This Is Our Story! Elevating Youth Voices Through Arts-Integrated Teaching

• In Event: Arts Learning Across the Lifespan: Social-Emotional, Cognitive, and Physiological Benefits

Abstract

This study focuses on evaluating the impact that an eight-week, arts-based creative writing residency for third graders has on student social-emotional development and school culture. Each week, teaching artists visit the classroom for 90 minutes engaging students in kinesthetic activities and both group and individual writing exercises. Over the course of the residency, their stories consistently gain increased depth as they learn how to organize their ideas and elaborate on them in writing. The program culminates in an original theatrical show based on the student’s stories and is performed by a professional troupe of actors. The program aims to improve academic success, social-emotional learning (SEL), students' perceived creative self-efficacy, and school campus culture with regard to writing and creativity in general. Our arts organization prioritizes delivering these services to Title 1 schools in a major city in Texas, in an effort to reduce the achievement gap between these campuses and non-Title 1 schools.

Past research, including program evaluations of our programs, shows that arts-based creative writing programs for youth have a significant positive impact on writing skills and persistence for writing; however, little is known about the potential impact on social-emotional skills and school culture. Through a mixed methods quasi-experimental design, evaluated by a third party evaluator, the current study is identifying specific areas of impact for both individual and school-wide outcomes. Our team is utilizing multiple modes of data including surveys, focus groups, and observations of both students and teachers to gain varied perspectives on the student’s experiences. For the third graders receiving the classroom instruction, teachers and students receive pre- and post-program surveys, teaching artists document their classroom observations, and randomly selected students are interviewed immediately after the school-wide performances. Surveys are also given to control classrooms for comparison. To get a better sense of the effects on campus culture, interviews are conducted with second graders and fourth graders to measure their anticipation and reflections on being in the program and what it means to them.

With current evidence supporting the importance of social-emotional skill development for students, more research is needed to make significant assertions on the effects of drama-based pedagogy on SEL for students and campuses. The results shared as part of this presentation will contribute to this gap in understanding and provide the field with a better idea of the potential impacts of drama-based pedagogy. Once the study is completed, our arts organization will have data to further enhance the efficacy of the program for students in Texas, especially at Title I schools. Additionally, the research will provide valuable empirical, generalizable data to the growing field of research regarding arts-based education programs and SEL programs.

Authors

• Christine Gonzales-DeJohn, Austin Theatre Alliance (Paramount and Stateside Theatres)

• Katie Moore, Austin Theatre Alliance

• Bridget K. Lee, University of Pittsburgh