Why Is It Important To Create Meaning Through The Arts

This week’s course topic focused on creating meaning through the arts. While reading Cornett (2015), I noticed her text primarily revolved around the literary arts, visual art, music, dance, and drama/theatre. There was a lot to be taken away from the definition of Arts Integration. The arts have several gifts to offer those who explore them, and have also been linked to student achievement. In order to demonstrate comprehension of the key concepts discussed in this week’s readings, I will choose 3 points from the Ready Reference 1.4, “Gifts of the Arts,” that I feel would be most important to present to parents/family members as powerful reasons for teaching the arts to K-3 students, and summarize connections I see across all four art forms

Communication, the first gift on the list, is one I would consider especially important. According to Cornett (2015), “the arts are ways people express ideas and emotions or thoughts and feelings” (p. 5). While the language arts are key players in helping children with this, other arts also play a critical role. Cornett (2015) describes the arts as “symbolic languages that succeed when words fail” (p. 12). It is crucial that young children learn to effectively communicate their thoughts and feelings and express their ideas and emotions. Providing parents with concrete examples of how the arts can promote communication may help them to better understand the powerful impact the arts can have on K-3

While reviewing the update, I noticed connections across all four art forms and was able to draw conclusions with regard to how the arts support achievement for children in the primary grades. One significant connection I noticed among all four art forms is that each one makes lessons more fun for students. Based on DeMoss and Morris (2002), when using arts-based lessons versus traditional lessons, students saw learning as more fun versus boring, causing 42 percent of them to pursue learning outside of school, versus the 27 percent of students who do so with traditional lessons (as cited in Cornett, 2015). This has led me to come to the conclusion that if children are engaged in their learning, they are more likely to explore and initiate learning outside of the classroom, simply because they want to. This increase in wanting to learn will surely improve student achievement among