Four Ways to Get Creative Collaborating with Visual and Performing Arts Classes

by Suzanne Sannwald

What school program is often underfunded and at risk of being cut? One that may be treated as a luxury, and if retained, may be designated as a "specials" rotation? One where learning may ideally be integrated across the curriculum but is only optimally so when implemented in collaboration with a teacher who specializes in it? One that requires perpetual advocacy to exist even as students will anecdotally share how it is their saving grace?

If you're thinking this sounds like the library program, you're not alone! But, this also describes many arts education programs. When I first started reflecting on my collaboration with visual and performing arts (VAPA) teachers, I immediately thought about all of the beautiful student artwork that I feature in the library. To me, this is a total win-win situation. Offering the library as a gallery space provides students an opportunity to share their creations in a public setting while the physical library is enhanced by the visible representation of student voices.

Knowing that I still have plenty of room to grow when it comes to VAPA collaboration, though, I have done a deep dive to explore ideas shared by others. My main takeaways, which are also reflected in the curated resources that I mention below, are as follows:

1) Think expansively.

To start, consider all of the various types of arts that exist. In "Bringing the Arts to the School Library," Heather Moorefield-Lang provides collaboration examples across categories of chorus/singing, band/orchestra, theater, visual arts, dance, and arts integration. The only National Core Arts Standards (https://www.nationalartsstandards.org/) discipline missing as an example is media arts, which is art created with new media technologies and includes audiovisual media and computer/digital arts.

Thinking expansively also means considering a variety of entry points for infusing arts into the library program. In "Adding Arts to Library Management," Lori Donovan prompts us to consider how arts could be infused into our physical spaces, collections, and programming. Importantly, of course, programming encompasses instructional collaboration, which leads to my next big takeaway.

2) Teachers of the arts may be a natural match for collaboration.

I opened with a list of commonalities between library and arts programs, and sharing these similar experiences is definitely a way to bond with arts teachers. In fact, we should consider how working together may not only give us a chance to collaborate but also to co-advocate for our programs.

Written by visual arts teacher Katie McKinley, "Connecting with the Arts: Making Collaborations Work" provides concrete advice about how to break the ice with a fine arts teacher through building relationships, starting with an idea, battling together, offering resources, and sharing successes.

Regarding collaboration with music teachers, Lucy Santos Green's "School Librarians and Music Educators: A Concert for Success" explores the potential power of school librarians and music educators partnering for advocacy, program planning, cross-curricular collaboration, and creativity.

3) Arts integration is important, just like teaching literacy skills, across the curriculum.

Whether collaborating directly with an arts teacher, collaborating with teachers in other subject areas, or even when designing learning experiences independently, how might we integrate the arts instructionally? Arts integration is defined as "an approach to teaching in which students construct and demonstrate understanding through an art form. Students engage in a creative process which connects an art form and another subject area and meets evolving objectives in both" (Silverstein and Layne 2010). In other words, art is used as a means for learning and not just an end. Art is meaningfully infused into the process of learning and contextually embedded with other content learning. Think of it as equivalent to how school librarians strive for information literacy skills to be taught contextually across the curriculum rather than as standalone, one-and-done sessions.

In order to ensure that arts integration is approached with fidelity, Susan Barber shares—in "Arts Integration or Arts and Crafts?"—five guidelines to ensure academic rigor with arts integration. And, along the lines of ensuring rigor, there are helpful suggestions about how to guide students in the process of self-assessment of their works in "4 Steps of Student Self-Assessment" by Emelina Minero. Finally, and especially relevant for school library practitioners, Angie Jameson and Nathan Bachofsky's "A NOTEworthy Collaboration: Pairing with Music Teachers to Grow Your Reach" suggests how initial relationship-building with teachers can establish a foundation for exploring collaboration around deeper inquiry and research instruction.

4) There are many possibilities, big and small, for collaborations with the arts.

Sometimes the best inspiration comes from learning about the experiences of others. If you want to explore ideas—from ones as immediately implementable as upcycling weeded books for creating works of art to others as involved as arranging professional artists to help students create original comic works to then feature in a hosted mini comic-con event—then be sure to peruse "The Art of Collaboration: Librarians Share Their Success" by Valerie Colston and "Collaborating through Art to Enhance Learning" by Meera Garud. In the process of curating these resources, I know that I have expanded my thinking about the many possibilities for collaboration when it comes to the arts, and I only hope that you, too, might have your curiosity piqued by something from them, as well.

Work Cited

Silverstein, Lynne B. and Sean Layne. "What Is Arts Integration?" Kennedy Center, 2010. https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/articles-and-how-tos/articles/collections/arts-integration-resources.