Why choose an arts project for the all-school project?
Now that we have students 12 to 18 in age, it s more difficult to find good books that are appropriate for all of them to read together, as we have sometimes done. We often use texts other than books when we re teaching, and we had enough maturity as an institution to consider a musical text, rather than a book, for this activity. Also, Parker assesses listening as one of our twelve skill areas, and we always grapple with ways to teach it well. And finally, we thought listening to music could be a good way to bind kids together in the first days of school. We also wanted a text to which everyone could have intellectual access. This year our Essential Question is Where s the truth? Also this year the entire Arts and Humanities domain focuses on America; we alternate that focus with a global focus every other year. We saw this particular musical text, Bruce Springsteen s Born to Run album, as a way into the study of America, looking at the music as a picture of Springsteen s own truth. I
