Arts for Learning (A4L) is a ground-breaking literacy program that blends the magic of the arts with the science of learning to raise student achievement in reading and writing. Working with a team from the University of Washington led by cognitive scientist Dr. John Bransford, Young Audiences has developed five units of lessons for use by grade 3-6 classroom teachers.

How A4L Works

Arts for Learning consists of five independent units designed to augment, not replace, a school’s regular literacy curriculum. The lessons in each unit focus on achieving literacy objectives correlated to state and local standards and aim to teach students how to learn so that they can readily transfer their learning to new tasks. At the core of the A4L lessons is the concept of leveraged learning, wherein arts and literacy are taught in ways that mutually support one another. The lessons are designed to be taught by regular classroom teachers who have taken a training session led by Springboard staff.

Units	Primary Literacy Concepts and Skills	Art Form, Specific Art Techniques & Elements	Text Genre & Literary Work (s)
Unit 1: Upside-Down Fairytales	Point of view; Story elements	Dance: Tableau Facial expressions; Vocal expression; Gestures; Body shapes; Levels; Playing space	Fiction: Familiar & Upside-down Fairytales
Unit 2: Graphic Story Adventures	Visualization; Story elements; Author’s choice	Visual Arts: Graphic Novels using text and Illustrated panels Drafting; Sketching; Line; Thought and voice bubbles; Embedded text; Narrative text, Text type	Fiction: Fantasy Adventure
Unit 3: Everyday Heroes	Determining importance; Synthesizing; Text-to-text connections; Theme	Visual Art Collage Shape; Size; Line; Color; Shape; Emphasis; Balance; Symbol; Texture	Nonfiction: Biography; Informational Text
Unit 4: Planting a Community	Making inferences; Text-to-text connections; Theme	Music: Composition & Music Elements; Tempo; Rhythm; Pitch; Melody; Motif; Duration; Dynamic; Tone color	Fiction
Unit 5: Words in Motion	Prosody; Vocabulary/Word meaning	Dance: Choreography & Dance Elements Shapes; Levels; Place; Shared Space; Mirroring; Improvisation	Poetry: Free verse