Common Core Quick-Start

How the Arts Intersect with the Common Core State Standards

Kirsten Miller

When you watch a child engaging in the arts—whether it's dance, music, theater, visual arts, or even media arts—you are witnessing the development of the whole child. The intersection of the full-scale implementation of the Common Core State Standards and the impending release of the Next Generation Arts Standards, due out this spring, provides the perfect opportunity to consider how to integrate the arts into other academic subject areas.

Though the arts are among the first programs on the chopping block when school budgets are tight, they are not fluff: Research suggests that the arts foster critical thinking skills and processes that prepare students for college and the workplace. According to the 2012 report (PDF) by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, "the arts promote work habits that cultivate curiosity, imagination, creativity, and evaluation skills," and are "a basis for success in the 21st century" (2010, p. 2).

To date, the focus on Common Core integration across subjects has leaned heavily toward science and social studies, but there are several direct parallels between the arts and the Common Core standards (Riley, 2012):

• Process produces product: When we think arts integration, we automatically make connections to English language arts (for example, assigning an essay about Michelangelo and his art during a history unit on the Renaissance). But, as Riley notes, the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice connect both subject areas to the Studio Thinking Framework's Eight Habits of Mind. For example, Mathematical Practice Standard 1, "make sense of problems and persevere in solving them," directly aligns with the "engage and persist" habit of mind. Mathematical Practice Standard 4, "model with mathematics," can be linked to music, and Mathematical Practice Standard 6's, "attend to precision," is also necessary when learning to play an instrument.
  
  Integrating the arts into math—or any other subject area—can "provide students with time to compare sources, conduct research, and focus on the process of their work" (Riley, 2012). These guidelines can help you get started.
• Access points: Most people can immediately relate to art, whether it's dance, drama, or drawing. Integrating the arts into other subject areas provides ways for students to connect content to their lives (Riley, 2012), which is aligned with the Common Core mission statement that the standards be "robust and relevant to the real world" (Common Core State Standards Initiative, n.d.).
• True equity: Central to the development of the Common Core State Standards is the notion that all students are capable of achieving to high standards, and integrating the arts into academic content areas offers opportunities for teachers to individualize instruction and reach students in ways that attend to their specific cultural, social, emotional, and intellectual needs (Riley, 2012).
• Analytic practice: The Common Core reading and math standards both focus on the need for analysis; for example, the third College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard for Reading is to "analyze how and why individuals, events, or ideas develop and interact over the course of a text"; and analysis is, as you would expect, woven throughout the mathematics standards. Similarly, understanding a piece of art or a musical composition requires analyzing each of its components (Riley, 2012).

The opportunity to make connections across content areas becomes even more pronounced when we consider the trend toward including media arts as a separate arts discipline. The National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, developer of the Next Generation Arts Standards, notes that (PDF) media arts—such as interactive design and multimedia—promote academic achievement, artistic expression, arts and content integration, the convergence of different media, creativity and imagination, pedagogical integrity, and more. Though the Common Core standards do not explicitly include standards for media arts, the English/language arts College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards do emphasize the use of technology and multimedia, and for today's generation of digital natives, using technology and media arts (for example, to produce a presentation or perhaps even throwing a visual arts or music element into the mix) within the content areas is a natural first step.

And the benefits? Drawing on the natural intersections between Common Core standards and the arts means children who are actively engaged in learning, enhanced opportunities for teacher collaboration, and a whole lot of fun for you and your students.

References

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). English language arts standards: anchor standards: college and career readiness anchor standards for reading. Washington, DC: CCSSO & National Governors Association. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/R

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2010). Standards for mathematical practice. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Practice

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Mission statement. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/

Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2010). 21st Century Skills Map: The Arts. Retrieved from http://www.arteducators.org/research/21st_Century_Skills_Arts_Map.pdf

National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. (2012). The Inclusion of Media Arts in Next Generation Arts Standards. Retrieved from http://nccas.wikispaces.com/file/view/NCCAS_%26_Media_Arts_7-28-12+FINAL.pdf

Riley, S. (November 30, 2012). Use arts integration to enhance the Common Core [blog post]. Retrieved from Education Trends at http://www.edutopia.org/blog/core-practices-arts-integration-susan-riley

Riley, S. (2011, December 22). Creating harmony in Common Core: Where do we fit in? [Prezi file]. Retrieved from http://prezi.com/kd3d17zl1aof/creating-harmony-in-common-core-where-do-we-fit-in/

Kirsten Miller is the lead communications consultant at McREL.

ASCD Express, Vol. 8, No. 8. Copyright 2013 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.