This Unit and My School
I teach in an arts magnet school making this unit especially relevant. The students who attend our school arrive there by way of application, followed by an audition at which time they may be entered into a lottery. Needless to say it is not easy to get into Northwest School of the Arts, Charlotte, North Carolina. The positive side of these bureaucratic hurdles is that we have a population of students quite dedicated to improving the quality of their arts endeavor. Students are exposed to all art forms in their middle school years (our school is 6-12) and unlike other programs, upperclassmen can choose an arts major in visual arts, dance, theatre, orchestra, chorus, or some combination of these. An overwhelming majority of our graduates continue their work as they enter institutions of higher learning.
It is worth noting that this unit might be especially attractive to my students who are in an educational atmosphere where they have their choice of classes like Film Studies, Drama levels I, II, and III, Musical Theatre, and Shakespeare in Film. What binds these kids together is their understanding of the persuasive nature of art. They each understand, perhaps in different ways, that a song, a dance, and a canvas can move an audience and can speak to people in a profound manner. They are driven to do, in their creative work, this very thing and have persistently, in the ten years I have been a teacher there, shown great promise when allowed to bring their arts expertise into their academic classrooms.
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