desk lamp
Literature: Poetry and Inferring
Second Grade students accompanied poem readings with what they inferred “between the lines” as simple rod puppets
MATERIALS: Poems of Eloise Greenfield, Shel Silverstein, Langston Hughes, misc. paper or light fabric scraps, skewers or tree twigs, masking tape, glue, scissors
Social Studies: Why do people live in communities and what jobs do they do?
First graders create an interconnected puppet city to learn supply and demand, goods and services, etc.
MATERIALS: file folders, paper scraps, bamboo skewers, scissors, markers
Science: Animals and Habitat
Third Graders learn about how the natural world is interconnected
MATERIALS: medium sized boxes as from shoes, crackers, etc., construction paper, glue, scissors, skewers, markers
Language Arts: Story Adaptation
Fourth Graders understand how setting and character are interconnected using table top puppets
MATERIALS: construction paper, glue, scissors, skewers, cardboard project boards or other cardboard
I fully understand that time and budget are crucial factors. But I, and teachers I have worked with (many of whom went on to repeat some of these projects on their own), found students willing and enthusiastic to read, write, research, cooperate, self organize, and, most important, think deeply, in order to present learning through puppetry.
And because puppetry is a theatrical art form, although there are layers of learning in the story formation and puppet building experience, there is always the performance, no matter how informal, as the motivating end goal that can be assessed.
Beyond puppetry, I have gone on to work with other art media, including creative writing, illustration, book, and graphic novel making and experienced the same eagerness in students when given the opportunity for creative expression bundled with the curriculum goals and objectives.
So, below are some, but not all, of the connections to the 4 C’s of 21st Century Learning: Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Communication that arts integrated learning can provide.
1. Makes Content Memorable
Puppetry integrated across the curriculum necessitates use of the higher order thinking
skill of analyzation of core content in order to communicate learning in performance.
2. Both Facilitates and Requires Reading Comprehension
When reading is a part of the process - reading that must be done BEFORE the creative art form can be accessed by students - the promise of hands-on, creative work is a motivating factor. And, when the creation inside the art media must reflect text in some way, comprehension is deepened.
3. Reaches those with Varying Learning Styles
The diversity of communication styles that comes together in the aspects of visual and tactile form, sound, story, and movement which is puppetry, encourages verbal, visual, aural, and kinesthetic learners.
4. Sharpens Awareness of Standards of Excellence.
Another higher order thinking skill, evaluation, sharpens as students observe degrees of effective performance elements first hand. Positive peer critique is also a powerful experience, valued by students and teachers alike. And, experiencing first hand that practice leads to mastery is an important life skill.
5. Puppetry Teamwork Necessitates Development of Basic Life Skills.
In contemporary society, workers at all levels are required to be creative thinkers, problem solvers, able to work well with others, and able to work independently. They must also be self-motivated and pro-active – all skills developed in collaborative puppetry work.
6. Puppetry Projects can Provide an Assessable Culmination.
When students analyze core content in order to build a collaborative, theatrical work to communicate learning, the performance piece becomes an assessable finale.
7. Puppets are fun!
Puppets immediately engage imagination and spark creative thinking – a higher order thinking skill.
My book The Sophisticated Sock: Project Based Learning Through Puppetry offers many complete projects, including all necessary worksheets, resources, and quick and simple puppet making designs.
Also, please subscribe to BACKSTAGE, as I will share complete projects here as well, some from the book, some new, as well as a glimpse into my studio for my own work as children’s book writer and illustrator.
Please share here
arts integrated projects you have done
questions or thoughts!