Teaching Artist Resources
For artists in all art forms who are developing their professional careers as Teaching Artists.
In the summer of 2007 Durham Arts Council received a grant from the Durham Cultural Master Plan, a joint program of the City and County of Durham, to provide professional development training for individual teaching artists through a Teaching Artists Roundtable. To extend the impact of that year-long pilot we compiled the following resources.
Most of the resources deal specifically with Teaching Artists issues. Lesson plans, integrating different art forms with the curriculum, understanding the standard course of study, training and grant funding, are all tools of the artist who conducts residencies or arts projects within a classroom setting.
Additional links and listings provide more general tools--financial planning, finding health insurance--that can be of use to any artist establishing themselves as a business.
We hope you will find this a useful compilation. Please contact if you would like to suggest additional resources to be listed.
Contents:
Arts-Integrated Lesson Plans
Arts & Social Change
Assessment Rubrics
Arts in Education Programs
Books, Journals
Career Management
Funding Sources
Job Opportunities
National Standard for Education
North Carolina Standard Course of Study
Teaching Artist Training
Harvard University’s Project Zero
Arts-Integrated Lesson Plans
KennedyCenter
The KennedyCenter website has many sample arts-integrated lesson plans, including a variety of art forms and core curricular subjects.
The J. Paul Getty Trust
The Getty Museum Education site has lesson plans and curricula for Visual Arts that incorporate Language Arts, Science, English as a Second Language and Social Studies curricula. It uses art in the GettyMuseum collection as the starting point.
Public Broadcasting Service
PBS has an education site with an online lesson library containing lessons and units that integrate visual arts, language arts, and social studies curricula. The lessons include slide shows of the work of the contemporary artists studied, with comments from the artists. The site also has videotape excerpts from the PBS series on contemporary arts, with artists talking about their work and investigating topics like “Spirituality and Contemporary Art.”
PBS has a second site for classroom teachers with lesson plans and resources in the Arts, Health, Math, Language Arts, Science & Technology, Social Studies, Early Childhood, and Library and Media.
Connecting with the Arts, A teaching Practices Library 6-8
This site has a list of print and online resources about arts integration practices.
Arts & Social Change
Alternate ROOTS
Alternate ROOTS is a member-driven organization based in Atlanta. Its members are artists committed to creating progressive social and cultural change through art. ROOTS members are artists of all disciplines, teachers, university professors, arts administrators, students, children, and seniors.
Members are eligible to apply, with a community partner, for Community-Artist Partnership Project grants. Members who are touring performing artists can also apply to be on the Tour Program, which is a re-granting program—ROOTS grants National Endowment for the Arts(NEA) money to individual artists and companies who might not otherwise receive NEA money. ROOTS publishes newsletters and has an annual meeting, which usually takes place during the first week of August, near Asheville, NC, at a Lutheran retreat center. In 2008, the Annual Meeting is August 5-10.
They have a page called Other Resources that has links to related organizations and information.
There is archival information about ROOTS at the Community Arts Network’s page, called the ROOTS Reader.
Community Arts Network
The Community Arts Network is a huge and growing online archive of information about arts and social change. It has a monthly newsletter with job listings, upcoming grant application deadlines, and arts news. You can subscribe (free) to a monthly e-newsletter which is a digest of the month’s articles and information, with links to each article. They have a “Places to Study” field, fields for different artistic disciplines, fields for different populations, for theory, and many resources and links to other useful sites.
The main web page, with the latest articles and announcements, is:
Their education portal page is:
Assessment Rubrics
RubiStar
RubiStar is a free tool that you can use to create quality rubrics for assessing student learning. A rubric is a simple and (relatively) objective way to evaluate student learning as it is taking place. You can sign up with RubiStar and then use their templates to create your own rubric in a few minutes. You can create rubrics in English or Spanish. You can give students a rubric at the beginning of a residency that will show them clearly what you expect them to learn and be able to do by the end of the residency, and they can use the rubric to self-assess, or you and your teacher-partner can fill out the rubrics.
Arts inEducation Programs
A+ Schools
The A+ Schools Program is a whole school re-form model that views the arts as fundamental to how teachers teach and students learn in all subjects. The mission of the A+ Schools Program is to create schools that work for everyone—students, teachers, administrators, parents and the community. There are forty-two A+ schools in NC, and networks in Arkansas and Oklahoma as well. NC A+ Schools are public schools distributed across the state in neighborhoods that reflect the diversity of the state.
The A+ Schools employ some teaching artists to do professional development training for teachers in A+ Schools. Most of the trainings happen during the summer. A+ Schools also sometimes bring in artists to conduct residencies that integrate the arts and core curricula.
Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education
CAPE advances the arts as a vital strategy for improving teaching and learning by increasing students’ capacity for academic success, critical thinking and creativity.CAPE provides a range of consulting services and professional development for schools and arts organizations in order to support arts integrated teaching and learning in Chicago public schools.CAPE is built on two core concepts: arts integrated teaching and learning, and co-planning and co-teaching partnerships between teachers and artists.
CAPE has a useful page with links to funding sources, resources about arts integration for teachers, resources for students, and a few technology resources for education.
KennedyCenter
The KennedyCenter has various useful sources for teaching artists. Their ArtsEdge program— the National Arts and Education Network — supports the placement of the arts at the center of the curriculum and advocates creative use of technology to enhance the K-12 educational experience. ARTSEDGE empowers educators to teach in, through, and about the arts by providing the tools to develop interdisciplinary curricula that fully integrate the arts with other academic subjects.
ARTSEDGE offers free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom, as well as professional development resources, student materials, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment.
There is a page with many sample arts-integrated lesson plans, including a variety of art forms and core curricular subjects.
There is a page with the National Standards for Arts Education in Dance, Theatre, Music, and Visual Arts, where you can find out what students are supposed to know and be able to do at each grade level in your art form.
There is a page with weblinks to sites that offer exceptional resources to support arts-integrated teaching and learning in all art forms and a wide variety of core subjects, including many cultures and countries.
There is a page with links to articles on arts education.
New York Foundation for the Arts
The New York Foundation for the Arts' mission is to empower artists at critical stages in their creative lives. The NYFA funds artists in New YorkState, only, however their website lists opportunities for artists,
and teaching artist resources.
You have to register with them to use the website, and you have to allow cookies to register.
North Carolina Arts Council Arts in Education Notable Programs
Here you will find a preview of some of the Arts in Education Programs in North Carolina and the nation. Scroll down this page for a summary of each program and then, for therest of the story, click on the program name for a complete profile of the program.
NC Arts Council Resources and Links
This section provides active links to the major arts education web sites, state and national arts education associations, and advocacy resources.
NC Arts Council Issues and Topics
This page has links to one-page .pdf’s about No Child Left Behind, after school, preschool, writing across the curriculum, arts integration, character education, the arts as core subject, NC’s ABC Program, and Closing the Gap.
Wolf Trap
The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts provides innovative arts-based teaching strategies and services to early childhood teachers, caregivers, parents, and their children from 0 to 5 through the disciplines of drama, music, and movement.
They offer professional development workshopsfor teachers,classroom residencies, and other collaborations between performing artists and early childhood professionals that serve toenrich and motivate the teacher's professional development; engage young children in active, creative learning experiences; energize efforts to bring parents and caregivers together into the classroom; and enliven the classroom environment.
Books, Journals
The Arts and Education Reform: North Carolina A+ Schools Program Executive Summary of a Four-Year Evaluation of A+ Schools
By Catherine Awsumb Nelson, NC A+ Schools.
Art Works for Schools
By Tina Grotzer, Project Zero; Laura Howick,
DeCordovaMuseum and SculpturePark; Shari
Tishman, Project Zero; Debra Wise, Underground
Railway Theater, DeCordovaMuseum and SculpturePark.
Art Works for Schools is a curriculum program that
teaches high-level thinking in and through visual art and
theater.
Business of Art: An Artist’s Guide to Profitable Self-Employment
Published by the Center for Cultural Innovation,
Champions of Change: The Impact of the Arts on Learning, Edward B. Fiske, Editor, The Arts Education Partnership and The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.
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Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple
Intelligences
By Howard Gardner, BasicBooks, a member of The Perseus BooksGroup.
Gardner posits the existence of a number of intelligences that ultimately yield a unique cognitive profile for each person.
How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist: Selling Yourself
Without Selling Your Soul, by Caroll Michels, Henry Holt, LLC , a book for visual artists, including contact information for galleries, artists, and organizations.
Journal for Learning Through the Arts
The Journal for Learning Through the Arts is an online research journal on arts integration in schools and communities published by the California Digital Library.
Multiple Intelligences in the ElementaryClassroom: A Teacher’s Toolkit
By Susan Baum, Julie Viens, Barbara Slatin,
Howard Gardner, Teachers College Press.
This book will help teachers design effective curriculum
for their students with diverse learning abilities.
New Tax Guide for Artists of Every Persuasion, by Peter Jason Riley, CPA, Limelight Editions, 2002. This book gives the artist an overall understanding of the unique aspects of taxation for people in the arts.
NC Arts Council Residency Planning Guide
The Residency Planning Guide is an NCAC publication that is helpful in formulating grant proposals.
The Performer’s Guide to the Collaborative Process,by Sheila Kerrigan, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH, 2001.
For anyone who works with a group and wonders if there are better ways to work together, this book demystifies the collaborative creative process and gives performers simple tools for creating original work happily and efficiently.
A Teaching Artist at Work: Theatre with Young People in Educational Settings, by Barbara McKean, Heinemann Drama
Teaching Artist Journal, A Quarterly Forum for ProfessionalsLawrence Erlbaum Associates. Teaching Artist Journal is a useful, practical and theoretical quarterly that addresses many of the challenges and rewards of teaching artistry. Articles are short and readable.
Publishers:10 Industrial Ave.Mahwah, NJ07430, 201-236-9500:
Career Management
The Artist Help Network
The Artist Help Network is a free information service designed tohelp artists take control of their careers. The network assists artists in locating information, resources, guidance, and advice on a comprehensive range of career-related topics. The network focuses primarily on subjects of interest to fine artists. People working in the applied arts, arts administration, and arts-related fields will also find this site useful. There is information about career, exhibitions, commissions and sales, money, presentation tools, legal issues, and more.
Chicago Artists Resource
The Chicago Artists Resource website provides resources for professional visual artists in the Chicago area and beyond, including job opportunities, studio space, advocacy, networks, calls for submissions, artist profiles, information about funding, and links to relevant sites. Not specifically geared for teaching artists, it nonetheless offers good business advice and connections.
Fractured Atlas
Fractured Atlas is a non-profit membership organization that provides services and support to artists and arts organizations, including access to funding, affordable health insurance, liability insurance, professional development opportunities, a job bank, and education for artists. It is a community of over 50,000 artists from every discipline. It uses technology and 21st century business models to empower the arts community. It is a blog spot.
MicroCredit-NH
MicroCredit-NH works with the self-employed and small businesses that have up to five employees. It makes loans, provides business training and networking opportunities.
New York Foundation for the Arts
NYFA has articles about the business of art.
Self-Help Credit Union
Self-Help Credit Union is a community development lender and real estate developer based in NC that works with individuals, organizations and communities traditionally underserved by conventional markets. They have made loans to artists.
Arts Tax Information
Riley Associates has a website where you can download expense checklists for your art form, and a twelve-month expense worksheet in Excel. There is easy to understand information about deductible expenses, what qualifies as income, how to deduct travel and meals, auto expenses, equipment, a home studio or office.
Tax Advice
June Walker, a tax accountant, posts simple and easy to understand answers to tax questions related to the self-employed of all stripes.
Tax information
The Internal Revenue Service has a website with information about the Federal Tax Code. Self-employed artists qualify as individuals. There is information about the Earned Income Tax Credit, “for people who worked and didn’t make much money.”
Technology in the Arts
Technology in the Arts is a collection of services designed to help organizations build capacity by exploring the intersection of the arts and technology.
The site contains:
- Information on the annual Technology in the Arts conference (both the U.S. and Canadian versions)
- A bi-weekly podcast with tech tips, product reviews, and arts profiles.
- Recent interviewees include Andrew Taylor, Paul Germain, Ben Cameron and Jonathan Coulton.
- A discussion-based blog discussing latest trends, emerging technologies, and more.
- Information on technology consulting for arts organizations.
- Annotated resource links
Funding Sources
A note about seeking funding support for arts-in-education residencies:
Most teaching artists are not 501-(c)-3 organizations; in other words, the IRS does not recognize us as not-for-profit entities. That means we are not eligible for most grant programs. It is possible to become a 501-(c)-3 organization, with a little help from a lawyer and a lot of time. However, individual artists can team up with non-profit organizations such as schools and arts councils, and collaborate with them to write grants to support artist-in-school residencies. The administrators and/or teachers, if they want you to work with their young people, will welcome your help on a writing a grant with them. And the funding organizations recognize schools and arts councils as worthy grantees. So partner up, partner!
Alternate ROOTS funds its members only. It does fund individual artists for community arts projects. For information about joining, send an email to: , or call: 404-577-1079.
Donors Choose
If you have a teacher or school you want to work with, the teacher or school can propose a project through DonorsChoose.org.