Overview
AFL met with Susan Stauter, Artistic Director of San Francisco Unified School District to offer two 9th-grade English classes 4 weeks of intensive work creating songs inspired by literature. Our goal was to assess how deep artistic engagement with a book can lead to better comprehension, increased critical thinking around the themes of the book, and an overall increase in the desire to finish the book and continue reading other books.

Planting Seeds in Fertile Ground
Our work drew out the artistry of both the students and the teacher (Mr. Keith Carames) at SOTA. Kindred, by Octavia Butler, came alive in the classroom. This pilot helped AFL perfect the pedagogy of the Ekphrasis Project. We are now creating teaching modules that will help teachers of students at ALL levels of learning and artistry to benefit from arts-based learning.

Results
Listen to the songs and read the lyrics
Read students comments about their experience
See photo gallery
Download the schedule / curriculum for the pilot

Next Steps
The entire SOTA pilot was filmed. (50 hours of footage). We are creating modules from this footage, to be used as professional training tools. AFL will provide teachers with training that will enable them to use the Ekphrasis pedagogy in their classrooms for ANY book that they teach.

Footage will also be edited to be used for peer-to-peer learning. Clips of SOTA students taking part in specific activities - like free-styling in the voice of a character from the book - will engage new students in the process.

 

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