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Len Newman and Richard Kinslow's English Language Learner Class at Central Falls High School

Central Falls, RI


School Type: Public
School Setting: Urban
Level: High
School Design: Traditional
Content Presented By:
The Education Alliance at Brown University content provider logo
ArtsLiteracy Project content provider logo

Results

  • Attendance and classroom participation have greatly improved since teachers Len Newman and Richard Kinslow became involved with The ArtsLiteracy Project (ArtsLit) in 1998.
  • Additional student outcomes include better understanding of the literature being studied, the development of higher expectations for themselves and others, and leadership development--as students who participate in performance units over time become peer mentors to newcomers.
  • Teachers participating in the program say that their teaching throughout the year has been infused with the strategies that they learned through ArtsLit.
  • They claim that using the ArtsLit approach results in teaching students who are more motivated to read and write and who participate more actively in classroom discussion.
  • An additional benefit is that the ArtsLit approach builds a supportive classroom learning community.
  • According to participating teachers, the rewards of ArtsLit—and the benefits that stretch throughout the year—are great, "even exhilarating."
  • Teachers find they have no desire to return to conventional ways of teaching literature and language, although putting together performance units is "sometimes exhausting."
  • In 2003, ArtsLit and Central Falls recently ranked first in the vetting of over 200 proposals for grants for Professional Development Model Development and Dissemination by the U.S. Department of Education.
  • The ArtsLiteracy Project has been selected as a research site by the Arts Education Partnership, an organization formed in 1995 through a cooperative agreement between the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).


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