Methodology
My question centers on the arts as they could be applied to a social studies classroom and incorporated into teaching the existing curriculum. I was inspired by my 9th grade students to explore this emerging question, while my prior experiences with theatre and the arts served as foundational support for my action research question. The purpose of my research, then, is to explore the incorporation of arts education into a government classroom at the high school level. I am most interested in discerning what playwriting does to students’ engagement, promoting personal connections to students’ learning, and developing students’ critical thinking skills. In light of this, the central question guiding this research is: What happens when arts education is incorporated into a high school, Civic Studies classroom? For this research study, the terminology arts education will focus specifically on the process of playwriting, which includes reading plays, writing plays, and performing plays. I approached my research from the theoretical perspectives of constructivism and pragmatism as shared by John Dewey in his work Art as Experience, which emphasizes the importance of learning by doing and meaningful connections students attach to their learning (Ross, 1984).
Focus Students
I teach three sections of freshman Civic Studies, which totals about 130 students. Each ninety-minute section is co-taught and integrates English and Government curriculum as a means to use content, which complements one another, to teach 21st Century skills. In addition to whole class data from each of the sections, I selected six students from my third block class, and collected surveys, work samples, and interviews to learn how arts integration teaching strategies might impact them. The purpose of narrowing the sample size down to six students was an effort to more closely examine the effects of the arts-based lessons on students. The selected students are an accurate representation of the population of students I teach (based on gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status). Focus student demographics and additional information appears in Table 1. Each student’s name has been changed to protect his or her identity. Furthermore, I obtained signed parent and student permission forms for student participation (see Appendix A).
Focus Students
I teach three sections of freshman Civic Studies, which totals about 130 students. Each ninety-minute section is co-taught and integrates English and Government curriculum as a means to use content, which complements one another, to teach 21st Century skills. In addition to whole class data from each of the sections, I selected six students from my third block class, and collected surveys, work samples, and interviews to learn how arts integration teaching strategies might impact them. The purpose of narrowing the sample size down to six students was an effort to more closely examine the effects of the arts-based lessons on students. The selected students are an accurate representation of the population of students I teach (based on gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status). Focus student demographics and additional information appears in Table 1. Each student’s name has been changed to protect his or her identity. Furthermore, I obtained signed parent and student permission forms for student participation (see Appendix A).