Program uses reading to spark creativity, leadership
PROVIDENCE -- A recently released survey by the National Endowment for the Arts paints a bleak picture for the future of literary scholarship.
"Literary reading in America is not only declining rapidly among all groups," the summary reads, "but the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young."
But in three rooms in Wilson Hall on the Brown University campus, the trend was audibly different.
"Let's choose some verbs! Let's choose some verbs!" squealed Camblin Reyes, a Met High School student in the ArtsLiterature program. A welcome refrain for any literature teacher.
At the ArtsLiterature program at Brown Summer High School, this was not a suprising thing to hear. Since its creation seven years ago, the program has given high school students a place dedicated to developing and strengthening the understanding and appreciation of literature.
Reyes was participating in a group project with four other students on a rainy Tuesday morning. Together they were dissecting, examining and recreating passages from the novel Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. The students have been using the book to explore literary concepts such as setting, character and action.
Another member of the group, Juan German, began to construct a skit out of his poem.
"These stories are not just about reading," he said, wholly grasping the ideology of ArtsLit: "Some people are visual learners."
This method of teaching, pairing literature with different types of artistic expression, is the focus of the ArtsLit program. It "allows kids to find the words to descibe who they are," said program director Kurt Wootton.
"The kids have stories to tell," he added, and ArtsLit encourages and helps them.
The stories of the students and teachers of ArtsLit are varied. Each class is made up of 20 to 25 students from around the state. There are at least three adults -- one teacher, one artist and one mentor -- per class. Also dispersed throughout the classes are youth leaders (high school students), and Brown students doing educational research.
ArtsLit was intended to be cross-cultural, with students and faculty coming from across Rhode Island and from faraway places, including Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
The student population is also mixed. The only qualification students need meet is to be among the first 300 to sign up.
"We have honors students, kids who might be considered special ed, gifted kids," and kids who were in the English as a Second Language program, according to Wootton. They are all in classes together.
"This is an experimental program," said Nancy Safian, the administrative coordinator for ArtsLit. "We're trying a new way of teaching."
Crucial to this new method is teamwork. Artists learn teaching techniques, teachers learn about the arts and mentors work with everyone, helping to fit everything together into coherent, two-hour lesson plans, according to Nadia Mahdi, a mentor at ArtsLit.
Another goal of the ArtsLit program is the development of youth leaders. These high school students act as liaisons between adults and students, said Diego Correal, a second-year youth leader, and they create and produce literary-inspired performances of their own.
"Teachers get stuck in their ways," he said, reflecting on his role in the program, "They know one way to teach."
Correal's position -- trained as a teacher, but still a 17-year-old high school student -- has allowed him to minimize misunderstandings that might develop as a result of age differences.
But all the differences between students, artists, teachers and mentors serve as building blocks for a community.
The ArtsLit program has a performance cycle, a diagram to give direction to students and teachers. The two biggest steps in the cycle, Wootton said, are building community and reflection.
Reflection has kept students and teachers focused on the ultimate goal of ArtsLit.
"When the students get up and act," Correal said, "they enjoy themselves. The book makes them enjoy themselves. Therefore," he said, pausing for a moment, "Therefore, they like the book."
Bravell Smith, a member of the Everett Dance Theater, and Sheila Lawless, a teacher in Central Falls, shuffled back and forth and around in circles in their third-floor classroom as they watched their lesson unfold.
Smith and Lawless helped students with their recreations of passages from Bless Me, Ultima. The students read and analyzed a passage, then created their own work -- poem, prose or some other creative passage -- and presented it to the class.
Smith worked with a group in the corner, stomping and hand-clapping to create a rhythm that carried the group's story. As Lawless ran back and forth, answering questions from the different groups and putting the finishing touches on the blackboard, John Holdridge, a mentor, grabbed her arm.
"Look around," he said, spreading his arms wide. "Do you realize you made all of this happen?"
Twenty high school students were running, stomping, singing, writing, clapping and banging on buckets.
And they were all inspired by a book.
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