#i will maybe go back through to hyperlink more of the artists and writers i mention here

[loppiopio]

i've been sitting on this post for a few days now and it's literally just, me making assumptions about kudos i've noticed on fics lately (particularly aci since i've been checking that fic every week for book club these past few months) and this'll make me seem more insane than i already come off but by this point. how much lower can i go?

just going from top to down as of today.

[ShibaLee] i know you from your art on here!! tumblr user shibaleeart i'm happy to see more people in potentially enjoying the stories this fandom has to offer :>

[reiscm] shizuchansmilk?? what are youuu doing here? i didn't know you read shizaya fic tbh and i was surprised to see you here suddenly, relatively recently too. does that mean you just started the fic then?? after at least a year of being in the fandom right? maybe this wasn't from your first time reading it (same) but at the very least it shows you visited it not too long ago… i may be delusional in thinking i could be a contributing factor there because, why now? it's not like i'm the only aci advocate out there but i've probably been the most vocal about it around this time soo… well whatever it is, hope you had fun with it! i'm so curious what drrr comedian shizuchansmilk thinks about hit fanfiction a cheap imitation 👁️

i'm also recognising some of the other names around here like [anonymooose] and [durarasaiki] even though i haven't the faintest idea who they might be. i've just been seeing them lately across different shizaya fics which probably means these are the people doing their shizaya fic dive around this time. i have nothing more to add there i just, think it's cool noticing the same names across fics like yeah, we all feasting on the shizaya tag rn.

[ya_boi_twink] it took me a second to recall where i'd recognised your name from and then it hit me. i knoooow you! tumblr user yaboitwink in my notifs… i appreciate you, and i'm glad you liked the things i made for it c:

[bun_o_ween] oh i know you're here because of mr crapo. i hope you guys had fun with it! i wanna take the chance to also admit that like. the moment i found out you were that sebastian writer i experienced the wildest sense of deja vu. because. i had seen your name on ao3 before. but when i checked your fics there was no way i'd read a fic from you?? so then i realised i must have recognised you... through other kudos on other fics??? dude. i must sound crazy, i have no way of proving this because i actually don't remember what fics these were i just vaguely remember it was either bsd or tgcf? that i was looking at fics for, trying to find something to sate my hunger at the time. and i just remember, noticing your name across like a few of these fics in a row and thinking "heh someone else has been going down the same rabbit hole" AND NOW I SEE YOU AND CRAPO OF SHIZAYA FANDOM HITTING IT OFF it was surreal. like. my awareness of you had zero to do with black butler, i could not have predicted that you would have been the random ao3 user i'd seen apparently enjoying some of the same fics i was not too long ago. wow.

there are like two separate flamingo related names around here [niceflamingo] and [flamingoo] which doesn't mean anything but for some reason they are standing out enough for me to want to mention them. i feel like i've seen ao3 user flamingoo in the kudos of some other fic before but idk.

[Luzki] omg hey!! twitter artist vi_138_ woah hiii funny seeing you here :0 especially like. not so long ago? since i'd imagined you would've been aware of the fandom for a while since you seem more invested in the alts than shizuo and izaya in particular? well it was cool seeing that you'd read this one, i hope ya had fun!

[frogsarefriends] right under that is artist hallucxnating >:O i know they've read the fic already but it was cool to actually recognise their kudo down here, especially since it's like. not recognisable just from the name alone, but you've shared links to this ao3 as your writing so now i know it's you. my impression is that you came into the fandom through slavhew since, i'd connected the dots at some point that you two were friends which. made a lot of sense since i noticed you both started being active around here at the same time lol. but hey!! welcome to the club :D

[7FlyingPancakes7] this is one of the ones i'd noticed earlier on during book club, i distinctly remember checking a chapter while walking home one night (because i do that i guess) then BAM what the hell?? i just see tumblr user mari-lair's ao3 appear down there, totally out of nowhere for me. for context this was a writer from the tpn fandom i recognise from like 4 years ago? idk it's been a while, i didn't talk to them much but they were active in the fandom at the time so i'm familiar with their name. i haven't been keeping up with them but last i'd seen they seemed to be into tbhk with no indication as far as i was aware that they'd shown any interest in shizaya. nothing wrong with that it was just unexpected, so i was just like woah!! how did you get here? i am so curious how they may have come across this fic, was it some rec from a friend? how familiar are they with shizaya? how invested were they in the story and characters? enough to go down more of shizaya's greatest hits? anyways, that was just a fun little small world moment for me.

[psych0tastic] hey isn't this…. axietoh? like, the artist who used to draw shizaya like 5 years ago? what are they doing here so high up the list? 🤔 i have no clue lol i still follow them because i really like their art style but i hadn't noticed their interest in shizaya resurfacing... i suppose they just haven't been too active on these socials in general. anyways their name stood out to me and i was like, wait….. well it's a shocker seeing their name so high up here, were they reading this fic for the first time there or were they revisiting it and happened to have not kudo'd it until then? well anyways, it's nice to see they've revisted the fic within the last two years at least :0 that's cool to me.

[MiyukiWynter] dude i was feeling crazy just now trying to figure out where i'd recognised this name from because i'd swwooooorn i'd seen it from somewhere like as someone on twitter?? i think i was mixing them up in my mind with unrelated (as far as i'm aware) twitter user miiyankhr but turns out they're someone who's fics i've seen in the tags before. i haven't read them myself but apparently they just posted a new one two days ago so that's crazy.

[Dodomka] heyyy it's dodo from twitter, hellooo 👋 they've been the biggest supporter for my deep in the sauce fic tweets and for that i appreciate them very much :3 didn't expect to see them here tbh i wasn't aware of when they'd first read the fic but as i was expanding the list a few times to write up this post i noticed their name here and just thought that was neat. shout-out to them!

[mochi010] there's a user named mochi that has shown up in my twitter notifs somewhat regularly and they have nothing on their account so i have zero clue what they might be like outside from that they've been liking my shizuo and izaya retweets. their handle isn't even mochi so i have very little reason to believe this could be them but idk, maybe? no conclusion has been made here. well i already spent time writing and cleaning up the paragraph, guess i'm leaving it in.

shout-out to [ouiouipussay] and [ramenflavorpacketsnorter420] just for having some names that stand out lol. i don't recognise you from anywhere but, i guess now i will if i ever come across those names again.

[Stupidusernamepolicy] i struggled to find you amidst all these names for the writing of this post 💀 had to ctrl+f that shit. but i remember seeing your name here while i was going through the list some days before and being like "oh hey!! it's slavhew :)" but okay there's actually a tangent i've been wanting to go on from here.

outside of aci i've actually been noticing you and hallucxnating double duo'ing under some fics together, like after the story era which i'd reread after hallu reminded me of its existence in a reply, and also sacramental which i had reread because of your reply, lol. i find this quite funny, just like. this visual representation of you two reading and recommending fics with each other. then you talk about it on twitter and more people like me are visiting this fic too. chain reaction of sharing stories :)

ALSO [anonymooose] and [durarasaiki] spotted down here in some of these kudos too!! that's craazy. wow. i tell you guys i'm recognising these names i'm not just crazy 😭

[NotElectricT] this took me a second to dig up again since it's quite buried down that list at this point but the plan i'd had in mind for this post was to end on this one since i saw them kudo it right in front of me (through the vc stream) and i didn't think this post would get as long as it did but... well i already wrote it 😬 but yeah, this is my good friend note! check out this art they made for, still one of their favourite chapters, sharks fly. it's sandwiched in between some squid game au they made for a gift exchange for me..... it's a long story i don't wanna talk about it (embarrassing......)

but what i do wanna talk about!! is how note (referred to as "patient zero" regarding aci book club by the only other patient lol) just decided to read this fic completely of their own volition?? i didn't tell them to do that and for sure didn't expect them of all people to try reading it, ever (they're not really a fic reader) but they just did that, two years ago. and that was like, insane to me at the time because it's seriously so out of their depth guys they don't do enemies to lovers.... they still don't lol. but i was insane about this fic back then with no one to really be insane about it to so i just yelled about it to these friends out of context and i guess???? that was convincing enough to get this one to start the longest fic they'd ever read 💀

i had much fun having someone experience the fic i'd been insane over..... like i'm smiling about it rn thinking about the time i did a live reading of the chainsaw man (as i like to call him) chapter which was so fun i kinda forgot i had a hamilton musical i was supposed to watch that evening... that was awkward. and other chats we exchanged regarding the fic (they were reading chapters whenever they felt like it which i enjoyed because i like pacing these things out) but for some reason (i think things just happened around the time that disrupted the momentum) they never made it past chapter 26 😔 which was tragic to me but oh well....

well i'm am even more insane about this fic now because of this convoluted chain of events that gradually built and cascaded me towards whatever the fuck i'm doing now!! god. i've never made so much, anything, like ever. until now. because both note and rosa (who has not kudo'd this fic as far as i'm aware lol) made the decision beyond my expectations to commit to, a book club. which i organised. and i've been having a lot of fun! so much fun, there's all this wild "marketing" stuff i've been churning out in record fucking time by my standards. i've never felt so creatively fulfilled dude, never finished a thing in my life until these past few months. so that's awesome, and it's in large part because of note having committed to this fic again. so that's some of the story behind that one kudo haha.

and now we're at chapter 49, we're supposed to be talking about it tomorrow, which is today by now since it's 1 am but uhhhhhhh writing is so hard. i was supposed to just be cleaning up this draft i'd written like 5 days ago? i am now very hungry. there's actually more i'd drafted up from here just from more names i recognised as i kept expanding the kudo list that day buuuut i'm fuckeeeen cutting this off right here. i need to stop. the end.

[sugar-petals]

Fic Research 101

A general guideline with various tips and tricks.

What for?

Even if you’re the type who can construct giant fantasy worlds out of thin literary air, research makes the difference and can bring you a lot of enjoyment once the story becomes its own universe. Expanding the horizon is 100% worth it. For beginners, advanced writers, and experts equally. Readers always notice and cherish that level of detail. Even Terry Pratchett preoccupied himself with geography, history, art, or science books. And anything else that would catch his eye, not worrying about whether it was considered cheesy, odd, or stale bread. It was simply for the sake of interest and passion. What I found noteworthy: He actually preferred it over reading stories of his genre (!) as not to reiterate things subconsciously, i.e., what other authors researched and repurposed. We saw the result: He built believable, unique worlds. It doesn’t mean that you have to eschew reading entirely or need to create a groundbreaking universe. It’s just important to be aware how habitual input shapes what knowledge we believe is possible to cover in our stories.

Where/How

Sometimes, it does depend on how you search, not where. The — often grammatical — quality of your search engine request determines the character of what you receive. My favorite trick is to look for “types of [research subject]”. That gives me a wide array of what exists, how it looks like, and also possible substitutions should something not work out. It’s also easy on non-native speakers because definitions will come your way like that. 

Mentality also matters. You can approach it like an academic looking for data or a creator of imaginary worlds curious about what people do. It will reflect in your story, big time. So it’s important to keep your style in mind even when you look up menial things, either can work.

When

It can be fun to figure out what kind of researcher you are. Either the one taking in all information first. As in, watching a documentary and then creating a spin-off in your AU. Or the one researching while writing. The advanced form for those with a lot of time on their hands is doing both. It will boil down to how good your long-term VS short-term memory is.

Alienating VS Involving The Audience

A tricky question remains what readers will understand and how they can ease into stories with extensive research. In my eyes, even if there is something they are unfamiliar with, the appeal of the story is times higher when the author goes some extra miles or has notable immersive details as the cherry on top. 

The real bad guy that you have to watch out for are complex highbrow words for embellishment that a) nobody has ever heard of b) can’t be logically understood by looking at the situation. 

"The family prepared the gallimaufry” will deter readers times more than “Catherine the Great died aged 67″. Because Catherine the Great is self-explanatory and well-known, but nobody has an idea that gallimaufry is a fancy old synonym for ‘stew’. So rather go for Catherine the Great even if the gallimaufry might be period-typical and sounds hilarious. The rule of thumb is: If you give enough context so the reader doesn’t have to research endlessly themselves, you can pull it off, particularly with readers who are native speakers. It’s more difficult with non-native speakers, but I would trust them to look something up if the vocabulary is entirely foreign to them. If you’re in doubt about that, simply provide more background information and describe things viscerally, maybe with a simile or metaphor. 

So, unless you put it in the title (that’s a different topic), peppering your story with super fancy words from 200 AD that only you know can make you come across as a show-off trying to be way above the audience, while appropriate research and context makes you look like an artist who loves making stories and gives their readers an experience. I know, long fancy words are tempting, but try to keep them at a minimum if possible. Particularly when your AU is not historical or doesn’t feature fantasy elements. If you do write fantasy and drop something like say Latin as in Harry Potter (the spells), it helps to have a character who inquires about the word from another person in the fic. You give the reader a self-insert for that situation to learn about it. The same goes for new terms you come up with.

About Learning

This one is a big deal. Definitely figure out what type of learner you are (visual, auditory, etc), and what types of intelligence you are good at (logical, musical, linguistic, etc). Once you know how you retain information best, the world is easier. Many authors see research as an unwanted chore just because they take in useful information the wrong way. We all are curious creatures, it just depends on how things are presented to us. Once we find our forte, research loses much of its exhaustion, fear, and pressure.

Beware of comparison with other writers here. E.g. spatial-logical talents will be good at worldbuilding, while kinesthetic-literary talents will write authentic eroticism and action. We all have our niche and modes of brain function, sometimes it’s good to stick to your gifts instead of competing out of envy — which brings us back to Terry Pratchett and reiteration. Mind you, do experiment, do consider various ways of learning, what I mean is that you can make a story work faster knowing your potential in several areas.

Research Topic Masterposts

Perhaps you’ve seen them, the ones helping you construct a realistic XYZ scene. I know the hype around them, the effort is impressive, definitely keep it on your radar. Still, a word of caution. It’s often something you reblog for reference because you see all the options in one place but never go back to it. It can derail your research process immensely, too. The reason: It appears randomly, not when you need it. Heading out to research via browser in the right moment often yields more fitting results and options. After all, the person making the masterpost linked you guides to topics of their preference, often their stories’ research process, which can be far away from yours. I’ve often run into linked articles that are either too advanced or straightforward, it’s a bit of a Russian roulette to find the right insight. Which the masterpost creator obviously can’t and doesn’t have to anticipate, by all means — the same principle applies to this post, you have to cherrypick what resonates. 

The problem is that you can’t know how useful to you personally the links are at first glance when you just reblog for later reference. Combing through the links and visiting a bunch to see if it is any good takes forever compared to a 10 sec google search. Ironically, you’d think someone else, maybe a more experienced author, doing the work for you spares you effort and it’s convenient, but the opposite can be the case. Sometimes, you have to research from scratch and rely on your own gut. Should you still find a solid masterpost giving you precisely what you’re looking for, and you remember to go back to it — installing XKit helps with that, it has an archive function: Check the timestamp (also via XKit). If the post has been around for longer, many links might be dead so keep an eye on this. 

Wikipedia

Staring at black font against white forever can be frustrating and repetitive. Hyperlinks can distract, it consumes time. In some cases, infographics give you a quicker, more colorful outline with equal amounts of sources. Important: Remember the mentality bit. For some, inspiration comes first. In that regard, infographics can help you out further by providing a visual idea in terms of worldbuilding. If you are the data type and do juggle references, it might be a better idea trying Google scholar to find journals. Tip: Read their abstracts (the summary at the start) to get a quick overview. And then you’re ready to go. 

Handy Shortcuts

Disclaimer: Those are for Mac. For Windows: Use Ctrl instead of Cmd.

Cmd + F (search) finds the needle in a stack of hay. This one is essential. 

Cmd + T (open new tab) saves time.

Cmd + Z (undo) — every writer’s lifesaver, oh my god.

Cmd + A (select all) helps for copy paste. Mind you, don’t plagiarize.

Cmd + N (open new web page) for a blank slate, all other tabs stay open.

Cmd + down arrow brings you to the bottom of the page.

1) Cmd + Shift + 3 gives you a fast screenshot of the whole screen. 2) Cmd + Shift + 4 lets you select a rectangular/square area to screenshot. 

the screenshots will be saved on your desktop.

Windows doesn’t have 2) but uses “Print Screen” for 1).

[jerepars]

The Con Extended Chapter Notes

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here.

And now for something a little different. Okay, a lot different. Clearly this is an alternate universe where Betty grew up with her older brother, Chic (he hasn't been mentioned by name yet, but it is him), and his best friend, Jughead. Chic definitely isn't a replacement for Archie though (however, with Chic being Jughead's best friend, the friendship dynamics are different). Archie will actually play a very important role in this story.

This story is based on a fic that I wrote a few years ago in a different fandom (Actually, full transparency, the very first inception of this storyline goes even further back to when I was fourteen, writing stuff about pop punk bands, haha. So if we're keeping count then maybe this is actually the third version of it). I was re-reading that and as I kept going forward, I kept thinking that it could potentially be an interesting Bughead story if I reworked it.

Now, just because I'm adapting it from something I wrote before, it doesn't mean that I just changed the character names and went with the exact same story. The storyline is something I've done before but the characters and their lives don't translate like that into this story. There may be instances where I'll keep a few sentences in the narrative or phrases of dialogue, but it's definitely a brand new story.

In the past this story has been sarcastic and light and funny. And I think I do still want it to be on the lighter side. But it's Betty and Jughead out of Riverdale. So there has to be a bit of an undercurrent that wasn't there before. That's something I'm really excited to explore.

I think a good way to describe this story at this point, without saying too much, is how Betty and Jughead's relationship (if they're going to have one) is affected by their relationships with other people in their lives.

Because he and my brother were three years my senior, they believed they had the right to do whatever the fuck they wanted to me. There were pranks, name-calling, and all the other typical things boys at that cooties age could do to a little girl. I’ll admit I was just as bad. Everyone around town always praised me for being such a good little girl. But to them, I was annoying. Actually, that was an understatement. Everywhere they went, I went. Everything they did, I did. I was the little tag-along sister that brothers loathed. As my brother’s best friend, he took the opportunity as often as possible to tell me that he despised my presence and that I was a constant headache. Even at a young age he’d already been wise with his words.

I listened to Joyce Manor's self-titled album on loop for a huge chunk of writing this prologue, which isn't hard to do because it's under 20 minutes long. The last song on the album is called "Constant Headache", which I don't think would be relevant to 10-year-old Jughead's feelings, but I do think that 10-year-old Jughead would have been apt to say something clever like that.

Although he remained best friends with my brother, I didn’t see much of him past fourteen. I moved an entire time zone away to fuel my own ambitions. Whenever I was home in our small town, I ignored him. Whenever he was at the house with my brother, I would hide away in my room or go for a long run. Because I had the kind of crush on him that meant I couldn’t utter a single word normally without overthinking it or mentally berating myself. He had some kind of power over my head and my heart merely by existing. Everything about him was intimidating to me. I should have stopped liking him then, on those long weekends and school breaks that I was home, because I saw how girls acted around him once he got his leather jacket that put him in a fortress of self. In spite of his sensitivity, or maybe because of it, he was like other teenage boys in high school: bad at managing feelings and relationships.

Still on the Joyce Manor album. There's a song called "Leather Jacket" and it starts: In your new leather jacket, you're somebody else. And it's not nice to meet you in a fortress of self. So while wearing the jacket, the person puts up a front, and the jacket conceals the person's true self. Sounds like someone who could be Jughead, or this version of Jughead that I have in my head for this story.

I lived in dorms all through high school so I could attend the pre-professional conservatory program at the Joffrey Academy of Dance in Chicago. I never had anything less than a soloist’s role in all of the student showcases and galas, and I had the principal female role in the academy’s spring production all before graduating high school. I’d even heard whispers that I had been considered for the same role a year earlier but was ultimately passed over because I’d missed a few months of dancing due to injury. I worked at my craft with everything I had, because it was what I loved the most, so I thrived under the pressure of my life as a burgeoning young dancer. I moved up from the academy’s conservatory program to its trainee program, then graduated to the fully-funded studio company program where I was offered an apprentice position with the actual company that the school was affiliated with, The Joffrey Ballet. It was beyond thrilling to see my dreams begin to come to fruition.

Is the whole dance story thing too played out? Are we overrun with these stories? Are they too common and unoriginal now?

Something that I couldn't part with from the previous version of this story was the dance element. I considered it, but not for very long. I thought about other careers or ventures or education Betty could have as an alternative but they just didn't fit right. I think it's better that Betty isn't a writer in this story. Because it's in her voice, I want her to come off as authentic, just as her, not as a journalist.

I feel like it's not a run of the mill dance story. Though I suppose it's the reader's prerogative to decide that. What I can promise is that the ballet part of this story will always be researched and represented appropriately to the best of my ability. No second guessing. No guessing. I'm obsessed with doing proper background research for stories, always.

A lot of the research is actually already done because I did so much of it when I wrote the story that this is based on a few years back. I did have to take some creative liberties though.

The blockquoted paragraph above reveals that the story takes place in Chicago, and according to Betty she lived in dorms through high school for a conservatory program. In the old version of this story, it was set in Toronto and the narrator (allegedly, it was still fan fiction, after all) trained at an academy similar to Canada's National Ballet School, which is a ballet boarding school with ties to the National Ballet of Canada.

I knew right away that I wanted the Bughead version of this story to be set in Chicago. That meant that it would be the Joffrey Academy of Dance that Betty went to and it would be the Joffrey Ballet where she ends up as a corps member. After perusing the Joffrey Ballet website, it seems that I may be a little ahead of my time on there being ballet boarding school in Chicago. This upcoming school year, September 2017, is the first year they're introducing a conservatory program. The current academics and housing situation offered definitely do not qualify it as a ballet boarding school, but if we're to accept that Betty is an 21-year-old adult in this alternate universe then it must be set sometime in the future, where the program has developed more, OR the program is on the same level as CNBS and NBC. I'll have to take the creative liberty on this one. Sorry. It's such a small detail that won't have major impact on the story anyway, so it doesn't matter. Oh, who am I kidding, none of this actually matters.

The rest of what Betty says is totally copacetic though. The academy has student programs/productions and galas. The Trainee Program is a step up from the conservatory (though having been in the conservatory isn't a requirement for becoming a trainee) and the Studio Company is a full scholarship given to "10 outstanding students selected by the Joffrey Ballet Artistic Director and Head of Studio Company and Trainee Program."

Betty's age timeline going through all of this is like this in my mind: 14-17 Conservatory Program 17 Trainee Program 18 Studio Company --> Apprentice 19 Apprentice --> Corps de Ballet 19-21 (her current age) Corps de Ballet

I'm sure I'm the only person this actually matters to. But here we are.

A running quip between my brother, his best friend, and me is that role reversal happened somewhere in our lives. Whereas I had followed them around as a little girl, it was almost like they were following me since I moved. My brother moved to Chicago (Evanston, to be precise) a year after me to attend college at Northwestern. His best friend opted for the University of Michigan, in order to be closer to his own younger sister. So when he wound up in Ann Arbor, we were all reunited by Midwestern geography. But he and my brother only saw each other once in a while as college students in different states (hell, my brother had lived literally less than 20 miles from me then, and we hardly ever saw each other during that four-year stretch of time), which meant that I rarely saw him. The three of us never had a full-fledged reunion despite them following me to the Midwest.

Despite being known as a school in Chicago, Northwestern University is actually, technically, just north of Chicago in Evanston, IL. The University of Michigan is in Ann Arbor, MI. Ann Arbor is only about an hour from Toledo, OH so if Jughead wanted to go college somewhere that would be near his sister, Jellybean, Ann Arbor would be a good bet. Obviously he could have also just gone to school in Ohio, but if you look at the geography of where Toledo is, it's closer to Michigan than most of the major cities and/or college towns in Ohio. I also wanted Juggie to go to a school that's competitive to get into, which I know Michigan is. There will be more on his eduction, his academic prowess, how he could afford a state school being from out-of-state, etc. as we get into the actual story.

A concerned 21-year-old. That’s what I am now. It’s my third year with the company. In the last two years I’ve come to the realization that I don’t want to be a principal dancer. But I also don’t just want to be in the corps. I do want solo roles. I do want the spotlight on my pas de deux partner and me for a portion of the amazing shows our company puts on. This upcoming season, I have my biggest solo role so far. I’m still in the corps de ballet, but I have a part as big as one of the second soloists. So I shouldn’t be this concerned. You don’t choose a life in dance for the money. I’m fine with the fact that I have to live with my brother to maintain a healthy lifestyle and my sanity because it means that I get to keep living my dream. All in all, things in my life are pretty good. Maybe I should even be describing them as good, without the prefacing word. But maybe I’m concerned because I’m smart enough to know that nothing gold can stay for too long. And there is a problem looming on the horizon. Because that full-fledged reunion that never happened with my brother’s best friend? It’s about to happen.

The phrase nothing gold can stay isn't a reference to the poem by Robert Frost but rather the album by New Found Glory. Ha. Though that is a reference to the poem. So it's all good, right?

I think there are a lot of ideas introduced by our dear narrator, Betty, in this prologue that spurn questions. Like, would Alice Cooper really let her daughter move away at fourteen? Was Jughead a Serpent as a teenager? Where does Archie fit in to all of this? Etc.

My instinct is to keyboard smash and answer all these questions before they're asked so that there's no confusion. But I'm going to stop myself because I think that a lot of would-be questions are adequately addressed in the first chapter (and beyond).

Last thing to address here: the point of view. It's in first person. I don't know how people are going to feel about that. I know we don't see much first person POV in the Bughead fandom, which makes sense, because we focus on both Betty and Jughead. So maybe people will like this because it's not what we're usually reading, or maybe they'll hate it because they don't want a firsthand account from Betty's perspective. Either way, I'm fine with both reactions. But this has to be in first person POV. It just has to be. Even telling the story entirely in her perspective but in third person doesn't work. I want her to tell the story honestly from her perspective but I also want it to be tinged with her bias, how she sees the world and the other characters. That becomes important later on. I think it also plays a big part in the pining aspect, what that emotional part of it is like.

[theshmaylor]

AO3 Podfic Posting Guide

Hooray! You've made a podfic! Maybe you followed Paraka's guide, thedragongirl's guide, one of many other wonderful How To Podfic tutorials, or maybe you figured it out on your own.  But now, how do you share it?  Posting your audio to tumblr, youtube, or a fandom-specific community are all decent options.  But chances are, if the fic you recorded is from AO3, you'll reach the largest and most receptive audience by also posting to AO3.

The archive welcomes all types of fanwork, but is really structured and built primarily for written works.  Posting podfic can be confusing or complicated if you're unfamiliar with it.  This guide will cover both the basic mechanics of posting podfic to AO3, as well as the typical conventions used by the podfic community so that people who want to listen can easily find your audio.

(Under a cut because it’s full of screenshots. Also posted on AO3 if tumblr is giving you any issues with the images)

Note:  I'm writing this assuming you have a general familiarity with AO3 and know what the basic tags mean, but maybe have never posted there before. Don't let the long size of the guide scare you! It isn't difficult. I just made it very detailed because I was super nervous about getting something wrong when posting my first podfic, and I hope this will make others less uncertain.

It's very easy to navigate to the new post screen. While logged in click "Post" and then "New Work".

First section:  Tags  

The nice thing about podfic is that you're usually working off an existing text.  If that text is on AO3, then the writer has done this step before, and you can just use the same inputs for Rating, Archive Warnings, Fandoms, Category, Relationships, and Characters.  Most of the time I will just use the exact same inputs that the text used, but sometimes I'll disagree with the author and make a change.  For example, rating can be difficult to judge and recently I made a podfic Teen when the author marked it General Audiences.

Additional Tags is the place where you really want to add things that are specific to podfic.

Definitely use the "Podfic" tag. That's going to be the easiest way for someone seeking out audio fanworks to find your post.

Other common additional tags:  

- "Podfic Length: X" Select the tag that matches the length of your podfic

- "Audio Format: X" Select the tags that match the formats you're going to include.

These types of tags useful because if people are looking for a certain length or a specific way to listen it helps your podfic be more easily found

Other less common additional tags:  

- "Podfic Cover Art"  This tag indicates that your work comes with cover art. I don't see it used very frequently though.

- "Podfic Cover Art Welcome"  This tag indicates that your work doesn't have cover art, and that if someone wanted to make you some, you would welcome it. I don't see this tag used very frequently either. (But I think it's a fabulous idea and have it on like 6 of my podfics and I live in HOPE that someone will make me cover art one day, and everyone should definitely use it)

Tags not to use:  

- "Podfic Available"  This tag is used on text works to indicate that there is a podfic version of that text. It doesn't belong on the podfic itself.

And then you can add any other additional tags that apply to the story. Again, I typically use the same tags as the writer. Maybe choosing to add more if they were sparse with their tagging, or maybe choosing to leave some off if the tags seem unnecessary.

Next section:  Preface  

Work Title  

Most podficcers will indicate in the title in some way that this work is a podfic. It helps users to know at a glance that your work is audio when browsing through AO3.

I personally prefer the style:  [Podfic] Title

But I've also seen:

Title [Podfic]

Title by Author [Podfic]

[Podfic] "Title" by Author

(PODFIC) Title

[Podfic of] Title / written by Author

And many other variations involving the title, the word podfic, various brackets or parentheses, quote marks, or the writer's name.

Personally, I like to use [Podfic] Title because it's straightforward.  When you start adding in the writer's name, I think it starts to look cluttered and more difficult to read.  But other podficcers prefer including the author name as a way to credit to the writer in a very obvious way.  Feel free to decide for yourself!

Add co-authors?  

Some podficcers choose to give credit to the writer by making them a co-author on the podfic. I personally do not, and would recommend against it, but again this a place where you can decide for yourself.

Pros:  Gives credit to the writer in the header of your post.  If the writer is well known, it can help drive more traffic to your podfic.

Cons:  Can be confusing and make it seem like the writer was directly involved in making the podfic. Adds more clutter to the header. The writer then has co-control over the work and can edit, delete, etc. (The last con is why I recommend against doing this!)

Summary  

Similarly to the tags, another place where you can copy and paste from the text version. Nice!

I also like to add [Podfic Version] to the end of the summary. I've seen similar additions, such as Podfic of "Title".  Many podficcers don't put anything extra in the summary. Again, you can decide what you like best.  For eye-catching purposes, it's more important to have the word podfic in the title than in the summary, so it's totally reasonable not to add anything here if you don't want to.

Notes  

Nothing podfic specific here! Check the box if you want to put in some notes.

Next section:  Associations  

The two parts of this section relevant to podfic are "Gift this work to" and "This work is a remix, a translation, a podfic, or was inspired by another work"

Gift this work to  

Similarly to making the writer a co-author, some podficcers will gift the work to the writer as a way of acknowledging them.  When you gift a work to someone, their username appears in the header.

Personally, I have seen this practice less frequently lately and don't do it myself. I didn't make the podfic for the writer! I made it because I loved the story and wanted to record it, and wanted to listen to it, and because I hoped others would want to experience it in audio form as well.  If the writer is one of the people who wants to listen, that's amazing! But if they don't, that's totally okay too. To me, posting the podfic as a 'gift' makes it seem like the writer is obligated to listen, and I don't want them to feel like they have to.   Audio might not be their thing, you know?

This work is a remix, a translation, a podfic, or was inspired by another work  

Definitely check this box!! This is AO3's official mechanism for crediting the writer and linking your podfic back to the original text.

You will then get a menu that looks like this:

If your podfic is of a text work posted on AO3, all you have to do is enter the URL. For works not on AO3, fill out all the boxes.

The end result is a note on your work that says "Inspired by Title by Author" (with automatic hyperlinks and everything!)

If you have more than one text work included in your podfic (for example, a story that was posted in two parts but which you're combining into one podfic), you'll need to enter the first text work, save your work as a draft, and then "edit" in order to enter the next text work.  

Next section:  Privacy  

Nothing really podfic specific here! Decide what you want to do with those three privacy checkboxes.

The only thing I will caution is, if you made a podfic of a locked work (one of those works that has an image of a padlock next to the title), it's probably best to also lock the podfic (aka check the "only show your work to registered users" box), or to ask the author if they're okay with the podfic version being unlocked.

Last section:  Work Text  

Almost done! This is the real important part.

The only thing you really need to have here is a link to your audio, everything else is extra. And if the only thing you want to do is put a link, that's totally fine!

Many podficcers though, including myself, will put additional information and formatting to make the post look more appealing and to add clarity.

Here is the code I use.  Feel free to take this code and copy it, or edit it to suit your needs and preferences.

<p align="center">   <img src="ART URL" alt="STORY NAME Cover Art" width="400" height="400" /><br /> <i>cover art by <a href="ARTIST URL">ARTIST NAME</a></i> </p>

<p align="center"> <strong>Listen</strong><br /> <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="audioUrl=MP3 URL" src="http://podfic.com/player/audio-player.swf" width="400" height="27" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal"></embed><br /> <i>(or click <a href="MP3 URL">here</a> for mobile streaming)</i> </p>

<p align="center"><strong>Text:</strong> <a href="TEXT URL">STORY NAME</a></p>

<p align="center"><strong>Author:</strong> <a href="AUTHOR URL">AUTHOR NAME</a></p>

<p align="center"><strong>Reader:</strong> <a href="PODFICCER URL">PODFICCER NAME</a></p>

<p align="center"><strong>Length:</strong> LENGTH</p>

<p align="center"><strong>Downloads:</strong> <a href="MP3 URL">mp3</a> | <a href="M4B URL">m4b</a><br/> <em>(right click to save-as)</em></p>

Make sure you're in HTML mode when you paste in the code.

If you want to include a streaming player (that's what the "embed" part of the code above is for), you'll need to have a direct download link for your podfic. Audio hosting services where you have to click-through, like mediafire, won't work.  For help with streaming podfic, blackglass has put together a great tutorial.

And you're done! Yay! Time to post! I highly recommend clicking "Preview" instead of "Post Without Preview" so that you can double check and make sure everything looks how you want it and that your audio links work.

I hope this helped. If you have questions, feel free to drop me an ask!

[zanepresler20-blog]

Jenna Shrub Hager Apologizes For Hidden Fences Error At Golden Globes.

Have you ever seen a kid learn to use a bike, or a young child learn to walk? Within this article, I will look at the progression music innovation has created and also how it makes popular music making a lot easier. If you could laugh at yourself and your failed efforts, you will certainly have the capacity to remain in the beneficial electricity required to try once more or even take the next step. If you enjoyed this post and you would certainly such as to get even more details pertaining to yellow pages personal numbers uk (http://hacer--laopcionmasfacil.info) kindly see our web site. Mistakes are actually commonly not catastrophic. I am that I am today as a result of the spectacular trainings I gained from actions I as soon as called errors." I not find all of them as negative, foolish or lousy. This is actually not concerning our mistakes in life that specifies who our team are, this has to do with the personality that is actually constructed due to them, the knowledge that our experts gain from them and the understanding that when our team carry out create errors our experts are going to get past all of them and also still reside a great lifestyle. To determine our own selves for our mistakes is to earn but one more mistake, accordinged to the first, and then reinforce it. It is this self-condemning process which must be deposited in order that we may obtain the best gain from our every oversight. MISTAKE 8: Using Dark Hat Search Engine Optimisation Techniques- Improving your online search engine optimization with techniques and also unethical approaches would certainly not aid you for long. One-sided blunder (where one event is mistaken and the other understands or should have actually recognized from the mistake). Blunders exist to inspire us and also encourage our team to keep removaling and maintain feeding our Heart as well as our thoughts-- to always keep residing! Children must end up being pleasant in creating oversights as well as taking obligation in assistance to fix whatever happened. If you desire your internet site to appear amongst the leading 10 web sites in SERPs, you must stay clear of these frequently devoted errors in online search engine marketing. Once more, there's no excuse for this mistake - and that is actually one that are going to establish you apart from the others in your sector. A great perk from making a mistake is actually that you will discover one thing you failed to understand in the past, and also possibly you can use this training in your future. I'm not sure that the choices I created as operations manager of the Orbital Maneuvering Lorry (OMV) plan nearly 3 decades back were actually automatically errors, however the troubles that essentially got rid of the OMV were definitely genuine. When I make a mistake, I examine the mental and also emotional state that led up to the choice In some cases, I discover that I made the decision from concern. The math educator worked with the pupil after college to figure out where she was actually slipping up while aiming to address the equation. However, if you profit from your oversights and also do not repetitive them, you will eventually trust your own self once more, as well as have the ability to offer actual devotion to the following individual. Business of the Conservatives is actually to prevent the mistakes off being dealt with. Still, this is not where most identities are swiped as well as that is actually a big blunder to believe that only defending your personal stuff could make a major variation in your identification fraud danger. Already that was essentially difficult for me to locate the identity and also place from the pet owner so I must drop the instance (which I strongly believed possessed a settlement deal market value from a minimum of $50,000 to $75,000). Yet another typical oversight created by those that are actually aiming to enhance their appeal is actually thinking that they need to possess the simplest. After a lot of catastrophic-seeming mistakes, I've come to recognize that few oversights are irreversible. If you have actually sinned, own it. (In reality, if you have actually slipped up, have that as well.) Have the hit. The Birdman superstar was actually introducing the nominees for Finest Supporting Starlet in a Movie when he came to Octavia Spencer's label and also claimed she belonged to the film 'Hidden Fences'. Whatever mistakes you produce, and also you are going to remain to produce them, do not give up. Don't enable your own self be actually or feel defeated. Keep giving your children with finding out expertises, but together structure their setting so they can't make a lot of mistakes (having expensive glass wares around your house where kids could break it is not their fault). For even more understanding, make sure to check out Funny Quotes About Life There our team share some of the funnier traits folks have actually mentioned about lifestyle, marital relationship, and also family. Visual performers bios is actually really a well-known theme within the film earth. Okay, okay, that was actually uncalled for, yet very seriously, the even more mistakes you create, the even more you discover. The greatest forerunners out there are actually the ones that produced the most errors but picked up from them. You are able to maintain removaling, not enabling the blunders to bind you to your past, nor allowing anxiety to maintain you from making an effort. OVERSIGHT 6: Weaker exterior hyperlink technique- This is actually yet another error which generally develops during the course of site development. Nanny McPhee is actually an excellent movie with a terrific notification for all kids to understand and also recognize. A big oversight very first time purchasers make is focusing on the month-to-month home remittance quantity when determining if they can manage a particular property. Try to find the feeble locations in your life like confining opinions that cause you to create errors and after that aim to change these restricting routines, ideas, and activities. Bear in mind that errors are certainly not indications from weak point or ineptitude; recuperating coming from all of them shows strength and determination. This's appealing that any sort of tendency to court or put down other people comes from our very own need to be mistake-free, our own worry of mistakes. If you have not created any sort of mistakes for some time, you may certainly not be actually giving your own self chances to run the risk of, to find out, or even to increase. Writers, Bloggers, Podcasters & Artists: Aiding you not merely develop & support a committed target market, yet effective ways to make use of your oversights so you transform them into your most significant endorsers but. Self-Care: Popular massage mistakes specialists create are actually that they carry out certainly not deal with themselves as high as they should. Oversight # 7 - Settling your insurance claim ahead of time, or seeming as well eager to settle your case very soon. Considering that you are actually too afraid to create an oversight, the only mistake that may definitely hurt you is opting for to do nothing merely. If you can manage to stay clear of making any of these 5 errors described over, you'll be properly set up to recover your ex-spouse partner's soul ... and also reconstruct a satisfied, caring relationship that will stand up the examination of your time. Yet, some of the largest reasons we restrict our own selves off new adventures is because-- although our company have actually all brought in as well as come through a lot of from them-- we hate blunders. Blunders exist to influence our team as well as encourage our company to keep relocating and also always keep feeding our Soul and our thoughts-- to keep living! Kids should come to be comfy in making errors and taking task in support to repair whatever happened. If you want your site to show up amongst the top 10 internet sites in SERPs, you have to stay clear of these frequently dedicated blunders in search engine optimization. Once more, there is actually no reason for this error - as well as it is one that are going to establish you in addition to the others in your field. A terrific perk of slipping up is actually that you will definitely know something you didn't know before, as well as maybe you can utilize this session in your future. I am actually not exactly sure that the decisions I made as operations manager from the Orbital Handling Car (OMV) course nearly 3 years earlier were actually automatically errors, however the complications that inevitably killed the OMV were actually undoubtedly real.

[succeedly]

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject

Catherine Davis-Hayes on episode 153 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

The graphic, performing, and theater arts are powerful allies for math, writing, and every subject you teach. As 2007 State Teacher of the Year in Rhode Island, Catherine Davis-Hayes is passionate about helping every teacher use the arts in their classroom. Today she shares techniques for teaching geometry and writing – but also a remarkable school-wide project.

Today’s Sponsor: Edpuzzle is my new favorite flipped classroom tool. You can take your videos or those from YouTube and:

Clip the video

Record your own voice over

Pause the video and add your voice just in certain spots

Add comments, multiple choice or open ended questions.

And if you click http://ift.tt/2wocZod, Edpuzzle will give your school access to the 50,000 best lessons from Edpuzzle, organized in folders and ready to be used by teachers. Once click and you have everything you need for the year!

Steve Jobs said in his final Apple keynote introducing the iPad 2,

“It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”

This past week, I had students modeling processors, hardware, and software using play-dough. Something so simple ignited their excitement and learning. Catherine’s lesson for us today is worth sharing with curriculum directors, superintendents, principals, and teachers who are serious about improving learning.

Former secretary of education, William Bennett, says,

“An elementary school that treats the arts as the province of a few gifted children, or views them only as recreation and entertainment, is a school that needs an infusion of soul. That arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

 We all need arts in every classroom, in every subject, in what we do as educators. Not only is it fun but it

Aids

Retention and makes

Teaching

Stick

Work to integrate arts into your lesson this week. (And I especially love the whole school “star trek” episodes they filmed. That project is FANTASTIC! Some of you will love doing it!)

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Arts in Every Subject: How to Make It Happen

Shownotes: http://ift.tt/2fbcBhO Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Introducing Catherine Davis-Hayes and her philosophy of arts in education

Vicki: So we’re here at the NNSTOY conference (nnstoy.org) and we’re talking with Catherine Davis-Hayes @cdhayes13, 2007 Rhode Island Teacher of the Year.

Now Catherine, you’re really passionate about having the arts in everything in a school. What’s your philosophy of that?

Catherine: Well, I think that any content area is more accessible to students and helps them to really understand that content if it’s used in real-world situations. And so, although I do see the benefit and also obviously the importance of teaching skills and processes and materials in my art room, I feel like the students are going to benefit in a greater way by applying it and actually using it to maybe demonstrate their understanding in other content areas.

So, for example, if there’s a math concept and you can bring in geometry shapes, creating artwork that uses the concepts, fractions, all the time observing proportions, and point out how much math they’re using in art, just by making the art. Not just necessarily make the project about math, but just point out, “Look at all the math you’re using as you’re creating your art.”

Or, exploring areas of social studies with the arts is a very, very easy way. And also, even though I’m a visual art teacher, I have become amazingly aware of the power of the performing arts. So I am not a dancer, and I am not a theater actor at all, but I have seen incredible connections made — through movement art and theater specifically – that have helped kids make connections to other content areas.

How does her school use the arts in everything?

Vicki: So does your school follow this whole philosophy of art in everything?

Catherine: We try. Things come and go over time. Funding comes and goes over time. We have had many of our teachers trained in arts integration. We had an amazing opportunity, going back ten years, to have professional development during the summer for as many of our teachers who were able.

Through a program called SmART Schools (http://ift.tt/2w6pgte), teachers were able to come in and learn how to they could use the arts inside their classrooms. So, it’s not always about the professional arts educator going in to a classroom. We taught really accessible tools that everyday classroom teachers could use in their classroom, and so that would be one level of arts integration and using the arts as a part of their toolkit to teach in the class.

And then, at sort of a deeper, larger scale level you could also team up with an art specialist – a music teacher, art teacher, and in our case we were super lucky to bring in a theater artist in residence – and then really put things on fire.

What is the common mistake people make integrating arts?

Vicki: Do you think there’s a common mistake that many educators have when they think about the arts in schools?

Catherine: I do. I sometimes think that when you mention, “Oh, let’s integrate the arts,” there’s always this vision of the movie or that TV show Fame where…

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: … suddenly everyone’s going to, like everything has to be a big huge production, that it means putting on a play or putting on a big production. And I think they get intimidated.

I also think that a lot of teachers don’t understand their own creativity. They assume, “Oh, I can’t draw a straight line, even with a ruler,” you know, that famous saying.

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: But they miss how creative they are every day in their classroom, and they miss that even the little things just doodling on a piece of paper, having kids sketch an idea first, getting kids up and moving to demonstrate a math concept.

“Let’s line up by height,” or you know, it doesn’t have to be smaller visual, music, auditory tools that help students connect.

Some easy ways to start with the arts in any classroom

Vicki: So if you could give us an “easy win” or two. You know, you’re talking to teachers of all kinds. “OK, here’s an easy way to integrate arts into your classroom.” What would you give us as an idea?

Catherine: I was reading the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

To have the kids really understand the concept of you can be a little piece and change the world… we had the kids get up and move around and act like that collection of little fish that formed the big fish.

Vicki: Oh…

Catherine: So, you know, just getting up out of your seat and mirroring an activity or solving a problem. You can do that in any classroom.

In the visual arts, having students illustrate the pictures of a story before they write it… Sometimes the pictures to tell the story come easier than the words. There are a lot of reluctant writers. If you have younger kids, just say “OK, here are five (places for) pictures. You have to have the beginning, the end, and then three pictures in between that bring you from that beginning to the end.” I don’t know of a kid who couldn’t sketch out a simple story.

And then have them write. And the writing goes deeper, because they’re not writing a story, they’re describing their art. And they can talk about art forever. They can tell you all about their art. Just one picture. But now they have maybe five simple pictures, and their story is going to be rich and descriptive and have all the detail that classroom teachers are hoping that their little writers could have.

Your proudest moments

Vicki: Catherine, describe on of your proudest moments at your school where you’re like, “OK. We’re ‘getting’ this!”

Catherine: (laughs)

So even though I just talked about doing little projects that are accessible, we’ve also done some pretty crazy big things, too.

One year, we did a project that was complete arts integration for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. The grade level classrooms took on a concept. The whole idea was to support what classroom teachers were doing in their classroom, and the bigger standards and the bigger content areas. Also, (we wanted to) teach about art and design.

asking the classroom teachers, “What is it that you want us to support you?” They might come up with a language arts content area, or a math concept, or a science concept. In this case, we asked teachers to specifically choose math or science because we wanted to do a STEM-to-STEAM arts integration.

So each grade level, each classroom at each grade level, picked a content area. Our theater artist in residence went in and created a planet – a fictional planet based on their concepts.

So for example, we had a third grade class with a Planet of the Shapes, because they were learning shapes in geometry. Another third grade class was Food Chain in the Ocean, and so they created an entire planet that was an ocean-based planet, and all of the interactions between all of the species were based on, “Eat or Be Eaten!” These are third graders.

We had a fourth grade planet that was based on magnetism. They were studying magnets in science.

And all the way up. And meanwhile the sixth graders had a health unit where they had to learn about body systems, how a disease or an issue could attack the body, and what you could do – either medically or the body would do to defeat that health system.

So they wrote episodes for Star Trek, and those sixth graders had to use the other planets on “away missions” to solve their problems.

At the end of the year, we actually filmed three Star Trek episodes where the sixth graders were the Star Fleet. And every piece of their learning could be seen in these episodes.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: They’re very low tech, but…

Vicki: Where did you air them? Did you air them on YouTube, or..?

Catherine: I have a blog on WordPress

Vicki: Ohhhhh… so you’ll give us a link? So we can share them! How exciting!

Catherine: They are there. Yeah!

And so the crowning achievement – You asked, “What was the proud moment?”

The proud moment was when I was driving in my car the summer after this had happened, and I was listening to NPR, and they had a physicist from Harvard talking about – a roboticist, I think.

Anyway, so he was talking about designing these little robots that were about the size of a quarter, and how they were designed.

Because when you go to Mars, you can’t bring all the tools that you might need. And they were talking about designing these little robots that – when they’re moving around they look like little spiders, and they can actually interconnect and become larger tools.

In one of our episodes, the Planet of the Shapes, the third graders’… That was what their shapes could do.

Their shapes were these cute little shapes that liked to dance. And then they would “freeze dance,” so when they froze, they would come together and make tools.

And so the Starship went to the Planet of the Shapes because they needed tools to fix their Starship.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: And… I’m driving, three months later, hearing that they made robots like this.

You know, they don’t go to Mars yet, but the idea was, “How are you going to solve the problem of bringing more tools than we have the ability to carry on a space mission?”

And my third graders were thinking in terms of, “What can geometric shapes do? They can be put together to make bigger shapes.”

Vicki: Wow. What happened when they found out? Did you tell them?

Catherine: I did. I showed them the podcast when we got back in the fall.

And they were… they were really excited about that, just to think… “You know, the whole idea is that we don’t know what’s going to exist twenty years from now. But you kids actually thought of an idea that Harvard robotics scientists are thinking about now.”

Vicki: And that is what happens when we pull art into everything.

Catherine: And it was student driven. That was the cool thing, was that the students chose the content. They didn’t need a teacher telling them, “You will make a planet about this concept.” They chose the concepts.

Vicki: Awesome.

So we’ve had a Wonderful Classroom Wednesday with Catherine Davis-Hayes. Check the Shownotes for links to these Star Trek episodes. I’m very fascinated to see what those look like.

And just remember, the power of the arts is really that the arts are everywhere.

You can read about this project and watch the episodes on Catherine’s Blog: STEAM Trek

I’ve embedded videos below.

Catherine: Thank you, Vicki.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Biography as Submitted

Cathy Davis Hayes is an elementary art teacher at Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick. When she was recognized as Rhode Island Teacher of the Year, she had been teaching in her position for 11 years. Cathy originally started as a commercial artist, but was motivated to become a teacher after volunteering at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.

Cathy believes in the power of the arts to help students make connections between ideas from throughout all their areas of study, and she is passionate about enriching her students’ lives every day.

She was central to Oakland Beach Elementary’s classification as a SmART School, where arts are given a heavy focus in the curriculum. Cathy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was Rhode Island’s 2007 State Teacher of the Year.

Twitter: @cdhayes13

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post Integrating the Arts into Every Subject appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject published first on http://ift.tt/2jn9f0m

[growthvue]

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject

Catherine Davis-Hayes on episode 153 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

The graphic, performing, and theater arts are powerful allies for math, writing, and every subject you teach. As 2007 State Teacher of the Year in Rhode Island, Catherine Davis-Hayes is passionate about helping every teacher use the arts in their classroom. Today she shares techniques for teaching geometry and writing – but also a remarkable school-wide project.

Today’s Sponsor: Edpuzzle is my new favorite flipped classroom tool. You can take your videos or those from YouTube and:

Clip the video

Record your own voice over

Pause the video and add your voice just in certain spots

Add comments, multiple choice or open ended questions.

And if you click http://ift.tt/2wocZod, Edpuzzle will give your school access to the 50,000 best lessons from Edpuzzle, organized in folders and ready to be used by teachers. Once click and you have everything you need for the year!

Steve Jobs said in his final Apple keynote introducing the iPad 2,

“It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”

This past week, I had students modeling processors, hardware, and software using play-dough. Something so simple ignited their excitement and learning. Catherine’s lesson for us today is worth sharing with curriculum directors, superintendents, principals, and teachers who are serious about improving learning.

Former secretary of education, William Bennett, says,

“An elementary school that treats the arts as the province of a few gifted children, or views them only as recreation and entertainment, is a school that needs an infusion of soul. That arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

 We all need arts in every classroom, in every subject, in what we do as educators. Not only is it fun but it

Aids

Retention and makes

Teaching

Stick

Work to integrate arts into your lesson this week. (And I especially love the whole school “star trek” episodes they filmed. That project is FANTASTIC! Some of you will love doing it!)

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Arts in Every Subject: How to Make It Happen

Shownotes: http://ift.tt/2fbcBhO Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Introducing Catherine Davis-Hayes and her philosophy of arts in education

Vicki: So we’re here at the NNSTOY conference (nnstoy.org) and we’re talking with Catherine Davis-Hayes @cdhayes13, 2007 Rhode Island Teacher of the Year.

Now Catherine, you’re really passionate about having the arts in everything in a school. What’s your philosophy of that?

Catherine: Well, I think that any content area is more accessible to students and helps them to really understand that content if it’s used in real-world situations. And so, although I do see the benefit and also obviously the importance of teaching skills and processes and materials in my art room, I feel like the students are going to benefit in a greater way by applying it and actually using it to maybe demonstrate their understanding in other content areas.

So, for example, if there’s a math concept and you can bring in geometry shapes, creating artwork that uses the concepts, fractions, all the time observing proportions, and point out how much math they’re using in art, just by making the art. Not just necessarily make the project about math, but just point out, “Look at all the math you’re using as you’re creating your art.”

Or, exploring areas of social studies with the arts is a very, very easy way. And also, even though I’m a visual art teacher, I have become amazingly aware of the power of the performing arts. So I am not a dancer, and I am not a theater actor at all, but I have seen incredible connections made — through movement art and theater specifically – that have helped kids make connections to other content areas.

How does her school use the arts in everything?

Vicki: So does your school follow this whole philosophy of art in everything?

Catherine: We try. Things come and go over time. Funding comes and goes over time. We have had many of our teachers trained in arts integration. We had an amazing opportunity, going back ten years, to have professional development during the summer for as many of our teachers who were able.

Through a program called SmART Schools (http://ift.tt/2w6pgte), teachers were able to come in and learn how to they could use the arts inside their classrooms. So, it’s not always about the professional arts educator going in to a classroom. We taught really accessible tools that everyday classroom teachers could use in their classroom, and so that would be one level of arts integration and using the arts as a part of their toolkit to teach in the class.

And then, at sort of a deeper, larger scale level you could also team up with an art specialist – a music teacher, art teacher, and in our case we were super lucky to bring in a theater artist in residence – and then really put things on fire.

What is the common mistake people make integrating arts?

Vicki: Do you think there’s a common mistake that many educators have when they think about the arts in schools?

Catherine: I do. I sometimes think that when you mention, “Oh, let’s integrate the arts,” there’s always this vision of the movie or that TV show Fame where…

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: … suddenly everyone’s going to, like everything has to be a big huge production, that it means putting on a play or putting on a big production. And I think they get intimidated.

I also think that a lot of teachers don’t understand their own creativity. They assume, “Oh, I can’t draw a straight line, even with a ruler,” you know, that famous saying.

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: But they miss how creative they are every day in their classroom, and they miss that even the little things just doodling on a piece of paper, having kids sketch an idea first, getting kids up and moving to demonstrate a math concept.

“Let’s line up by height,” or you know, it doesn’t have to be smaller visual, music, auditory tools that help students connect.

Some easy ways to start with the arts in any classroom

Vicki: So if you could give us an “easy win” or two. You know, you’re talking to teachers of all kinds. “OK, here’s an easy way to integrate arts into your classroom.” What would you give us as an idea?

Catherine: I was reading the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

To have the kids really understand the concept of you can be a little piece and change the world… we had the kids get up and move around and act like that collection of little fish that formed the big fish.

Vicki: Oh…

Catherine: So, you know, just getting up out of your seat and mirroring an activity or solving a problem. You can do that in any classroom.

In the visual arts, having students illustrate the pictures of a story before they write it… Sometimes the pictures to tell the story come easier than the words. There are a lot of reluctant writers. If you have younger kids, just say “OK, here are five (places for) pictures. You have to have the beginning, the end, and then three pictures in between that bring you from that beginning to the end.” I don’t know of a kid who couldn’t sketch out a simple story.

And then have them write. And the writing goes deeper, because they’re not writing a story, they’re describing their art. And they can talk about art forever. They can tell you all about their art. Just one picture. But now they have maybe five simple pictures, and their story is going to be rich and descriptive and have all the detail that classroom teachers are hoping that their little writers could have.

Your proudest moments

Vicki: Catherine, describe on of your proudest moments at your school where you’re like, “OK. We’re ‘getting’ this!”

Catherine: (laughs)

So even though I just talked about doing little projects that are accessible, we’ve also done some pretty crazy big things, too.

One year, we did a project that was complete arts integration for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. The grade level classrooms took on a concept. The whole idea was to support what classroom teachers were doing in their classroom, and the bigger standards and the bigger content areas. Also, (we wanted to) teach about art and design.

asking the classroom teachers, “What is it that you want us to support you?” They might come up with a language arts content area, or a math concept, or a science concept. In this case, we asked teachers to specifically choose math or science because we wanted to do a STEM-to-STEAM arts integration.

So each grade level, each classroom at each grade level, picked a content area. Our theater artist in residence went in and created a planet – a fictional planet based on their concepts.

So for example, we had a third grade class with a Planet of the Shapes, because they were learning shapes in geometry. Another third grade class was Food Chain in the Ocean, and so they created an entire planet that was an ocean-based planet, and all of the interactions between all of the species were based on, “Eat or Be Eaten!” These are third graders.

We had a fourth grade planet that was based on magnetism. They were studying magnets in science.

And all the way up. And meanwhile the sixth graders had a health unit where they had to learn about body systems, how a disease or an issue could attack the body, and what you could do – either medically or the body would do to defeat that health system.

So they wrote episodes for Star Trek, and those sixth graders had to use the other planets on “away missions” to solve their problems.

At the end of the year, we actually filmed three Star Trek episodes where the sixth graders were the Star Fleet. And every piece of their learning could be seen in these episodes.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: They’re very low tech, but…

Vicki: Where did you air them? Did you air them on YouTube, or..?

Catherine: I have a blog on WordPress

Vicki: Ohhhhh… so you’ll give us a link? So we can share them! How exciting!

Catherine: They are there. Yeah!

And so the crowning achievement – You asked, “What was the proud moment?”

The proud moment was when I was driving in my car the summer after this had happened, and I was listening to NPR, and they had a physicist from Harvard talking about – a roboticist, I think.

Anyway, so he was talking about designing these little robots that were about the size of a quarter, and how they were designed.

Because when you go to Mars, you can’t bring all the tools that you might need. And they were talking about designing these little robots that – when they’re moving around they look like little spiders, and they can actually interconnect and become larger tools.

In one of our episodes, the Planet of the Shapes, the third graders’… That was what their shapes could do.

Their shapes were these cute little shapes that liked to dance. And then they would “freeze dance,” so when they froze, they would come together and make tools.

And so the Starship went to the Planet of the Shapes because they needed tools to fix their Starship.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: And… I’m driving, three months later, hearing that they made robots like this.

You know, they don’t go to Mars yet, but the idea was, “How are you going to solve the problem of bringing more tools than we have the ability to carry on a space mission?”

And my third graders were thinking in terms of, “What can geometric shapes do? They can be put together to make bigger shapes.”

Vicki: Wow. What happened when they found out? Did you tell them?

Catherine: I did. I showed them the podcast when we got back in the fall.

And they were… they were really excited about that, just to think… “You know, the whole idea is that we don’t know what’s going to exist twenty years from now. But you kids actually thought of an idea that Harvard robotics scientists are thinking about now.”

Vicki: And that is what happens when we pull art into everything.

Catherine: And it was student driven. That was the cool thing, was that the students chose the content. They didn’t need a teacher telling them, “You will make a planet about this concept.” They chose the concepts.

Vicki: Awesome.

So we’ve had a Wonderful Classroom Wednesday with Catherine Davis-Hayes. Check the Shownotes for links to these Star Trek episodes. I’m very fascinated to see what those look like.

And just remember, the power of the arts is really that the arts are everywhere.

You can read about this project and watch the episodes on Catherine’s Blog: STEAM Trek

I’ve embedded videos below.

Catherine: Thank you, Vicki.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Biography as Submitted

Cathy Davis Hayes is an elementary art teacher at Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick. When she was recognized as Rhode Island Teacher of the Year, she had been teaching in her position for 11 years. Cathy originally started as a commercial artist, but was motivated to become a teacher after volunteering at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.

Cathy believes in the power of the arts to help students make connections between ideas from throughout all their areas of study, and she is passionate about enriching her students’ lives every day.

She was central to Oakland Beach Elementary’s classification as a SmART School, where arts are given a heavy focus in the curriculum. Cathy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was Rhode Island’s 2007 State Teacher of the Year.

Twitter: @cdhayes13

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post Integrating the Arts into Every Subject appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject published first on http://ift.tt/2xx6Oyq

[aira26soonas]

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject

Catherine Davis-Hayes on episode 153 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

The graphic, performing, and theater arts are powerful allies for math, writing, and every subject you teach. As 2007 State Teacher of the Year in Rhode Island, Catherine Davis-Hayes is passionate about helping every teacher use the arts in their classroom. Today she shares techniques for teaching geometry and writing – but also a remarkable school-wide project.

Today’s Sponsor: Edpuzzle is my new favorite flipped classroom tool. You can take your videos or those from YouTube and:

Clip the video

Record your own voice over

Pause the video and add your voice just in certain spots

Add comments, multiple choice or open ended questions.

And if you click www.coolcatteacher.com/edpuzzle, Edpuzzle will give your school access to the 50,000 best lessons from Edpuzzle, organized in folders and ready to be used by teachers. Once click and you have everything you need for the year!

Steve Jobs said in his final Apple keynote introducing the iPad 2,

“It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”

This past week, I had students modeling processors, hardware, and software using play-dough. Something so simple ignited their excitement and learning. Catherine’s lesson for us today is worth sharing with curriculum directors, superintendents, principals, and teachers who are serious about improving learning.

Former secretary of education, William Bennett, says,

“An elementary school that treats the arts as the province of a few gifted children, or views them only as recreation and entertainment, is a school that needs an infusion of soul. That arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

 We all need arts in every classroom, in every subject, in what we do as educators. Not only is it fun but it

Aids

Retention and makes

Teaching

Stick

Work to integrate arts into your lesson this week. (And I especially love the whole school “star trek” episodes they filmed. That project is FANTASTIC! Some of you will love doing it!)

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Arts in Every Subject: How to Make It Happen

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e153 Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Introducing Catherine Davis-Hayes and her philosophy of arts in education

Vicki: So we’re here at the NNSTOY conference (nnstoy.org) and we’re talking with Catherine Davis-Hayes @cdhayes13, 2007 Rhode Island Teacher of the Year.

Now Catherine, you’re really passionate about having the arts in everything in a school. What’s your philosophy of that?

Catherine: Well, I think that any content area is more accessible to students and helps them to really understand that content if it’s used in real-world situations. And so, although I do see the benefit and also obviously the importance of teaching skills and processes and materials in my art room, I feel like the students are going to benefit in a greater way by applying it and actually using it to maybe demonstrate their understanding in other content areas.

So, for example, if there’s a math concept and you can bring in geometry shapes, creating artwork that uses the concepts, fractions, all the time observing proportions, and point out how much math they’re using in art, just by making the art. Not just necessarily make the project about math, but just point out, “Look at all the math you’re using as you’re creating your art.”

Or, exploring areas of social studies with the arts is a very, very easy way. And also, even though I’m a visual art teacher, I have become amazingly aware of the power of the performing arts. So I am not a dancer, and I am not a theater actor at all, but I have seen incredible connections made — through movement art and theater specifically – that have helped kids make connections to other content areas.

How does her school use the arts in everything?

Vicki: So does your school follow this whole philosophy of art in everything?

Catherine: We try. Things come and go over time. Funding comes and goes over time. We have had many of our teachers trained in arts integration. We had an amazing opportunity, going back ten years, to have professional development during the summer for as many of our teachers who were able.

Through a program called SmART Schools (www.smartschoolsnetwork.org), teachers were able to come in and learn how to they could use the arts inside their classrooms. So, it’s not always about the professional arts educator going in to a classroom. We taught really accessible tools that everyday classroom teachers could use in their classroom, and so that would be one level of arts integration and using the arts as a part of their toolkit to teach in the class.

And then, at sort of a deeper, larger scale level you could also team up with an art specialist – a music teacher, art teacher, and in our case we were super lucky to bring in a theater artist in residence – and then really put things on fire.

What is the common mistake people make integrating arts?

Vicki: Do you think there’s a common mistake that many educators have when they think about the arts in schools?

Catherine: I do. I sometimes think that when you mention, “Oh, let’s integrate the arts,” there’s always this vision of the movie or that TV show Fame where…

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: … suddenly everyone’s going to, like everything has to be a big huge production, that it means putting on a play or putting on a big production. And I think they get intimidated.

I also think that a lot of teachers don’t understand their own creativity. They assume, “Oh, I can’t draw a straight line, even with a ruler,” you know, that famous saying.

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: But they miss how creative they are every day in their classroom, and they miss that even the little things just doodling on a piece of paper, having kids sketch an idea first, getting kids up and moving to demonstrate a math concept.

“Let’s line up by height,” or you know, it doesn’t have to be smaller visual, music, auditory tools that help students connect.

Some easy ways to start with the arts in any classroom

Vicki: So if you could give us an “easy win” or two. You know, you’re talking to teachers of all kinds. “OK, here’s an easy way to integrate arts into your classroom.” What would you give us as an idea?

Catherine: I was reading the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

To have the kids really understand the concept of you can be a little piece and change the world… we had the kids get up and move around and act like that collection of little fish that formed the big fish.

Vicki: Oh…

Catherine: So, you know, just getting up out of your seat and mirroring an activity or solving a problem. You can do that in any classroom.

In the visual arts, having students illustrate the pictures of a story before they write it… Sometimes the pictures to tell the story come easier than the words. There are a lot of reluctant writers. If you have younger kids, just say “OK, here are five (places for) pictures. You have to have the beginning, the end, and then three pictures in between that bring you from that beginning to the end.” I don’t know of a kid who couldn’t sketch out a simple story.

And then have them write. And the writing goes deeper, because they’re not writing a story, they’re describing their art. And they can talk about art forever. They can tell you all about their art. Just one picture. But now they have maybe five simple pictures, and their story is going to be rich and descriptive and have all the detail that classroom teachers are hoping that their little writers could have.

Your proudest moments

Vicki: Catherine, describe on of your proudest moments at your school where you’re like, “OK. We’re ‘getting’ this!”

Catherine: (laughs)

So even though I just talked about doing little projects that are accessible, we’ve also done some pretty crazy big things, too.

One year, we did a project that was complete arts integration for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. The grade level classrooms took on a concept. The whole idea was to support what classroom teachers were doing in their classroom, and the bigger standards and the bigger content areas. Also, (we wanted to) teach about art and design.

asking the classroom teachers, “What is it that you want us to support you?” They might come up with a language arts content area, or a math concept, or a science concept. In this case, we asked teachers to specifically choose math or science because we wanted to do a STEM-to-STEAM arts integration.

So each grade level, each classroom at each grade level, picked a content area. Our theater artist in residence went in and created a planet – a fictional planet based on their concepts.

So for example, we had a third grade class with a Planet of the Shapes, because they were learning shapes in geometry. Another third grade class was Food Chain in the Ocean, and so they created an entire planet that was an ocean-based planet, and all of the interactions between all of the species were based on, “Eat or Be Eaten!” These are third graders.

We had a fourth grade planet that was based on magnetism. They were studying magnets in science.

And all the way up. And meanwhile the sixth graders had a health unit where they had to learn about body systems, how a disease or an issue could attack the body, and what you could do – either medically or the body would do to defeat that health system.

So they wrote episodes for Star Trek, and those sixth graders had to use the other planets on “away missions” to solve their problems.

At the end of the year, we actually filmed three Star Trek episodes where the sixth graders were the Star Fleet. And every piece of their learning could be seen in these episodes.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: They’re very low tech, but…

Vicki: Where did you air them? Did you air them on YouTube, or..?

Catherine: I have a blog on WordPress

Vicki: Ohhhhh… so you’ll give us a link? So we can share them! How exciting!

Catherine: They are there. Yeah!

And so the crowning achievement – You asked, “What was the proud moment?”

The proud moment was when I was driving in my car the summer after this had happened, and I was listening to NPR, and they had a physicist from Harvard talking about – a roboticist, I think.

Anyway, so he was talking about designing these little robots that were about the size of a quarter, and how they were designed.

Because when you go to Mars, you can’t bring all the tools that you might need. And they were talking about designing these little robots that – when they’re moving around they look like little spiders, and they can actually interconnect and become larger tools.

In one of our episodes, the Planet of the Shapes, the third graders’… That was what their shapes could do.

Their shapes were these cute little shapes that liked to dance. And then they would “freeze dance,” so when they froze, they would come together and make tools.

And so the Starship went to the Planet of the Shapes because they needed tools to fix their Starship.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: And… I’m driving, three months later, hearing that they made robots like this.

You know, they don’t go to Mars yet, but the idea was, “How are you going to solve the problem of bringing more tools than we have the ability to carry on a space mission?”

And my third graders were thinking in terms of, “What can geometric shapes do? They can be put together to make bigger shapes.”

Vicki: Wow. What happened when they found out? Did you tell them?

Catherine: I did. I showed them the podcast when we got back in the fall.

And they were… they were really excited about that, just to think… “You know, the whole idea is that we don’t know what’s going to exist twenty years from now. But you kids actually thought of an idea that Harvard robotics scientists are thinking about now.”

Vicki: And that is what happens when we pull art into everything.

Catherine: And it was student driven. That was the cool thing, was that the students chose the content. They didn’t need a teacher telling them, “You will make a planet about this concept.” They chose the concepts.

Vicki: Awesome.

So we’ve had a Wonderful Classroom Wednesday with Catherine Davis-Hayes. Check the Shownotes for links to these Star Trek episodes. I’m very fascinated to see what those look like.

And just remember, the power of the arts is really that the arts are everywhere.

You can read about this project and watch the episodes on Catherine’s Blog: STEAM Trek

I’ve embedded videos below.

Catherine: Thank you, Vicki.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Biography as Submitted

Cathy Davis Hayes is an elementary art teacher at Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick. When she was recognized as Rhode Island Teacher of the Year, she had been teaching in her position for 11 years. Cathy originally started as a commercial artist, but was motivated to become a teacher after volunteering at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.

Cathy believes in the power of the arts to help students make connections between ideas from throughout all their areas of study, and she is passionate about enriching her students’ lives every day.

She was central to Oakland Beach Elementary’s classification as a SmART School, where arts are given a heavy focus in the curriculum. Cathy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was Rhode Island’s 2007 State Teacher of the Year.

Twitter: @cdhayes13

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post Integrating the Arts into Every Subject appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e153/

[ralph31ortiz]

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject

Catherine Davis-Hayes on episode 153 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

The graphic, performing, and theater arts are powerful allies for math, writing, and every subject you teach. As 2007 State Teacher of the Year in Rhode Island, Catherine Davis-Hayes is passionate about helping every teacher use the arts in their classroom. Today she shares techniques for teaching geometry and writing – but also a remarkable school-wide project.

Today’s Sponsor: Edpuzzle is my new favorite flipped classroom tool. You can take your videos or those from YouTube and:

Clip the video

Record your own voice over

Pause the video and add your voice just in certain spots

Add comments, multiple choice or open ended questions.

And if you click www.coolcatteacher.com/edpuzzle, Edpuzzle will give your school access to the 50,000 best lessons from Edpuzzle, organized in folders and ready to be used by teachers. Once click and you have everything you need for the year!

Steve Jobs said in his final Apple keynote introducing the iPad 2,

“It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”

This past week, I had students modeling processors, hardware, and software using play-dough. Something so simple ignited their excitement and learning. Catherine’s lesson for us today is worth sharing with curriculum directors, superintendents, principals, and teachers who are serious about improving learning.

Former secretary of education, William Bennett, says,

“An elementary school that treats the arts as the province of a few gifted children, or views them only as recreation and entertainment, is a school that needs an infusion of soul. That arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

 We all need arts in every classroom, in every subject, in what we do as educators. Not only is it fun but it

Aids

Retention and makes

Teaching

Stick

Work to integrate arts into your lesson this week. (And I especially love the whole school “star trek” episodes they filmed. That project is FANTASTIC! Some of you will love doing it!)

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Arts in Every Subject: How to Make It Happen

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e153 Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Introducing Catherine Davis-Hayes and her philosophy of arts in education

Vicki: So we’re here at the NNSTOY conference (nnstoy.org) and we’re talking with Catherine Davis-Hayes @cdhayes13, 2007 Rhode Island Teacher of the Year.

Now Catherine, you’re really passionate about having the arts in everything in a school. What’s your philosophy of that?

Catherine: Well, I think that any content area is more accessible to students and helps them to really understand that content if it’s used in real-world situations. And so, although I do see the benefit and also obviously the importance of teaching skills and processes and materials in my art room, I feel like the students are going to benefit in a greater way by applying it and actually using it to maybe demonstrate their understanding in other content areas.

So, for example, if there’s a math concept and you can bring in geometry shapes, creating artwork that uses the concepts, fractions, all the time observing proportions, and point out how much math they’re using in art, just by making the art. Not just necessarily make the project about math, but just point out, “Look at all the math you’re using as you’re creating your art.”

Or, exploring areas of social studies with the arts is a very, very easy way. And also, even though I’m a visual art teacher, I have become amazingly aware of the power of the performing arts. So I am not a dancer, and I am not a theater actor at all, but I have seen incredible connections made — through movement art and theater specifically – that have helped kids make connections to other content areas.

How does her school use the arts in everything?

Vicki: So does your school follow this whole philosophy of art in everything?

Catherine: We try. Things come and go over time. Funding comes and goes over time. We have had many of our teachers trained in arts integration. We had an amazing opportunity, going back ten years, to have professional development during the summer for as many of our teachers who were able.

Through a program called SmART Schools (www.smartschoolsnetwork.org), teachers were able to come in and learn how to they could use the arts inside their classrooms. So, it’s not always about the professional arts educator going in to a classroom. We taught really accessible tools that everyday classroom teachers could use in their classroom, and so that would be one level of arts integration and using the arts as a part of their toolkit to teach in the class.

And then, at sort of a deeper, larger scale level you could also team up with an art specialist – a music teacher, art teacher, and in our case we were super lucky to bring in a theater artist in residence – and then really put things on fire.

What is the common mistake people make integrating arts?

Vicki: Do you think there’s a common mistake that many educators have when they think about the arts in schools?

Catherine: I do. I sometimes think that when you mention, “Oh, let’s integrate the arts,” there’s always this vision of the movie or that TV show Fame where…

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: … suddenly everyone’s going to, like everything has to be a big huge production, that it means putting on a play or putting on a big production. And I think they get intimidated.

I also think that a lot of teachers don’t understand their own creativity. They assume, “Oh, I can’t draw a straight line, even with a ruler,” you know, that famous saying.

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: But they miss how creative they are every day in their classroom, and they miss that even the little things just doodling on a piece of paper, having kids sketch an idea first, getting kids up and moving to demonstrate a math concept.

“Let’s line up by height,” or you know, it doesn’t have to be smaller visual, music, auditory tools that help students connect.

Some easy ways to start with the arts in any classroom

Vicki: So if you could give us an “easy win” or two. You know, you’re talking to teachers of all kinds. “OK, here’s an easy way to integrate arts into your classroom.” What would you give us as an idea?

Catherine: I was reading the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

To have the kids really understand the concept of you can be a little piece and change the world… we had the kids get up and move around and act like that collection of little fish that formed the big fish.

Vicki: Oh…

Catherine: So, you know, just getting up out of your seat and mirroring an activity or solving a problem. You can do that in any classroom.

In the visual arts, having students illustrate the pictures of a story before they write it… Sometimes the pictures to tell the story come easier than the words. There are a lot of reluctant writers. If you have younger kids, just say “OK, here are five (places for) pictures. You have to have the beginning, the end, and then three pictures in between that bring you from that beginning to the end.” I don’t know of a kid who couldn’t sketch out a simple story.

And then have them write. And the writing goes deeper, because they’re not writing a story, they’re describing their art. And they can talk about art forever. They can tell you all about their art. Just one picture. But now they have maybe five simple pictures, and their story is going to be rich and descriptive and have all the detail that classroom teachers are hoping that their little writers could have.

Your proudest moments

Vicki: Catherine, describe on of your proudest moments at your school where you’re like, “OK. We’re ‘getting’ this!”

Catherine: (laughs)

So even though I just talked about doing little projects that are accessible, we’ve also done some pretty crazy big things, too.

One year, we did a project that was complete arts integration for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. The grade level classrooms took on a concept. The whole idea was to support what classroom teachers were doing in their classroom, and the bigger standards and the bigger content areas. Also, (we wanted to) teach about art and design.

asking the classroom teachers, “What is it that you want us to support you?” They might come up with a language arts content area, or a math concept, or a science concept. In this case, we asked teachers to specifically choose math or science because we wanted to do a STEM-to-STEAM arts integration.

So each grade level, each classroom at each grade level, picked a content area. Our theater artist in residence went in and created a planet – a fictional planet based on their concepts.

So for example, we had a third grade class with a Planet of the Shapes, because they were learning shapes in geometry. Another third grade class was Food Chain in the Ocean, and so they created an entire planet that was an ocean-based planet, and all of the interactions between all of the species were based on, “Eat or Be Eaten!” These are third graders.

We had a fourth grade planet that was based on magnetism. They were studying magnets in science.

And all the way up. And meanwhile the sixth graders had a health unit where they had to learn about body systems, how a disease or an issue could attack the body, and what you could do – either medically or the body would do to defeat that health system.

So they wrote episodes for Star Trek, and those sixth graders had to use the other planets on “away missions” to solve their problems.

At the end of the year, we actually filmed three Star Trek episodes where the sixth graders were the Star Fleet. And every piece of their learning could be seen in these episodes.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: They’re very low tech, but…

Vicki: Where did you air them? Did you air them on YouTube, or..?

Catherine: I have a blog on WordPress

Vicki: Ohhhhh… so you’ll give us a link? So we can share them! How exciting!

Catherine: They are there. Yeah!

And so the crowning achievement – You asked, “What was the proud moment?”

The proud moment was when I was driving in my car the summer after this had happened, and I was listening to NPR, and they had a physicist from Harvard talking about – a roboticist, I think.

Anyway, so he was talking about designing these little robots that were about the size of a quarter, and how they were designed.

Because when you go to Mars, you can’t bring all the tools that you might need. And they were talking about designing these little robots that – when they’re moving around they look like little spiders, and they can actually interconnect and become larger tools.

In one of our episodes, the Planet of the Shapes, the third graders’… That was what their shapes could do.

Their shapes were these cute little shapes that liked to dance. And then they would “freeze dance,” so when they froze, they would come together and make tools.

And so the Starship went to the Planet of the Shapes because they needed tools to fix their Starship.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: And… I’m driving, three months later, hearing that they made robots like this.

You know, they don’t go to Mars yet, but the idea was, “How are you going to solve the problem of bringing more tools than we have the ability to carry on a space mission?”

And my third graders were thinking in terms of, “What can geometric shapes do? They can be put together to make bigger shapes.”

Vicki: Wow. What happened when they found out? Did you tell them?

Catherine: I did. I showed them the podcast when we got back in the fall.

And they were… they were really excited about that, just to think… “You know, the whole idea is that we don’t know what’s going to exist twenty years from now. But you kids actually thought of an idea that Harvard robotics scientists are thinking about now.”

Vicki: And that is what happens when we pull art into everything.

Catherine: And it was student driven. That was the cool thing, was that the students chose the content. They didn’t need a teacher telling them, “You will make a planet about this concept.” They chose the concepts.

Vicki: Awesome.

So we’ve had a Wonderful Classroom Wednesday with Catherine Davis-Hayes. Check the Shownotes for links to these Star Trek episodes. I’m very fascinated to see what those look like.

And just remember, the power of the arts is really that the arts are everywhere.

You can read about this project and watch the episodes on Catherine’s Blog: STEAM Trek

I’ve embedded videos below.

Catherine: Thank you, Vicki.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Biography as Submitted

Cathy Davis Hayes is an elementary art teacher at Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick. When she was recognized as Rhode Island Teacher of the Year, she had been teaching in her position for 11 years. Cathy originally started as a commercial artist, but was motivated to become a teacher after volunteering at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.

Cathy believes in the power of the arts to help students make connections between ideas from throughout all their areas of study, and she is passionate about enriching her students’ lives every day.

She was central to Oakland Beach Elementary’s classification as a SmART School, where arts are given a heavy focus in the curriculum. Cathy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was Rhode Island’s 2007 State Teacher of the Year.

Twitter: @cdhayes13

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post Integrating the Arts into Every Subject appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e153/

[patriciaanderson357-blog]

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject

Catherine Davis-Hayes on episode 153 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

The graphic, performing, and theater arts are powerful allies for math, writing, and every subject you teach. As 2007 State Teacher of the Year in Rhode Island, Catherine Davis-Hayes is passionate about helping every teacher use the arts in their classroom. Today she shares techniques for teaching geometry and writing – but also a remarkable school-wide project.

Today’s Sponsor: Edpuzzle is my new favorite flipped classroom tool. You can take your videos or those from YouTube and:

Clip the video

Record your own voice over

Pause the video and add your voice just in certain spots

Add comments, multiple choice or open ended questions.

And if you click www.coolcatteacher.com/edpuzzle, Edpuzzle will give your school access to the 50,000 best lessons from Edpuzzle, organized in folders and ready to be used by teachers. Once click and you have everything you need for the year!

Steve Jobs said in his final Apple keynote introducing the iPad 2,

“It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”

This past week, I had students modeling processors, hardware, and software using play-dough. Something so simple ignited their excitement and learning. Catherine’s lesson for us today is worth sharing with curriculum directors, superintendents, principals, and teachers who are serious about improving learning.

Former secretary of education, William Bennett, says,

“An elementary school that treats the arts as the province of a few gifted children, or views them only as recreation and entertainment, is a school that needs an infusion of soul. That arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

 We all need arts in every classroom, in every subject, in what we do as educators. Not only is it fun but it

Aids

Retention and makes

Teaching

Stick

Work to integrate arts into your lesson this week. (And I especially love the whole school “star trek” episodes they filmed. That project is FANTASTIC! Some of you will love doing it!)

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Arts in Every Subject: How to Make It Happen

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e153 Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Introducing Catherine Davis-Hayes and her philosophy of arts in education

Vicki: So we’re here at the NNSTOY conference (nnstoy.org) and we’re talking with Catherine Davis-Hayes @cdhayes13, 2007 Rhode Island Teacher of the Year.

Now Catherine, you’re really passionate about having the arts in everything in a school. What’s your philosophy of that?

Catherine: Well, I think that any content area is more accessible to students and helps them to really understand that content if it’s used in real-world situations. And so, although I do see the benefit and also obviously the importance of teaching skills and processes and materials in my art room, I feel like the students are going to benefit in a greater way by applying it and actually using it to maybe demonstrate their understanding in other content areas.

So, for example, if there’s a math concept and you can bring in geometry shapes, creating artwork that uses the concepts, fractions, all the time observing proportions, and point out how much math they’re using in art, just by making the art. Not just necessarily make the project about math, but just point out, “Look at all the math you’re using as you’re creating your art.”

Or, exploring areas of social studies with the arts is a very, very easy way. And also, even though I’m a visual art teacher, I have become amazingly aware of the power of the performing arts. So I am not a dancer, and I am not a theater actor at all, but I have seen incredible connections made — through movement art and theater specifically – that have helped kids make connections to other content areas.

How does her school use the arts in everything?

Vicki: So does your school follow this whole philosophy of art in everything?

Catherine: We try. Things come and go over time. Funding comes and goes over time. We have had many of our teachers trained in arts integration. We had an amazing opportunity, going back ten years, to have professional development during the summer for as many of our teachers who were able.

Through a program called SmART Schools (www.smartschoolsnetwork.org), teachers were able to come in and learn how to they could use the arts inside their classrooms. So, it’s not always about the professional arts educator going in to a classroom. We taught really accessible tools that everyday classroom teachers could use in their classroom, and so that would be one level of arts integration and using the arts as a part of their toolkit to teach in the class.

And then, at sort of a deeper, larger scale level you could also team up with an art specialist – a music teacher, art teacher, and in our case we were super lucky to bring in a theater artist in residence – and then really put things on fire.

What is the common mistake people make integrating arts?

Vicki: Do you think there’s a common mistake that many educators have when they think about the arts in schools?

Catherine: I do. I sometimes think that when you mention, “Oh, let’s integrate the arts,” there’s always this vision of the movie or that TV show Fame where…

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: … suddenly everyone’s going to, like everything has to be a big huge production, that it means putting on a play or putting on a big production. And I think they get intimidated.

I also think that a lot of teachers don’t understand their own creativity. They assume, “Oh, I can’t draw a straight line, even with a ruler,” you know, that famous saying.

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: But they miss how creative they are every day in their classroom, and they miss that even the little things just doodling on a piece of paper, having kids sketch an idea first, getting kids up and moving to demonstrate a math concept.

“Let’s line up by height,” or you know, it doesn’t have to be smaller visual, music, auditory tools that help students connect.

Some easy ways to start with the arts in any classroom

Vicki: So if you could give us an “easy win” or two. You know, you’re talking to teachers of all kinds. “OK, here’s an easy way to integrate arts into your classroom.” What would you give us as an idea?

Catherine: I was reading the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

To have the kids really understand the concept of you can be a little piece and change the world… we had the kids get up and move around and act like that collection of little fish that formed the big fish.

Vicki: Oh…

Catherine: So, you know, just getting up out of your seat and mirroring an activity or solving a problem. You can do that in any classroom.

In the visual arts, having students illustrate the pictures of a story before they write it… Sometimes the pictures to tell the story come easier than the words. There are a lot of reluctant writers. If you have younger kids, just say “OK, here are five (places for) pictures. You have to have the beginning, the end, and then three pictures in between that bring you from that beginning to the end.” I don’t know of a kid who couldn’t sketch out a simple story.

And then have them write. And the writing goes deeper, because they’re not writing a story, they’re describing their art. And they can talk about art forever. They can tell you all about their art. Just one picture. But now they have maybe five simple pictures, and their story is going to be rich and descriptive and have all the detail that classroom teachers are hoping that their little writers could have.

Your proudest moments

Vicki: Catherine, describe on of your proudest moments at your school where you’re like, “OK. We’re ‘getting’ this!”

Catherine: (laughs)

So even though I just talked about doing little projects that are accessible, we’ve also done some pretty crazy big things, too.

One year, we did a project that was complete arts integration for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. The grade level classrooms took on a concept. The whole idea was to support what classroom teachers were doing in their classroom, and the bigger standards and the bigger content areas. Also, (we wanted to) teach about art and design.

asking the classroom teachers, “What is it that you want us to support you?” They might come up with a language arts content area, or a math concept, or a science concept. In this case, we asked teachers to specifically choose math or science because we wanted to do a STEM-to-STEAM arts integration.

So each grade level, each classroom at each grade level, picked a content area. Our theater artist in residence went in and created a planet – a fictional planet based on their concepts.

So for example, we had a third grade class with a Planet of the Shapes, because they were learning shapes in geometry. Another third grade class was Food Chain in the Ocean, and so they created an entire planet that was an ocean-based planet, and all of the interactions between all of the species were based on, “Eat or Be Eaten!” These are third graders.

We had a fourth grade planet that was based on magnetism. They were studying magnets in science.

And all the way up. And meanwhile the sixth graders had a health unit where they had to learn about body systems, how a disease or an issue could attack the body, and what you could do – either medically or the body would do to defeat that health system.

So they wrote episodes for Star Trek, and those sixth graders had to use the other planets on “away missions” to solve their problems.

At the end of the year, we actually filmed three Star Trek episodes where the sixth graders were the Star Fleet. And every piece of their learning could be seen in these episodes.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: They’re very low tech, but…

Vicki: Where did you air them? Did you air them on YouTube, or..?

Catherine: I have a blog on WordPress

Vicki: Ohhhhh… so you’ll give us a link? So we can share them! How exciting!

Catherine: They are there. Yeah!

And so the crowning achievement – You asked, “What was the proud moment?”

The proud moment was when I was driving in my car the summer after this had happened, and I was listening to NPR, and they had a physicist from Harvard talking about – a roboticist, I think.

Anyway, so he was talking about designing these little robots that were about the size of a quarter, and how they were designed.

Because when you go to Mars, you can’t bring all the tools that you might need. And they were talking about designing these little robots that – when they’re moving around they look like little spiders, and they can actually interconnect and become larger tools.

In one of our episodes, the Planet of the Shapes, the third graders’… That was what their shapes could do.

Their shapes were these cute little shapes that liked to dance. And then they would “freeze dance,” so when they froze, they would come together and make tools.

And so the Starship went to the Planet of the Shapes because they needed tools to fix their Starship.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: And… I’m driving, three months later, hearing that they made robots like this.

You know, they don’t go to Mars yet, but the idea was, “How are you going to solve the problem of bringing more tools than we have the ability to carry on a space mission?”

And my third graders were thinking in terms of, “What can geometric shapes do? They can be put together to make bigger shapes.”

Vicki: Wow. What happened when they found out? Did you tell them?

Catherine: I did. I showed them the podcast when we got back in the fall.

And they were… they were really excited about that, just to think… “You know, the whole idea is that we don’t know what’s going to exist twenty years from now. But you kids actually thought of an idea that Harvard robotics scientists are thinking about now.”

Vicki: And that is what happens when we pull art into everything.

Catherine: And it was student driven. That was the cool thing, was that the students chose the content. They didn’t need a teacher telling them, “You will make a planet about this concept.” They chose the concepts.

Vicki: Awesome.

So we’ve had a Wonderful Classroom Wednesday with Catherine Davis-Hayes. Check the Shownotes for links to these Star Trek episodes. I’m very fascinated to see what those look like.

And just remember, the power of the arts is really that the arts are everywhere.

You can read about this project and watch the episodes on Catherine’s Blog: STEAM Trek

I’ve embedded videos below.

Catherine: Thank you, Vicki.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Biography as Submitted

Cathy Davis Hayes is an elementary art teacher at Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick. When she was recognized as Rhode Island Teacher of the Year, she had been teaching in her position for 11 years. Cathy originally started as a commercial artist, but was motivated to become a teacher after volunteering at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.

Cathy believes in the power of the arts to help students make connections between ideas from throughout all their areas of study, and she is passionate about enriching her students’ lives every day.

She was central to Oakland Beach Elementary’s classification as a SmART School, where arts are given a heavy focus in the curriculum. Cathy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was Rhode Island’s 2007 State Teacher of the Year.

Twitter: @cdhayes13

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post Integrating the Arts into Every Subject appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

[athena29stone]

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject

Catherine Davis-Hayes on episode 153 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

The graphic, performing, and theater arts are powerful allies for math, writing, and every subject you teach. As 2007 State Teacher of the Year in Rhode Island, Catherine Davis-Hayes is passionate about helping every teacher use the arts in their classroom. Today she shares techniques for teaching geometry and writing – but also a remarkable school-wide project.

Today’s Sponsor: Edpuzzle is my new favorite flipped classroom tool. You can take your videos or those from YouTube and:

Clip the video

Record your own voice over

Pause the video and add your voice just in certain spots

Add comments, multiple choice or open ended questions.

And if you click www.coolcatteacher.com/edpuzzle, Edpuzzle will give your school access to the 50,000 best lessons from Edpuzzle, organized in folders and ready to be used by teachers. Once click and you have everything you need for the year!

Steve Jobs said in his final Apple keynote introducing the iPad 2,

“It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”

This past week, I had students modeling processors, hardware, and software using play-dough. Something so simple ignited their excitement and learning. Catherine’s lesson for us today is worth sharing with curriculum directors, superintendents, principals, and teachers who are serious about improving learning.

Former secretary of education, William Bennett, says,

“An elementary school that treats the arts as the province of a few gifted children, or views them only as recreation and entertainment, is a school that needs an infusion of soul. That arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

 We all need arts in every classroom, in every subject, in what we do as educators. Not only is it fun but it

Aids

Retention and makes

Teaching

Stick

Work to integrate arts into your lesson this week. (And I especially love the whole school “star trek” episodes they filmed. That project is FANTASTIC! Some of you will love doing it!)

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Arts in Every Subject: How to Make It Happen

Shownotes: www.coolcatteacher.com/e153 Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Introducing Catherine Davis-Hayes and her philosophy of arts in education

Vicki: So we’re here at the NNSTOY conference (nnstoy.org) and we’re talking with Catherine Davis-Hayes @cdhayes13, 2007 Rhode Island Teacher of the Year.

Now Catherine, you’re really passionate about having the arts in everything in a school. What’s your philosophy of that?

Catherine: Well, I think that any content area is more accessible to students and helps them to really understand that content if it’s used in real-world situations. And so, although I do see the benefit and also obviously the importance of teaching skills and processes and materials in my art room, I feel like the students are going to benefit in a greater way by applying it and actually using it to maybe demonstrate their understanding in other content areas.

So, for example, if there’s a math concept and you can bring in geometry shapes, creating artwork that uses the concepts, fractions, all the time observing proportions, and point out how much math they’re using in art, just by making the art. Not just necessarily make the project about math, but just point out, “Look at all the math you’re using as you’re creating your art.”

Or, exploring areas of social studies with the arts is a very, very easy way. And also, even though I’m a visual art teacher, I have become amazingly aware of the power of the performing arts. So I am not a dancer, and I am not a theater actor at all, but I have seen incredible connections made — through movement art and theater specifically – that have helped kids make connections to other content areas.

How does her school use the arts in everything?

Vicki: So does your school follow this whole philosophy of art in everything?

Catherine: We try. Things come and go over time. Funding comes and goes over time. We have had many of our teachers trained in arts integration. We had an amazing opportunity, going back ten years, to have professional development during the summer for as many of our teachers who were able.

Through a program called SmART Schools (www.smartschoolsnetwork.org), teachers were able to come in and learn how to they could use the arts inside their classrooms. So, it’s not always about the professional arts educator going in to a classroom. We taught really accessible tools that everyday classroom teachers could use in their classroom, and so that would be one level of arts integration and using the arts as a part of their toolkit to teach in the class.

And then, at sort of a deeper, larger scale level you could also team up with an art specialist – a music teacher, art teacher, and in our case we were super lucky to bring in a theater artist in residence – and then really put things on fire.

What is the common mistake people make integrating arts?

Vicki: Do you think there’s a common mistake that many educators have when they think about the arts in schools?

Catherine: I do. I sometimes think that when you mention, “Oh, let’s integrate the arts,” there’s always this vision of the movie or that TV show Fame where…

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: … suddenly everyone’s going to, like everything has to be a big huge production, that it means putting on a play or putting on a big production. And I think they get intimidated.

I also think that a lot of teachers don’t understand their own creativity. They assume, “Oh, I can’t draw a straight line, even with a ruler,” you know, that famous saying.

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: But they miss how creative they are every day in their classroom, and they miss that even the little things just doodling on a piece of paper, having kids sketch an idea first, getting kids up and moving to demonstrate a math concept.

“Let’s line up by height,” or you know, it doesn’t have to be smaller visual, music, auditory tools that help students connect.

Some easy ways to start with the arts in any classroom

Vicki: So if you could give us an “easy win” or two. You know, you’re talking to teachers of all kinds. “OK, here’s an easy way to integrate arts into your classroom.” What would you give us as an idea?

Catherine: I was reading the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

To have the kids really understand the concept of you can be a little piece and change the world… we had the kids get up and move around and act like that collection of little fish that formed the big fish.

Vicki: Oh…

Catherine: So, you know, just getting up out of your seat and mirroring an activity or solving a problem. You can do that in any classroom.

In the visual arts, having students illustrate the pictures of a story before they write it… Sometimes the pictures to tell the story come easier than the words. There are a lot of reluctant writers. If you have younger kids, just say “OK, here are five (places for) pictures. You have to have the beginning, the end, and then three pictures in between that bring you from that beginning to the end.” I don’t know of a kid who couldn’t sketch out a simple story.

And then have them write. And the writing goes deeper, because they’re not writing a story, they’re describing their art. And they can talk about art forever. They can tell you all about their art. Just one picture. But now they have maybe five simple pictures, and their story is going to be rich and descriptive and have all the detail that classroom teachers are hoping that their little writers could have.

Your proudest moments

Vicki: Catherine, describe on of your proudest moments at your school where you’re like, “OK. We’re ‘getting’ this!”

Catherine: (laughs)

So even though I just talked about doing little projects that are accessible, we’ve also done some pretty crazy big things, too.

One year, we did a project that was complete arts integration for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. The grade level classrooms took on a concept. The whole idea was to support what classroom teachers were doing in their classroom, and the bigger standards and the bigger content areas. Also, (we wanted to) teach about art and design.

asking the classroom teachers, “What is it that you want us to support you?” They might come up with a language arts content area, or a math concept, or a science concept. In this case, we asked teachers to specifically choose math or science because we wanted to do a STEM-to-STEAM arts integration.

So each grade level, each classroom at each grade level, picked a content area. Our theater artist in residence went in and created a planet – a fictional planet based on their concepts.

So for example, we had a third grade class with a Planet of the Shapes, because they were learning shapes in geometry. Another third grade class was Food Chain in the Ocean, and so they created an entire planet that was an ocean-based planet, and all of the interactions between all of the species were based on, “Eat or Be Eaten!” These are third graders.

We had a fourth grade planet that was based on magnetism. They were studying magnets in science.

And all the way up. And meanwhile the sixth graders had a health unit where they had to learn about body systems, how a disease or an issue could attack the body, and what you could do – either medically or the body would do to defeat that health system.

So they wrote episodes for Star Trek, and those sixth graders had to use the other planets on “away missions” to solve their problems.

At the end of the year, we actually filmed three Star Trek episodes where the sixth graders were the Star Fleet. And every piece of their learning could be seen in these episodes.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: They’re very low tech, but…

Vicki: Where did you air them? Did you air them on YouTube, or..?

Catherine: I have a blog on WordPress

Vicki: Ohhhhh… so you’ll give us a link? So we can share them! How exciting!

Catherine: They are there. Yeah!

And so the crowning achievement – You asked, “What was the proud moment?”

The proud moment was when I was driving in my car the summer after this had happened, and I was listening to NPR, and they had a physicist from Harvard talking about – a roboticist, I think.

Anyway, so he was talking about designing these little robots that were about the size of a quarter, and how they were designed.

Because when you go to Mars, you can’t bring all the tools that you might need. And they were talking about designing these little robots that – when they’re moving around they look like little spiders, and they can actually interconnect and become larger tools.

In one of our episodes, the Planet of the Shapes, the third graders’… That was what their shapes could do.

Their shapes were these cute little shapes that liked to dance. And then they would “freeze dance,” so when they froze, they would come together and make tools.

And so the Starship went to the Planet of the Shapes because they needed tools to fix their Starship.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: And… I’m driving, three months later, hearing that they made robots like this.

You know, they don’t go to Mars yet, but the idea was, “How are you going to solve the problem of bringing more tools than we have the ability to carry on a space mission?”

And my third graders were thinking in terms of, “What can geometric shapes do? They can be put together to make bigger shapes.”

Vicki: Wow. What happened when they found out? Did you tell them?

Catherine: I did. I showed them the podcast when we got back in the fall.

And they were… they were really excited about that, just to think… “You know, the whole idea is that we don’t know what’s going to exist twenty years from now. But you kids actually thought of an idea that Harvard robotics scientists are thinking about now.”

Vicki: And that is what happens when we pull art into everything.

Catherine: And it was student driven. That was the cool thing, was that the students chose the content. They didn’t need a teacher telling them, “You will make a planet about this concept.” They chose the concepts.

Vicki: Awesome.

So we’ve had a Wonderful Classroom Wednesday with Catherine Davis-Hayes. Check the Shownotes for links to these Star Trek episodes. I’m very fascinated to see what those look like.

And just remember, the power of the arts is really that the arts are everywhere.

You can read about this project and watch the episodes on Catherine’s Blog: STEAM Trek

I’ve embedded videos below.

Catherine: Thank you, Vicki.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Biography as Submitted

Cathy Davis Hayes is an elementary art teacher at Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick. When she was recognized as Rhode Island Teacher of the Year, she had been teaching in her position for 11 years. Cathy originally started as a commercial artist, but was motivated to become a teacher after volunteering at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.

Cathy believes in the power of the arts to help students make connections between ideas from throughout all their areas of study, and she is passionate about enriching her students’ lives every day.

She was central to Oakland Beach Elementary’s classification as a SmART School, where arts are given a heavy focus in the curriculum. Cathy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was Rhode Island’s 2007 State Teacher of the Year.

Twitter: @cdhayes13

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post Integrating the Arts into Every Subject appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/e153/

[lit--bitch]

Current-Reads (27/04/2020 - 03/05/2020) 🐸🍇

(Disclosure: I know a couple people this week, like Billie Collins from The Writing Squad. I know Elizabeth Ellen through Mira Gonzalez and her editorial help with my poetry. Everybody else be a stranger to me. 😢)

Preface as always: Every Sunday without fail I throw up the freshest literature and photography I’ve read over the week, sometimes it’s a book, or a piece I saw in a magazine or an online zine, maybe it’s something I saw on social media, etc. If I add ‘RECOMMEND’ next to a few of the titles, but that’s not to say I don’t recommend all of them, I just love some pieces more than others. Not everything will be everybody’s cup of tea, yanno, c’est la vie. And any titles that you see in bold are hyperlinked so if you click or tap them they’ll direct you straight to the source… or shopping basket.  

Bit of an off-week this week, my dog hasn’t been very well so my mind has been elsewhere, and that Annie Ernaux review took it out of me, ha. I was terrified to write negative criticism, openly, and it’s not even like I was saying, “I just didn’t enjoy this writing”, like the Ernaux text genuinely has politically biased implications. It’s really hard writing about the genocide in Algeria and my family, because 1. France has done a lot of work to avoid its discussion so they’re never held accountable, 2. A lot of people don’t really know about it, and 3. A lot of people don’t care, like a lot a people, the annihilation of the Amazigh hasn’t even entered social discourses like it has with Native Americans or the Aborigines, and these are still discourses which are a lot of the time, ignored. Getting people to just be aware of this, takes time, centuries even, and so many voices. I do feel like I’m screaming into a void, and I’m not surprised Fitzcarraldo Editions didn’t pay much attention to the review. It probably seemed impertinent of some random stranger to call out a 78-year-old feminist for her furtive privilege and non-condemnation of France’s role in genocide in Algeria. Afterwards I had a massive cup of tea, and took a minute out. The amazing and lovely work I’ve read this week has been like comfort-food. Current-reads this week include Billie Collins’s The Haircut, an excerpt from ‘Bluets’ from Elizabeth Ellen’s Poems collection which I still can’t believe came out two years ago, and I rediscovered this poem on one of Hobart’s web features. I also read a review Jon Petre did for SPAM zine on Cathy Galvin’s Walking The Coventry Ring Road With Lady Godiva, published by Guillemot Press (which is run by one of my old tutors and friend, Luke Thompson).  I adored these beautiful pieces for 3AM Magazine’s Poem Brut series, from Kayleigh Cassidy, to do man and other poems. FINALLY, last but not least, I read two wonderful writers on Split Lip Magazine, one from their 2019 site, JJ Peña’s manguitos, pears and grapefruits, and Threa Almontaser’s I Crack An Egg.

I also want to say beforehand that I check all the writers and their social media (i.e. I stalk them and their bios) to make sure I absolutely get their pronouns correct, I don’t just assume hes and shes, etc. So in case anyone’s concerned about that, dw I do this shit properly. 

Let’s get into it.

***

Threa Almontaser’s I Crack An Egg on Split Lip (RECOMMEND): Cooking, family and religion. That’s the fucking trinity here. If it weren’t for the fact that I practised Islam when I was kid and my dad’s Muslim, I wouldn’t understand a lot of these references. The vernacular here is important, because what Threa does, is she makes you aware. She pulls you into her periphery, and then into her focalisation. It’s steeped in her habitus. This poem’s peppered with Arabic utterances, (wallah = I swear to God), references to the imam, henna and hijab. She negotiates the relationships of mother and marriage, tests the tensions in personality, admonishes expectations in the kingdom of her mother’s kitchen. I felt looked in the eye when I read this poem. Women are the backbone of everything. And Threa Almontaser’s one to watch.

Kayleigh Cassidy, to do man and other poems on 3AM Magazine (RECOMMEND): These are so cool, I’ve got a massive smile on my face rn. I loved these visual word collages. Each one is so individual in its own right and they’re so witty and relatable, haha. Particularly ‘to do’ and ‘an idea woke me’... They’re symptomatic of Gen Z anxieties and frustrations, they wrestle between our office selves and our artist selves. Just loved them. Adored Kayleigh’s bio too, “Kayleigh is dyslexic, working class and a massive fan of the moon; full, half or gibbous.”

Billie Collins’s The Haircut (RECOMMEND): Billie Collins’s writing is so familiar and real and intimate. It’s like home to me. I really loved this piece she did for the Writing Squad’s Staying Home series. I’ve been making my way through each of the works on there slowly, they’re so fantastic. Since the lockdown, we’ve been displaced by home haircuts and DIY. This piece is about the intimacy of giving your dad a hair cut written in the form of a contract (it echoes of tenancy agreement also, does anyone else get that?) / a play, I mean it’s amazing. The familial camaraderie and realism makes the scene so accessible and visceral. The opening immediately grabbed my attention:  “This is the first time I’ve ever given my Dad a haircut. I’m reluctant, but have agreed to do it on the following terms:

1. PARTY A [Hereafter: THE HAIRDRESSER] agrees to cut the hair of PARTY B [Hereafter: THE HAIRDRESSEE] under the proviso that no matter what happens, no matter the appearance of the resultant effect [Hereafter: THE HAIRCUT], THE HAIRDRESSEE is not allowed to get angry at THE HAIRDRESSER.”

The dialogue is a harmless bicker, which fades away as the focalisation of the speaker comes to the fore. It lessens in wit and exposes a more vulnerable and moving perception to the task in hand. It becomes tender, a moving cut. The ‘I’ finds a poignancy in being guided to cut the father’s hair, and the hairdresser becomes transfixed by other details, of skin and touch, in age and aging. It made me cry. Especially that reference to Tom Waits. Bloody hell, Billie.

‘Bluets’ from Elizabeth Ellen’s Poems collection, HOBART (RECOMMEND): Someone finally says it. Maggie Nelson’s Bluets wasn’t that great. Thank you Elizabeth Ellen. Elizabeth’s writing is like sitting in your trackies eating Chinese food and having a good sob. Other people have said similar things in that vein. It’s really the best of kind of writing, the most accessible and universal. This whole collection is about being messy, about revelling in your messy womanhood, being a messy fucking woman and having messed-up feelings and writing messed-up writing. It’s deeply self-contemplative and irritated, it’s also watchful. ‘Bluets’ is a sneak peek of a collection I adore, and keep going back to. This one poem singularly unpacks the tensions of neatness and neat perceptions of femininity, tight structures and the constrictive corseting of feelings Elizabeth Ellen so abhors. Let it all out. Let it all hang right out. 

JJ Peña’s manguitos, pears and grapefruits (RECOMMEND): This work is just absolutely gorgeous, and it was in Split Lip over a year ago. There is a tartness, a bitter acidity, a bite that you find in these sweetnesses from JJ Peña. The way we’re all hanging fruit from a family tree. The intergenerational trauma. The pain and weight of parental imperatives and suppositions. It’s the honesty and the enviable metaphor that makes this work so beautiful, it’s so vivid. Like: ‘the island treasures into golden sunsets & moons, into pandulce plazas & beaches where women who eat the sun walk around. no other place, he says, bleeds & blooms the sun.’ The language is so enriching, you can so clearly envision what he’s talking about, and how these landscapes and skies collide with more sinister and unpleasant experiences, of secret-keeping, sexuality and rape.

On a personal level I connected with this writing for the way JJ negotiates with questions of heritage and self-identity. There’s a huge pain in being divided between lands and culture and blood. When I was a kid, I used to tan like my Algerian father, I’d go mahogany, and I’d get crocodile skin in the sun. My mum used to have to rub olive oil on me. Now, I’ve still got that thick Kabyle-girl, North African skin from my dad, but since I’ve grown up, I don’t tan like that anymore, for whatever inexpicable reason, I burn worse than my English mother. And I’m lighter-skinned than her too, like cheesecake white. And I understand what JJ means when he refers to his father, who in ‘grapefruits’, declares: i got that peña blood. wood skin. My father’s the same. And I get it, I don’t know why I’m not the same either, JJ. But I think the exact same thing: I might have hardened skin if I’d spent my life working in my grandmother’s fields, picking olives. 

I’d hate to give any more away about this writing, so go ahead and read it and have a look at some of JJ’s more recent work in Barren Magazine. 

Jon Petre, on Cathy Galvin’s Walking The Coventry Ring Road With Lady Godiva, SPAM zine (RECOMMEND):  People never recommend reading a review of a book, they always just omit that part, and recommend the book straight-off. But a lot of the time, I wouldn’t know half of what to read if it weren’t for reviews. And writing reviews takes up a lot of time and a lot of reflection. I feel it’s necessary to review reviews, because they’re equally a piece of writing in and of themselves, and therefore an extension of the art being reviewed. I really loved this piece from Jon Petre. It not only made me want to buy Cathy Galvin, it made me want to read more of Jon. The review is as much an explanation of this psychogeographical poetry and Coventry’s ‘edgeland’ landscapes, as it is a wonderful piece in its own right. It is informative and witty, and its descriptions are succinct, measured and quite beautiful actually. I just loved this part in the opening paragraph: ‘I have always wanted to explore the edgelands. They are everywhere, hidden in plain sight, an alt-highway running into the hidden psyche of ostensibly dull places. If you want to get to the heart of somewhere stick to the edges.’

I also really enjoy the way Jon relays and quotes sections of the poems, he’s selective and careful. He recreates the oscillations in Galvin’s collection in his sentence structures: ‘Coventry’s punk scene is an especially positive part of the story ‘England’s dreaming Pistols and punk / peaches on beaches’ are up against ‘that figure head – / not what she seems, the Queen, the fascist regime’. Revolution and radical change has to start somewhere, as Lady Godiva herself proved – why not at the Coventry ring road?’

He’s chatty, he’s got a voice. ‘Galvin is clearly having a lot of fun mixing her references to Coventry history and other texts – quoting The Specials alongside Dante, which is 100% my shit – and stitching letters to Phillip Larkin and legalese about the ring road’s construction into art.’ He’s not sterile, he doesn’t write reviews that border on pretension, he’s not a ridiculously irritating sesquipedalian-ist (someone who likes to use big words, irony intended). He makes the books he reviews worth investing in, and you don’t need 10 tabs open to look up words he’s saying. He writes with precision and with feeling. SPAM zine in general is absolutely fabulous, and boasts some amazing writers.

***

Right, I need a cup of tea. Next week’s review is Tiana Clark’s I Can’t Talk About The Trees Without The Blood. Absolute bleeder. I might be slower to the take next week because I’ve got my MA viva (on Zoom, wahey) and all sorts, so bear with me. Stay safe love-bears. 

[epistaxis2008]

WAV>MP3

(hyperlinks used throughout, click directly to see sources, audio and images)

Some of The 5 W’s of Wav and mp3 Music Files:

Random thoughts on the basics of Waveforms, Analog to Digital Conversion, and Wav to mp3 Conversion So You Can Make the Most Out of Your Music Experience, Equipment and Career

…

In response to many questions I have seen all around the web, in forums, Facebook communities, YouTube comments and arguments (from the keyboard warriors) and questions even directed to me, about which type of file is best and where and when should each file be used (i.e. streaming, DJing, music production, studio recording, listening enjoyment, etc.) I have decided to write up some information about what I have learned over the years about sound waves, bitrates, conversion and compression to help explain the difference in audio formats and how to get the most out of your music.

First just a little background about me, I am no professional or claim to be any type of expert but I have had some sort of music or sound related connection in almost every aspect of my life for quite some time.   I have been interested in all things music, sound, electricity and electronics for as long as I can remember.  Also, which you may have already or will soon notice I am not a writer, blogger or any other type of professional author by any means.   I will try to explain, to the best of my ability, all the technical stuff pertaining to where, when, how and why of Wav’s and mp3’s with as many examples and diagrams as possible, to make everything as easy to understand as possible, while citing as many sources as I can.  

I have been a professional electrician in the past and have studied electrical in vocational high school.  Moved on to college and studied electronic engineering where I learned all sorts of stuff about analog, digital, signal, processing and components. All whilst being an avid music production hobbyist bringing myself up from recording my friend’s first mixtape on a karaoke machine over 15 years ago to now having my own underground indie experimental electronic influenced hip hop albums commercially released in all digital online music retailers like iTunes and streaming services like Spotify.  Way way back in the mid-90’s I delved into onscreen display midi, a process of placing markers along a timeline associated with keys of a piano which represent individual sounds.  It was quite mind-blowing the first time I made a basic boom boom clap / kick snare kick kick snare pattern out of little blue rectangles spread across the matrix. From there I could see that working the knobs, pressing the pads and adjusting every little detail of every single note in each individual track of the entire song creation and digital production process was something I wanted to be a part of for the rest of my life. Over time I have moved on up to multiple generations of updates in my DAW (digital audio workstation).  Attempted fruity loops back when it was a free download, years before it became one of the most well-known music production software programs, now known as FLstudio.  Also stumbled upon Ableton once upon a time, along with a few other lesser known programs, and eventually worked my way from scratch in Maschine to be pretty proficient with that. Although none of them really stuck with me as did that first midi and DAW for ease of use and understanding of what was going on, on the screen, while editing and producing music.  Now that I’ve got my background out of the way, on to the most common sound quality question I receive…

…What is the difference between wav and mp3;  why not just use the smaller file?

 Well first off, if you want highest quality sound output from your music to sound the best no matter where you tend to listen you absolutely need the file which most closely replicates the actual original sound recording.  Whether you’re DJing  a small club or a stadium, listening on ear-buds, over-ear headphones or house speakers, in the car or in the studio, it is imperative to use the highest quality file and play the best version of the song you can find.  If you want the HD equivalent of music you need a lossless file.  If your OK with watching a 2 knob Zenith with rabbit ears wrapped in tin foil then maybe lossy, staticy, lacking type files are more your cup of tea.   If you’re DJing and you want your clients of the wedding or party to be impressed and be able to really get into the moment and feel the music and not get distracted by low quality sound, definitely go lossless.  If you’re listening on headphones or house speakers to your favorite song you want to be able to notice details you probably never noticed before and want to feel like you are right there in the studio with the artist when they made it, then you want lossless.  If you’re in the car and you want to be able to put your new system to the limits, rattle the mirror, shake the lug nuts loose, and feel the bass in your soul, then you need a lossless file… why spend extra on a subwoofer and amplifier if you’re only going to end up playing inferior sound files?  And if you are into music recording and production and you want the mix to sound professional and be taken seriously, then you can have it no other way.  You will be wasting the entire production team’s, and your own, time if you do not use lossless audio files every step of the way.  So in any case for the best sound you need the best reproduction, and for that you need the highest quality format.  

A wav file or a lossless file is what you are looking for, NOT an mp3.  ALL mp3’s are sampled, compressed and down converted from a more superior file, most often from a wav, into an inferior, lossy, degraded file.  The only advantage of mp3’s, compressing and converting any file, is saving storage space.  So the more storage space you save on an iPod or on your hard drive or in your phone it allows you to be able to save more songs.  If you want to be able to have tons and tons of songs, and to NOT be able to listen to them in high quality sound, then mp3’s are the way to go.  If you are tone deaf, partially deaf or have a narrow frequency response, then will not be able to hear the whole range of the sound and in turn you will not need the ability to play the whole range of the sound so mp3’s may be for you.  

So what’s the big deal anyway…what’s the big difference?  Well if you use a lossless format or file you are listening to as close of a representation and reproduction of the actual analog waveform as possible.  If it is a converted file that has been compressed to save space by sampling at a low bitrate then it is essentially an ‘estimate’ of the original not an actual reproduction.  The result is a tinny, metalic sounding song with less low end and high end frequencies (less bass and treble).  The following are some visual and audio examples I put together to better showcase the differences of wav and mp3 and for you to get a better understanding of what is literally happening to the sound wave during the conversion process of audio files.

…

I made a quick one minute song that starts off with a kick drum, clap and hi-hat then layers them to form a full drum loop,  Followed by a bass line, a synth and then all three layered over each other, the drums, bass and synth to form an entire arrangement.  Sound waves can range from 1Hz maybe up to infinityHz but humans typically hear from 20Hz to 20kHz with some exceptions.  For this reason that is why you will find most speakers and headphones only have a frequency range of 20Hz – 25kHz, with higher end models ranging a little further from 1Hz to 50kHz.  Low bass notes like kick drums and bass lines are closer to the 20Hz zone of the low end of the human ability to hear.  Low end sine wavs can be lower in the 1Hz to 20Hz range and your body will perceive them through movement, as to be felt, rather than heard.  And high range sounds are typically bells, whistles and cymbals around 8kHz to 17kHz and are more towards the upper limit of human hearing.   So with these basics of sound in mind as a guide to how I would test the difference between file formats at different bitrates I made the song with a well represented range of sound from the low end to the high end of the human audible frequency range.  

In this first picture you can see the layout and structure of the song.  This is a visible representation of the sound waves used to produce the music.  The upper most line with the green wave forms is track 1, it is the drums.  Starting with the kick drum farthest to the left and then moving along to the right to the clap and then hi-hats and so on. From left to right time is represented, so far left is 0:00 seconds and far right is about 0:57 seconds.  It is relatively short but is just for demonstration purposes.  In the next track below the drums is the bass line, which is the blue wave form and then below that in red is the synth.  You can hear what this track sounds like HERE.   Follow along with your eyes in the picture as you listen to see the different points as you hear them.

 PIC 1

 To export a sound file means to take it from this visual form and turn it into a playable file such as wav or mp3.  The link above is for the wav of this song.  When exported it becomes a song or a single track, unlike what is shown here as three separate lines of audio.  

In the next image the wav, shown in dark blue, shows how the green, light blue and red have melded into a single song, track and wave form.

PIC 2

 Exporting audio as wav takes up around 35MB for a typical song, compared to an mp3 of the same song which could take up far less, around 5MB.  Clearly space saving is the advantage to mp3.  The lower the quality, the higher the compression then the more space you save, but the worse the sound is.  Sound is sacrificed any time a file is compressed and converted to a low resolution, low bitrate, low sample rate file.  So the next step I took was to export this same song into many different sample rates from the highest quality available mp3 to the lowest available, ranging from wav at 1411kbps or kilo bytes per second or 1,411,000 down to a 32kbps mp3 or 32,000.  

The next image shows the difference in file size to the file type, as the size goes down so does the quality.

PIC 3

As you can see the wav is 9.9MB and the lowest mp3 is a mere 226kB.  There is always arguments amongst the people questioning what is the better format or file size.  This shows exactly why a low quality mp3 sounds low quality, it is physically impossible to ever store as much of the song’s information into an mp3 as a wav. Yes a wav is sampled and yes there are compressed versions of wavs.  But a wav is sampled over 1 million times in each and every second throughout the entire song.  The most an mp3 can be sampled is 320,000 times per second, that’s more than 4 times less than a wav file!!!

Here are the audio exports of each of these files so you can listen to them back to back from highest to lowest or vice versa to hear what is missing form each track as you compress it more and more.

Example 1 WAV

Example 1 320

Example 1 256

Example 1 192

Example 1 160

Example 1 128

Example 1 96

Example 1 80

Example 1 64

Example 1 32

 You will notice less and less bass and kick.  It will be more and more distorted low end as well.  Further and further down the list you will notice less and less top side of the hi-hats, they will become more and more robotic and metallic sounding too.  The last time I checked no one purposely wanted their music to sound like they were listening to it while stuck on hold or in a dentist’s waiting room, unless said dentist was a hip audiophile with some insane high end speakers for his patients to enjoy their last moments whilst awaiting impending doom.  But give those files a good listen, at different volumes, with a concentrated ear, on multiple output devices, your favorite headphones, on the aux cord in your car or computer speakers to truly hear the degradation of the music as you move down the list.  

…

This next image shows each of the file types and sample rate changes in the visual graphic display so you can physically see the loss of sound due to the sampling process.

PIC 4

 Along the left hand side each track is labeled with the kbps sample rate and each track is displayed in a different color just for higher contrast and visibility.  Similarly to the audio image from earlier the wav is the dark blue track.  This is the same song from earlier on, and as you can see they look almost identical.

But take a look at the highlighted section outlined in green in the next pic, can you spot what is happening to the audio?

PIC 5

That’s towards the beginning of the song, the kick, then the clap and the outlined part is the hi-hats. If you look closely you can see the height or amplitude is lower.  The actual size of the wave form is smaller.  This height variance directly correlates to the volume of the song. None of these file were changed or edited or have any special effects on them.  I literally just clicked [ file > export ] and changed the sample rate each time over and over again from the original source wav file.  So the only change being made is in the actual file conversion process during the exportation of the audio.  So without lowering the volume the only reason the sound is visibly smaller is the fact that there is actually less sound and the fact that the sample rate, and location of each sample never actually makes it to the peak or top of each wave in the sound.  Remember when I said an mp3 is like estimating the wave form and not reproducing it, this change in amplitude of the hi-hats is a great example.   I have more about analog to digital conversion and how sampling works later.  

Another thing you can notice in the next screen shot shows what I mentioned about the low end sounding distorted.

PIC 6

 Here, on the kick, at the very beginning of the song, you can see the difference from the wav to mp3 is very significant.  Compare the outlined areas.  Notice on the wav there is plenty of room above the wave form, but on the mp3 the sound is over extended past the limit of the height of the track.  This causes distortion and even further audio loss. The height of the kick drum is amplified so far that it literally chops its head off.  For example let’s say the total height can be 0 – 100 and a normal amplitude would be around 75 – 80 without any affect on the sound quality. In the picture the amplitude of the mp3 at the bottom is hypothetically 125, over the max of the example of 100. In the case of the sound being too small on the hi-hats and now being too big on the kicks, you can see the music is dramatically affected by the conversion to mp3.  When a wav is converted to mp3 it is basically ‘squeezing’ the track into a smaller box, it came shipped like a refrigerator and is now being shoehorned into a deck of cards to save on export fees (PunnyMcPunPun) to get transported all around the world.  

Some of what I am talking about may be difficult to see if you are unable to zoom in on these pics so let’s take a closer look.

PIC 7

Now I have zoomed in on just the beginning of the song with the 32kbps mp3 on top in red and the wav in blue on the bottom.  All three of the outlined areas show what I was saying about the amplitude differences in both hi and low end of the sound.  

Now If we continue from here, to zoom in more and more, you will start to be able to see what sampling does to the individual rise and fall of each sound wave within the song or audio file.  

 PIC 8

Take a look at the outlined areas showing the fade of the kick also known as the tail, or its release zone.  Every note will have an attack, decay, sustain and release.  They are like the beginning, middle and end of a sound.  The attack is the initial start of the sound, the hit, or pluck if it were an instrument. The decay and sustain are the middle, decay being the initial drop from the attack and the sustain being its ability to prolong or stretch itself.  And the release is the final descent of the wave from its volume or amplitude as a musical note to total silence.  

When you look closely and compare the wav to the mp3 you will start to see a difference in the shape of the wave form as we zoom in more and more.

PIC 9

Notice here the mp3 is feathering in appearance while the wav is staying true to its original form. Another downside to mp3 conversion now reveals itself when we zoom in to this level.  Take a look at the 5th kick drum in the red mp3.  There is a gap and it then makes the rest of the remaining kick still within view out of sync with the wav below it.  Up to that point they all line up top to bottom.  These gaps are another drawback to mp3 conversion.   The process tries to be as much time saving as it is space saving.  When listened to these are quite noticeable as blips, clicks and squeals and can occur randomly and intermittently along any portion of the song and are nearly impossible to avoid.  If I were to export it multiple times from wav to 32kbps it could have a gap in the same spot or in a different spot each time.  When I zoomed in on the other image with all the mp3’s aligned above each other this incoherence was noticeable to the eye without zooming in more than 1 – 2 times for all the files at 128kbps and lower.  This may have happened on the higher bitrates as well but I did not go over those files with as much scrutiny.  

Keep watching as I zoom in even more.

PIC 10

 Now we are in far enough that only one single kick drum is within frame.  

Zoom in again and see another problem with mp3’s, the waveform has shifted itself off center from the 0 mark of the Y axis.

PIC 11

The more we zoom in the easier it is to see the damaging effects of estimating the wave form.

PIC 12

PIC 13

In the 2 pictures above the ‘step’ as it is aptly named can be seen easily in the red mp3 wave form.

PIC 14

Now zoomed in as far as my program would allow, the digitized look of the mp3 is indisputable. After hearing it in the audio examples above and then to be able to physically see the degradation on the actual structure of the wave form itself I hope it is a little clearer to people asking which is the better choice for music.  It served its purpose well as a way to quickly send small files all over the world through slow internet connections to computers and devices with small storage space.  But with the ever increasing size of hard drives and the matching blazing (when compared to 56k dial up) speeds of internet nowadays, there should be no excuse as to why you can’t listen to or play for an audience a high quality sound file.

…

To learn more about why that staircase is happening to that kick drum my next few images go over analog to digital conversion and sampling.  An analog signal is a purely uninterrupted sound wave, with the finest details in every nook and cranny.  If the sound spikes around looking like a lightning strike then the analog wave does too. Like the kick drum displayed earlier the wave form had a familiar hill like flow up and down above and below the x-axis in the y-axis direction of amplitude, spreading left to right along the time of the x-axis in a certain frequency which was the repetitiveness of the up and down of the wave.  Now if we were to sample that wave form and try to replicate it quickly by only taking snapshots of the height at intervals along the way during the same amount of time as the original wave we would only be able to come in contact with the wave at those intervals and nowhere in between while were moving along to the next sample.  A few ways this can be represented to be more easily envisioned in your head.  Imagine you were to get a sample size bag of small chocolate chip cookies.  Your bag would be small enough to fit in your hand and would only hold a few cookies.  Each cookie would have a different amount of chocolate chips and be a slightly different size.  But the picture on the packaging shows a perfect cookie with the same number of chips as all the other cookies in the picture that are all the same size. Aside from the obvious false advertisement for the company to try and depict that they are able to deliver perfection, the reason your cookies are not totally a match is because you only got a sample.  If they make 6,000,000 cookies a day, every day, and all you got was 3 measly little cookies it is impossible for your little bag to properly represent with 100% accuracy what every single cookie would become.  Your sample may be comprised of cookies from 3 different conveyer belts, from 3 different times of day along the assembly line and conveyer belts of the factory.  So if you take a sample here and there you are getting an overall estimation and generalized representation, not an actual identical representation.  The only way to accomplish that would be to actually have every one of those cookies in your hand.  Damn I must be getting hungry.  I have another analogy after a few more basics and images displaying wave characteristics.  

Moving on now, to see the waves to get an idea of the basics.

PIC 15

Here we have 2 waveforms shown in blue.  The thin red line goes from 0 of the x-axis and travels up to the top and bottom of the wave in (fig a.), this shows the amplitude measured in decibels, dB.  This wave is approximately 60 – 70Hz.  Here it touches the crest of the wave, the upper most part with the highest amplitude of the wave.  If you were to move the red line left or right it would get shorter and would be a different value from the left, in this case anywhere along the 0 to 100 dB range.  The frequency, shown by the purple line, is measured from the beginning of the wave to where it starts again.  This wave starts at 0db and goes up then back down to 0, then goes below to negative and then back to 0.  This above and below motion is one full wave and is called its cycle and is referred to as Hertz, Hz, it takes 1 second for this wave to complete its cycle.  Now in (fig b.) all the characteristics are similar except there are more waves within the same 1 second of time along the graph. Therefore it is a faster wave, has more cycles and has a higher frequency.  These wave basics will come in handy when viewing a lot of the images anywhere in this article.  

PIC 16

In (fig a. and fig c.) we have an analog wave.  (Fig a.) is a sine wave similar to a sub bass or 808 sound at 1 Hz, the lowest sounding , smoothest looking and slowest moving of all sound waves.  (Fig c.) is more typical of the look of waves in music with multiple instruments layered over each other in an arrangement masking and ducking each other to hide some of the shape and add to each other to form the shape.  (Fig b. and fig d.) show the identical wave from above it with a portion of it being sampled.  When you look close at (fig b. and fig d.) there is a thin dark blue line over laying the original thick light blue line of the original wave.  This thin dark blue line is the wave that is formed when the thick light blue wave is sampled.  If you travel along the x-axis over time and in regular intervals go up or down in the direction of the y-axis at each grey line you will come in contact with the wave at some point.  You take that as your amplitude at that point in time along the wave.  You come back down to the x-axis and travel along it again for the same amount of time and go the same distance until you again go up to where you meet the wave, and you now have a new amplitude.  For example in (fig b.) the first wave at the first grey line the amplitude is about 25dB and the next sample at the second grey line is about 50dB and so on.  After you get each amplitude at each interval you will have a succession of plots along the wave.  If you were to play connect the dots with those samples you would have a nearly identical wave, but when sampling a sound wave each amplitude is held until the next time you sample, it interprets that sample at that amplitude as a flat line between each sample point, to form the steps as seen in the dark blue wave at the tops of the grey lines.  The grey lines represent the spot at which each sample is taken and the dark blue line represents the new wave form made by the sampling process.  If you look closely you can see little triangle shaped gaps above and below the original wave when compared to the new wave.  Every single one of these spots is audio which was never sampled and is thrown away and lost during the sampling and conversion process.  The loss of sound is emphasized even more by (fig d.) where the sharp spikes in the wave form are not represented at all by the sampled wave form.  This is where the estimations made by sampling are apparent. Once this audio material is lost during conversion it can never be restored!  So when we went from the light blue original sound wave to the digitized step wave form it was an analog to digital conversion. Now that we have a step like wave form we can save the file as wav, but it will only be the file name, the number of steps will increase to the standard 1411 for wav but that just means there will be more steps along the flat horizontal steps of the mp3 digital dark blue wave.  So in a 320kbps mp3 the number of times the wave is sampled is 320,000 times per second. That means in the example in the image there would be 320,000 grey lines showing where 320,000 samples were taken and there would also be 320,000 flat horizontal step-like surfaces in the wave. This means 320,000 places in every second that at lost.  Albeit the more you sample, to say the higher the bitrate is, then the smaller those little lost triangles will be.  See more here about why there is loss that is never regained from digital to analog conversion.  

…

Well I’m exhausted… 16 pages at size 11 font, nearly 5,000 words later and years and years of development, with hours and hours of fact checking and cross referencing while writing this and producing my own audio and visuals to support it have made for this to be quite a long day.  I hope at least I made my original point…hmm – what was it again?  

Now nearly midnight as I wrap up I feel I forgot a lot, may have rambled, definitely got spelling and grammar mistakes but will sleep easy knowing that someone may have gained some knowledge from my rantings on the general where, how, when and why on sound! If someone you know is a victim of bad audio quality link them this article.  If you enjoyed the article or would like to add anything or have suggestions for what I could possibly write about next time, hit me up almost anywhere on the web at username and artist name Epicstaxis.  

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and more…

 One last link to another convincing and interesting piece of audio.  In this link you can here each of the kick, clap and hi-hats from the earlier linked audio in decreasing bitrate and really notice the sound quality degradation as the sound travels from wav to 32kbps mp3.  

 Good night, thank you for your time, if I got time to ever proofread and edit this I might, but don’t count on it, LOL  Until next time keep the audio curiosities coming…

 p.s. I know I said there was another analogy but as long winded as this article already is I figured I would spare the audience.  If you want to see it I posted it as a comment in response to a question on Facebook today which was the inspiration for my writing this piece in the first place.

[succeedly]

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject

Catherine Davis-Hayes on episode 153 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

The graphic, performing, and theater arts are powerful allies for math, writing, and every subject you teach. As 2007 State Teacher of the Year in Rhode Island, Catherine Davis-Hayes is passionate about helping every teacher use the arts in their classroom. Today she shares techniques for teaching geometry and writing – but also a remarkable school-wide project.

Today’s Sponsor: Edpuzzle is my new favorite flipped classroom tool. You can take your videos or those from YouTube and:

Clip the video

Record your own voice over

Pause the video and add your voice just in certain spots

Add comments, multiple choice or open ended questions.

And if you click http://ift.tt/2wocZod, Edpuzzle will give your school access to the 50,000 best lessons from Edpuzzle, organized in folders and ready to be used by teachers. Once click and you have everything you need for the year!

Steve Jobs said in his final Apple keynote introducing the iPad 2,

“It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”

This past week, I had students modeling processors, hardware, and software using play-dough. Something so simple ignited their excitement and learning. Catherine’s lesson for us today is worth sharing with curriculum directors, superintendents, principals, and teachers who are serious about improving learning.

Former secretary of education, William Bennett, says,

“An elementary school that treats the arts as the province of a few gifted children, or views them only as recreation and entertainment, is a school that needs an infusion of soul. That arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic.”

 We all need arts in every classroom, in every subject, in what we do as educators. Not only is it fun but it

Aids

Retention and makes

Teaching

Stick

Work to integrate arts into your lesson this week. (And I especially love the whole school “star trek” episodes they filmed. That project is FANTASTIC! Some of you will love doing it!)

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

Below is an enhanced transcript, modified for your reading pleasure. All comments in the shaded green box are my own. For guests and hyperlinks to resources, scroll down.

***

Enhanced Transcript

Arts in Every Subject: How to Make It Happen

Shownotes: http://ift.tt/2fbcBhO Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Introducing Catherine Davis-Hayes and her philosophy of arts in education

Vicki: So we’re here at the NNSTOY conference (nnstoy.org) and we’re talking with Catherine Davis-Hayes @cdhayes13, 2007 Rhode Island Teacher of the Year.

Now Catherine, you’re really passionate about having the arts in everything in a school. What’s your philosophy of that?

Catherine: Well, I think that any content area is more accessible to students and helps them to really understand that content if it’s used in real-world situations. And so, although I do see the benefit and also obviously the importance of teaching skills and processes and materials in my art room, I feel like the students are going to benefit in a greater way by applying it and actually using it to maybe demonstrate their understanding in other content areas.

So, for example, if there’s a math concept and you can bring in geometry shapes, creating artwork that uses the concepts, fractions, all the time observing proportions, and point out how much math they’re using in art, just by making the art. Not just necessarily make the project about math, but just point out, “Look at all the math you’re using as you’re creating your art.”

Or, exploring areas of social studies with the arts is a very, very easy way. And also, even though I’m a visual art teacher, I have become amazingly aware of the power of the performing arts. So I am not a dancer, and I am not a theater actor at all, but I have seen incredible connections made — through movement art and theater specifically – that have helped kids make connections to other content areas.

How does her school use the arts in everything?

Vicki: So does your school follow this whole philosophy of art in everything?

Catherine: We try. Things come and go over time. Funding comes and goes over time. We have had many of our teachers trained in arts integration. We had an amazing opportunity, going back ten years, to have professional development during the summer for as many of our teachers who were able.

Through a program called SmART Schools (http://ift.tt/2w6pgte), teachers were able to come in and learn how to they could use the arts inside their classrooms. So, it’s not always about the professional arts educator going in to a classroom. We taught really accessible tools that everyday classroom teachers could use in their classroom, and so that would be one level of arts integration and using the arts as a part of their toolkit to teach in the class.

And then, at sort of a deeper, larger scale level you could also team up with an art specialist – a music teacher, art teacher, and in our case we were super lucky to bring in a theater artist in residence – and then really put things on fire.

What is the common mistake people make integrating arts?

Vicki: Do you think there’s a common mistake that many educators have when they think about the arts in schools?

Catherine: I do. I sometimes think that when you mention, “Oh, let’s integrate the arts,” there’s always this vision of the movie or that TV show Fame where…

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: … suddenly everyone’s going to, like everything has to be a big huge production, that it means putting on a play or putting on a big production. And I think they get intimidated.

I also think that a lot of teachers don’t understand their own creativity. They assume, “Oh, I can’t draw a straight line, even with a ruler,” you know, that famous saying.

Vicki: (laughs)

Catherine: But they miss how creative they are every day in their classroom, and they miss that even the little things just doodling on a piece of paper, having kids sketch an idea first, getting kids up and moving to demonstrate a math concept.

“Let’s line up by height,” or you know, it doesn’t have to be smaller visual, music, auditory tools that help students connect.

Some easy ways to start with the arts in any classroom

Vicki: So if you could give us an “easy win” or two. You know, you’re talking to teachers of all kinds. “OK, here’s an easy way to integrate arts into your classroom.” What would you give us as an idea?

Catherine: I was reading the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

To have the kids really understand the concept of you can be a little piece and change the world… we had the kids get up and move around and act like that collection of little fish that formed the big fish.

Vicki: Oh…

Catherine: So, you know, just getting up out of your seat and mirroring an activity or solving a problem. You can do that in any classroom.

In the visual arts, having students illustrate the pictures of a story before they write it… Sometimes the pictures to tell the story come easier than the words. There are a lot of reluctant writers. If you have younger kids, just say “OK, here are five (places for) pictures. You have to have the beginning, the end, and then three pictures in between that bring you from that beginning to the end.” I don’t know of a kid who couldn’t sketch out a simple story.

And then have them write. And the writing goes deeper, because they’re not writing a story, they’re describing their art. And they can talk about art forever. They can tell you all about their art. Just one picture. But now they have maybe five simple pictures, and their story is going to be rich and descriptive and have all the detail that classroom teachers are hoping that their little writers could have.

Your proudest moments

Vicki: Catherine, describe on of your proudest moments at your school where you’re like, “OK. We’re ‘getting’ this!”

Catherine: (laughs)

So even though I just talked about doing little projects that are accessible, we’ve also done some pretty crazy big things, too.

One year, we did a project that was complete arts integration for grades 3, 4, 5, and 6. The grade level classrooms took on a concept. The whole idea was to support what classroom teachers were doing in their classroom, and the bigger standards and the bigger content areas. Also, (we wanted to) teach about art and design.

asking the classroom teachers, “What is it that you want us to support you?” They might come up with a language arts content area, or a math concept, or a science concept. In this case, we asked teachers to specifically choose math or science because we wanted to do a STEM-to-STEAM arts integration.

So each grade level, each classroom at each grade level, picked a content area. Our theater artist in residence went in and created a planet – a fictional planet based on their concepts.

So for example, we had a third grade class with a Planet of the Shapes, because they were learning shapes in geometry. Another third grade class was Food Chain in the Ocean, and so they created an entire planet that was an ocean-based planet, and all of the interactions between all of the species were based on, “Eat or Be Eaten!” These are third graders.

We had a fourth grade planet that was based on magnetism. They were studying magnets in science.

And all the way up. And meanwhile the sixth graders had a health unit where they had to learn about body systems, how a disease or an issue could attack the body, and what you could do – either medically or the body would do to defeat that health system.

So they wrote episodes for Star Trek, and those sixth graders had to use the other planets on “away missions” to solve their problems.

At the end of the year, we actually filmed three Star Trek episodes where the sixth graders were the Star Fleet. And every piece of their learning could be seen in these episodes.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: They’re very low tech, but…

Vicki: Where did you air them? Did you air them on YouTube, or..?

Catherine: I have a blog on WordPress

Vicki: Ohhhhh… so you’ll give us a link? So we can share them! How exciting!

Catherine: They are there. Yeah!

And so the crowning achievement – You asked, “What was the proud moment?”

The proud moment was when I was driving in my car the summer after this had happened, and I was listening to NPR, and they had a physicist from Harvard talking about – a roboticist, I think.

Anyway, so he was talking about designing these little robots that were about the size of a quarter, and how they were designed.

Because when you go to Mars, you can’t bring all the tools that you might need. And they were talking about designing these little robots that – when they’re moving around they look like little spiders, and they can actually interconnect and become larger tools.

In one of our episodes, the Planet of the Shapes, the third graders’… That was what their shapes could do.

Their shapes were these cute little shapes that liked to dance. And then they would “freeze dance,” so when they froze, they would come together and make tools.

And so the Starship went to the Planet of the Shapes because they needed tools to fix their Starship.

Vicki: Wow.

Catherine: And… I’m driving, three months later, hearing that they made robots like this.

You know, they don’t go to Mars yet, but the idea was, “How are you going to solve the problem of bringing more tools than we have the ability to carry on a space mission?”

And my third graders were thinking in terms of, “What can geometric shapes do? They can be put together to make bigger shapes.”

Vicki: Wow. What happened when they found out? Did you tell them?

Catherine: I did. I showed them the podcast when we got back in the fall.

And they were… they were really excited about that, just to think… “You know, the whole idea is that we don’t know what’s going to exist twenty years from now. But you kids actually thought of an idea that Harvard robotics scientists are thinking about now.”

Vicki: And that is what happens when we pull art into everything.

Catherine: And it was student driven. That was the cool thing, was that the students chose the content. They didn’t need a teacher telling them, “You will make a planet about this concept.” They chose the concepts.

Vicki: Awesome.

So we’ve had a Wonderful Classroom Wednesday with Catherine Davis-Hayes. Check the Shownotes for links to these Star Trek episodes. I’m very fascinated to see what those look like.

And just remember, the power of the arts is really that the arts are everywhere.

You can read about this project and watch the episodes on Catherine’s Blog: STEAM Trek

I’ve embedded videos below.

Catherine: Thank you, Vicki.

Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

Episode 1

Episode 2

Episode 3

Biography as Submitted

Cathy Davis Hayes is an elementary art teacher at Oakland Beach Elementary School in Warwick. When she was recognized as Rhode Island Teacher of the Year, she had been teaching in her position for 11 years. Cathy originally started as a commercial artist, but was motivated to become a teacher after volunteering at the Rhode Island School for the Deaf.

Cathy believes in the power of the arts to help students make connections between ideas from throughout all their areas of study, and she is passionate about enriching her students’ lives every day.

She was central to Oakland Beach Elementary’s classification as a SmART School, where arts are given a heavy focus in the curriculum. Cathy earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She was Rhode Island’s 2007 State Teacher of the Year.

Twitter: @cdhayes13

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.)

The post Integrating the Arts into Every Subject appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

Integrating the Arts into Every Subject published first on http://ift.tt/2jn9f0m