Batavia Local Schools 
Gifted Education

Differentiation Using the Arts 

            Studies have shown that the arts can significantly advance gifted students’ academic and creative abilities (Smutny, 2002).  Joan Franklin Smutny in Integrating the Arts into the Curriculum for Gifted Students (2002) gives several ways for integrating the arts in core content areas.

Reading

• While reading a story, have the students draw, sketch, or paint what is most vivid to them.  Have small group discussion about their artwork afterwards.
• Have the students create a short play and act out a short story or passage.
• Have the students choose a conflict, issue, or problem from a story to debate.  Have students portray specific characters.

Writing

• Give students a visual catalyst for writing what happened before and after the scene depicted.
• Have students undertake investigative research.  They become the detectives in a art theft or forgery.
• Have the students explore multiple points of view.  Have the students write historical fiction about the life or point of view from a piece of art work.
• Have students synthesize different sources for a news story.  Using a variety of sources have students write a sketch, poem, script, or essay about a current event reported in the paper.  Have them write from different points of views. 
• Have the students analyze a music composition and create a short script that follows the tone, pace, movements, etc. of the music.

Social Studies

• Have the students analyze the life of a famous historical figure.
• Have the students act as reporters who travel back in time to cover artistic movements.
• Have students investigate and analyze the contrasting views of two sides of a conflict, issue, or struggle portrayed in works of art.

Science and Mathematics

• Have the students apply a scientific concept (such as light) to a problem in art.
• Have the students analyze the nature of matter using the arts and physics as sources.