ARTS INTEGRATION
At AACA, our curriculum is designed to carefully integrate a variety of art mediums into our core content areas - math, science, reading and writing - while enhancing our parallel art classes - visual art, drama, and music. Simply stated, 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.
Students benefit from an arts-integration program on many levels - intellectually, emotionally, developmentally, and spiritually. The arts act as both a gateway to learning and a tool for deep engagement in the curriculum as a whole. AACA attributes its recent rise in test scores to this sophisticated arts program, as well as the constant evaluation and planning of the curriculum in its entirety. This phenomenon is well documented among education experts. At AACA, we engage in the arts to create and enhance learning opportunities for all students. This is a cornerstone of who we are as an educational community.
In this section of our website, you will find information about how classroom teachers use the arts to enhance inspired learning of core subject material as well as how our teaching artists-in-residents bring the arts - visual and digital art, drama, and music - alive for students of every age at AACA. You will also see highlights from our expansive arts events, student-produced performances, and examples of the process before production; additional resources to help you inspire arts-integrated learning at home as well as links to what is happening in Chicago's arts and culture scene.
