The arts cut across cultural and language barriers and have developed a sense of inclusivity for all my students, not just those proficient in English.
Jana Hoberg, ELA/History teacher Washington Middle School
Voices from the Field provides arts experiences for middle school students in Washington State’s Migrant Education programs. The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s (OSPI) Migrant Education program partners with Arts Impact to provide culturally grounded, arts-integrated training to middle school classroom teachers in arts foundations lessons and arts-infused ELA and Math lessons. A community-based leadership team of Latinx educators, teaching artists, and community members collaborate on writing lessons that highlight both Latinx arts and cultural ways of teaching and learning. All materials and instruction are offered in both Spanish and English, as many of the youth are transitional English Language Learners.
In our most recent online Voices from the Field Academy, students created pocket nichos linked to identity and self-care, spoken word poetry in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, giant puppets which they performed in a student written and directed theater performances, and powerful break dancing moves, taking great personal risks to share what they had mastered. The students’ middle school teachers worked with VFTF artist mentors to learn how to integrate Folklorico dance into quadratic equations, theater into persuasive writing, and both text and layered images to represent the Cultural Wealth of their communities.
2020-2021 Participating Schools
Grandview Middle School, Grandview, WA
Laventure Middle School, Mt Vernon, WA
Washington Middle School, Yakima, WA
Housel Middle School, Prosser, WA
Prosser Elementary School, Prosser, WA (5th grade)
Mt. Baker Middle School, Mt. Baker, WA
Selah Middle School, Selah, WA
Reports
For information about upcoming opportunities or to learn more contact: Program Manager Grace Washington at GraceW@arts-impact.org, (253) 278-3332 or Program Coordinator Shannon Kissinger at ShannonK@arts-impact.org, (360) 229-6670.
