School Type: Public	School Setting: Urban
Level: High	School Design: Traditional
Content Presented By:
Center for Resource Management (CRM)
The Education Alliance at Brown University
ArtsLiteracy Project

Summary

The practice: Creating Responsive Classrooms

• Central Falls, Rhode Island is a high-poverty city with rapidly changing demographics.
• In 2000, 95% of students at Central Falls High School qualified for free or reduced-priced lunch.
• Previously disengaged students have been placed in a self-contained special education class.
• These students and their teachers have been participating in a literacy development opportunity, offered through Brown University, called the ArtsLiteracy Project (ArtsLit).
• The ArtsLit professional development workshops and summer programs (http://artslit.org/programs.html) emphasize the teaching concepts of modeling, apprenticeship, and scaffolding.
• The ArtsLit curricular framework (or Performance Cycle: see http://www.artlit.org/handbook.html) emphasizes high standards, community building, interactive learning, student voice, and connections to life experiences.
• Multi-sensory learning increases these special education students' engagement with school.

Students in a small special education class in Central Falls, Rhode Island are learning literature with a twist. As they read and perform their original scripts on the school stage, they are enthusiastic about showing what they can do. Both attendance and classroom participation have skyrocketed in this group since Central Fall High School's involvement with The ArtsLiteracy Project (ArtsLit).

ArtsLit draws on research in language development, literacy, and arts education suggesting that the multi-sensory learning involved in theater work -- acting, speaking, writing, planning and organizing for a performance -- is a powerful tool for improving students' engagement in school, and especially in literacy activities.

The ArtsLiteracy Project, with its unique Performance Cycle literacy development framework, is particularly effective for these special education students. The Performance Cycle provides a recurring, structured, and predictable sequence that supports students' engagement, focus, and attention. Especially relevant to students who experience behavior problems are the elements that engage students socially in a community, that give the students voice and agency, and that provide personally valid purposes for reading, writing, listening, thinking, and speaking. Of particular benefit to these students are the Performance Cycle's enactive learning activities and collaborative structure.

When students make personal connections between their lives and their academic reading and writing, they become more engaged in school and their literacy skills improve. As they work toward their final project, teachers and students create a responsive atmosphere in which students feel comfortable sharing and developing their stories.

• Making Connections to Students' Lives  
• Having Students Interact with Each Other and with Text  
• Utilizes best practices in the area of systemic educational reform.  
• Involves ongoing support for teacher professional development.  

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This resource is developed and maintained by The Education Alliance at Brown University. Seed funding was provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Send comments to: loom@alliance.brown.edu