Art

Art Framing Statement

Rachel Ostler

ED698 Master’s Portfolio Spring 2023

University of Alaska Southeast

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Art

Candidates engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication to

address authentic local and global issues using the arts (music, dance, theater, media arts, and/or
visual arts). (See Alaska Arts Standards)

In this paper, I will address the importance of art integration in the classroom. The artifact that I

used to help facilitate this discussion is an Understanding by Design (UbD) lesson that I designed and

taught during my student teaching in a kindergarten classroom in the Spring of 2022. In this lesson,

which can be found here, I taught about different aspects of money.

This lesson on money integrated math, social studies, and writing as well as art to teach about

the history of money, why we use money and what we could use if we did not have any, what money

looks like and how much each coin is worth, and the significance of what is portrayed on our money. At

the beginning of each lesson about our different coins, we talked about what was on each coin and why

that was important. Through these lessons I was able to facilitate a discussion around why different

things and people were chosen to be on a coin. I also taught the students a song, or chant, that would

help them remember the names of each coin as well as their value based on their physical

characteristics. An example of one of these chants was: “Penny, penny, easily spent. Copper brown and

worth one cent.” In a subservient style of art integration, the arts are used to make other subjects more

exciting (Bresler, 1995). By providing a song that helped students recall information, I was participating

in the subservient style of art integration. However, in addition to making math more exciting, by

integrating music into my math lesson, I allowed for a different mode of representation so that students

with different learning styles could succeed. This particular mode of representation allowed students

who learn better through music and auditory means to be successful.

For another aspect of art integration in this lesson, I began by showing the students money from

all over world. We were already familiar with the money that we use, but now students were able to see

what other countries thought was important enough to put on their money. Herne et al. (2009) identify
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two areas where art aids in the development of students. One of the ways art aids students is that it

helps them learn to ‘see’ (Herne et al., 2009). “Children need to be taught to observe and investigate the

visual worlds and record and express their ‘findings’ in visual terms” (Herne et al., 2009, p.23). By giving

students the opportunity to study the art found on money around the world, they were able to

investigate and think for themselves why these things were important. After observing other money, I

told the students that we were going to create our own money, first as a class and then on their own.

The students were told that the money that we created together should represent our class. We talked

about what things were important to us as a class and what we would want our money to represent, as

well as how much our money should be worth. In the end, we decided that our money should have our

principal on the front, and our school mascot, the eagle on the back. Our coin would also be worth ten

cents. I took a piece of paper, cut out a circle to represent a coin, and drew these things on the front and

back. After this, students were given a piece of paper and instructed to make their own money. They

were told that they could make a coin, or a bill and what they put on it was up to them. However, they

needed to design both the front and the back, have a reason as to why they designed it in the way they

did, and give their money a value.

The next way that Herne et al. (2009) stated that art helps with student development is through

individuality. “Art should ensure opportunities for the child to be himself whilst learning about others

and other things” (Herne et al., 2009, p. 25). By allowing the students to create their own money, they

were able to show creativity in their own thoughts as well as learn about others.

Students learn in a variety of ways, including verbally, visually, tactilely, and kinesthetically

(Rapp & Arndt, 2012). By providing art integration, we are acknowledging these different ways of

learning and allowing students to show their learning and be successful in multiple ways. The lesson

helped students who learn visually by being able to physically see money. Instead of just listening to the

parts of a coin, they could see what was being taught. Tactilely, students were able to play with money.
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Now, instead of just seeing a picture of a coin, it became real when the students could hold it in their

hands and manipulate it in different ways. To help the kinesthetic learner, I provided hands on learning

in the form of centers and dramatic play. In this paper I will show the work and learning of two students:

RG and SC.

RG was a student who was very quiet. I worked a lot during the year to build a relationship with

her so that she would be comfortable talking in class and sharing her ideas. She was very capable in

school, however she was often distracted and I often found her doodling on her papers instead of doing

her work. I often had to compromise with her and let her know that if she finished her work, instead of

moving on to a center activity, I would allow her to draw until we were finished. This would make her

highly motivated to get her work done. On the front of her coin, RG drew a picture of herself and in

place of her dimples, she drew dollar bills. On the back of her coin, she drew a picture of herself and two

of her closest friends celebrating. Although RG did not give her money a unit of value, it was obvious to

me, through the detail she put into her work, that she was excited about what she had learned and that

her friends were very important to her. Her work can be seen in figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1 Figure 2
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SC was a very outgoing student. She was eager to participate in class and made friends easily.

She did, however, struggle academically and received intervention in reading and writing. SC created a

bill that was worth five dollars. On the bill she included the value, a picture of herself, eagles, rabbits,

and cats. She also included a sentence to tell us that she included eagles on her money because she was

a Chapman Eagle. Through her work, I was able to tell that she understood that money had value, and

that the design of money should include things that are important to you or the area the money is

coming from. Her work can be seen in Figure 3.

Figure 3

Through this art integration, both students were able to use their creativity and express their ideas of

not only what they had learned, but what was important to them.

Irwin (2018) noted that research has shown that mathematics performance, critical thinking

skills, and overall academic achievement all improved, as well as the development of critical thinking

skills, improved concentration, imagination, and creativity when art was incorporated into other areas of

curriculum. “Students from low socio-economic backgrounds, English-language learners, and students

with special needs show the greatest relative improvement in academic achievement when participating

in the arts” (Catterall, 2009, as quoted in Irwin, 2018).

Art integration is crucial in the general education classroom. It not only allows those who learn

in a different way a new avenue to show their learning, it also helps students develop attributes
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identified as necessary for the twenty-first-century learner (Irwin, 2018). While these reasons would be

enough to justify integrating arts into the classroom, there is another reason I feel deserves recognition

as well. In school today, we often see students dysregulated as they are dealing with unsafe homes,

their basic needs are not being met, or they have mental limitations that make it harder for them to

learn. Art has been found to help children process emotional and sensory data and can be a way for

students to safely explore their emotions. Art has also been found to help students feel calm (McDonald

& Holttum, 2020). As a teacher, I want my students to learn and find ways to be successful in life.

However, I also want them to come into my classroom and feel safe. If by providing ways for my

students to participate in art helps them feel this basic need, I will always find a way to integrate it into

my daily learning.
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References

Bressler, L. (1995). The subservient, co-equal, affective, and social integration styles and their

implications for the arts. Arts Education Policy Review, 96, 31-37.

doi.org/10.1080/10632913.1995.9934564

Herne, S., Cox, S., & Watts, R. (2009). Readings in primary art education. Intellect Books.

Irwin, M.R. (2018). Arts shoved aside: Changing art practices in primary schools since the introduction of

national standards. The International Journal of Art & Education, 37(1), 18-28.

doi.org/10.1111/jade.12096

McDonald, A., & Holttum, S. (2020). Primary-school-based art therapy: A mixed methods comparison

study on children’s classroom learning. International Journal of Art Therapy: Inscape, 25(3), 119-

131. doi.org/10.1080/17454832.2020.1760906

Rapp, W.H., & Arndt, K.L. (2012). Teaching everyone: An introduction to inclusive education. Paul H.

Brookes Publishing Co.