In the U.S. mainstream culture, the arts are largely interpreted as an extra and as such not an integral part of the general education curriculum. The arts are often marginalized in our educational system, and almost always in jeopardy when budgets are cut. This is not the case in many other countries. In some cultures, the arts are valued like math, science and other academic subjects and they are an indispensable part of every general education curriculum.

This course will explore methods of teaching art to children in grades K-6. We will focus on visual arts teaching by exploring art materials and techniques appropriate for a K-6 art program. Students will prepare themselves for behavior, academic and circumstantial situations which might arise in an elementary school classroom. The first half of the semester will include discussions and exploration of contemporary issues and methods within the field of Art Education.

This course is a hands-on, practical approach to directing guided by the belief that "directors learn to direct by directing." Our central focus is on the collaboration between actor and director. The pace will be rapid and the workload significant: weekly, students will either present a piece that they have directed or perform in a work directed by their peers. Rehearsals will take place outside of class. To ground our work, will begin by focusing on text analysis, and on articulating the structure, rhythm, and energy of theatrical language.

What is dramaturgy? In answering this question, students will learn how to evaluate scripts, create and adapt works for the theatre and take a critical look at a variety of different models of post-performances dialogue. Practical dramaturgy allows us to locate the story we are telling on stage not just through the script, but through casting decisions, design components and communication with audiences. Prerequisite: Students should have taken at least one theatre course.

Storytelling is an oral art form whose practice provides a means of preserving and transmitting images, ideas, motivations, and emotions. The practice of oral literature is storytelling. A central, unique aspect of storytelling is its reliance on the audience to develop specific visual imagery and detail to complete and co-create the story. The primary emphasis of this course is in developing storytelling skills through preparation, performance, and evaluation. In this class you will research storytelling traditions and the resurgence of storytelling in America.

Through sculpture and drawing projects students will investigate the form and expression of the human head. Assignments will cover the study of the head in clay, the creation of masks, experiments in basic proportional systems, drawing from life and imagination, and more. Class discussions will draw from numerous cultural and historic points of view.The class will conclude with a major independent project of the students own related to this subject. Students will have the option to work with either traditional or digital media. Significant outside work will be expected.

Literary journalism encompasses a variety of genres, including portrait/biography, memoir, and investigation of the social landscape. At its best, literary journalism uses such dramatic devices as plot, characterization, and dialogue to extend and elaborate the who/what/where/when/and why of traditional journalism. By combining evocation with analysis, immersion with investigation, literary journalism tries to reproduce the complex surfaces and depths of the real world.

This course explores the creation of interdisciplinary theatre through the lens of the jazz aesthetic. We will combine music, movement and non-linear narrative to create short dramatic pieces, and deconstruct the works of such theatre artists as Laurie Carlos, Sharon Bridgforth and Daniel Alexander Jones (all versed in this approach to creating drama).

This course will study the United States, 1935-1943, using an array of primary and secondary visual and written sources. These sources will include: (1) One hundred and forty-five thousand black and white images made of the American people by a team of documentary photographers employed by the US government (These photographs are in the FARM SECURITY/OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION COLLECTION. This collection is available on-line, through the Library of Congress American Memory website). (2) The Historical NEW YORK TIMES and the Historical CHICAGO TRIBUNE, available as on-line data bases.

What does it mean to say a writer's work is "lyrical" or "spare," "realistic," "modern" or "mythical"? In this reading and workshop course, we will explore the concepts of 'sensibility' and 'style' as they apply to language and story. We will identify the sentence-level underpinnings of specific tonal effects, considering: syntax, diction, word families, the color and rhythm of language, punctuation, point of view, voice, and imagery.