Camp ARTSEDGE

Make the days of summer an interactive adventure! Arts, Academics, and Adventure await your students and their parents this summer on ARTSEDGE! Have your students take home a summer project worksheet to share with their parents. Students and their parents will collaborate as they learn more about storytelling, dance, songwriting, filmmaking and photography. The shared learning experience will bring them closer together!

Lessons:

Students will learn about leaves, forests, and seasonal changes, and then create group collages of forests.

Students study the elements of tall tales, write responses to these tales, and perform them as monologues.

Students explore plot as an element of fiction.

Students explore characterization as an element of fiction.

Students explore how authors manipulate settings as an element of fiction.

Students learn about music's ability to convey elements of storytelling, such as plot, tone, and characterization, in the Kennedy Center's production of The Nightingale.

This lesson examines the mystique of rivers as inspiration for creative expression. It also provides students with a glimpse of the powerful influence the Mississippi River and its environs had on Mark Twain’s writings.

This lesson focuses on the content and style of development in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The book Harold and the Purple Crayon is used to launch an exploration of colors and neighborhoods.

The Poetics of Hip Hop

Students will analyze form in Shakespearean sonnets, works of American poets, then analyze hip hop music to determine common characteristics. Students will also write their own poetry.

Shadows & Light, Science & Puppetry

Students will learn how light interacts with matter, by creating and performing shadow puppet plays.

Analyzing Photographs: From Theory to Practice

in this lesson, Analyzing Photographs: Putting Theory into Practice, students will examine works of art and learn tools to analyze and discuss photography.

Baila! Latin Dance in the Spanish Classroom

Students demonstrate and learn about the Latin dances of salsa, mambo, merengue, rumba, cha cha, bachata, and samba through oral group presentations on the dance.

How-To's:

This How-To covers the basics for creating a classroom film project.

This How-To offers tips for selecting and arranging visual elements to communicate ideas and create memorable photographs.

Formal analysis is an important technique for organizing visual information. In other words, it is a strategy used to translate what you see into written words. This strategy can be applied to any work of art, from any period in history, whether a photograph, sculpture, painting or cultural artifact.

Advocacy Essential:

A call to action for teachers to take a proactive role in advocating for arts education.

Look·Listen·Learn:

Playing with Shadows

Discover the secrets behind the art of shadow puppetry in this multimedia exploration, designed for grades 5-8, which explores this age-old art form through animations, videos, interactive activities, and more.

This "Cuesheet" is designed to help students understand and enjoy the performance of Brave No World, as well as to learn more about the ways music and theater work together.

In this audio series we explore unique aspects of Chinese music through sounds, performance and interviews. Users can listen online, download individual files, or subscribe to the Podcast.

Armed with cameras, seventh grade students from Mark Twain Middle School in Los Angeles, CA ventured out in their communities and came back to school with creative compositions. This online gallery displays the students’ photographic and literary compositions and offers a thorough method of analyzing photography that you can apply to virtually any classroom.

Meet the Artist:

The professional photographer talks about his approach to photography and gives advice to students.

A Native American storyteller speaks about the process and practice of storytelling.

Shelley Markham, on the Craft of Songwriting

The composer of Alexander Who's Not, Not, Not, Not, Not, Not Going to Move talks about his own path to songwriting and gives advice to students.

The members of Project Bandaloop dance company talk about their unique combination of dance and rock climbing.