Teaching Tallahassee: An Interdisciplinary Civics and Art Curriculum Project
2023-2025
Overview
This project has two phases:
Year 1 Curriculum Development: Six teams of teachers will pair up to develop a project-based curriculum that uses art and local places to scaffold civic outcomes for k-12 students.
Year 2 Curriculum Implementation: The final units developed in year 1 will be implemented in classrooms. The year will culminate in a final exhibition of student artwork.
Research questions
This project aims to:
Goal 1 Develop a model for institutions of higher education, like FSU, to provide opportunities for K-12 teachers to understand how civic engagement can be nurtured on a local level.
Goal 2: Foster the collaborations of art, history, and civics educators and faculty, to develop an effective and evidence-based curriculum focused on civic engagement and participation in Leon County K-12 school students.
Participating Teachers
Augusta Raa Middle School: Katie Aylward-Smith (Art), Shawn Ackerman (Social Studies)
Fairview Middle School: Janine Falah (Art), Benita Brown-Lyons (Media Specialist)
Florida State University School ELE/HS: Egda Claudio (Art), Marlon Williams-Clark (Social Studies)
Florida State University School HS: Michelle Hartsfield (Art), Shannon Axtell (Language Arts)
Montford Middle School: Dr. Donald Sheppard (Art), Sara Hogan (Social Studies)
Springwood Elementary School: Stef Prieto (Art), Mary Winsett (5th Grade)
Research Team & Funding
Team: Dr. Sara Scott Shields, Dr. Rachel Fendler, Dr. John Myers, Minki Jeon, Doctoral Candidate
Funding: FSU's Council on Research and Creativity provided funding through the SEED Grant program.
The funding supported: compensation for participating teachers, classroom materials, student field trips, and funding for a public exhibition.
Timeline
Project progression
Getting started
FALL 2023. Art teachers invite a partner from their school to join the project. We explore civic and activist art outcomes, and the civic themes embedded in local places.
Development
SPRING 2023. Teacher teams write a project-based curriculum for students that spans both classrooms. In June, the teams present their curricula in a professional development webinar.
Implementation
FALL 2024. Teachers bring students into the project! The curricula will be implemented in teachers’ classrooms.
Exhibition
SPRING 2025. FSU faculty will work with teachers and students to develop an exhibition of their work in public venues in Tallahassee.
Presentation of the Art+Civics Units
Professional Development
Augusta Raa Middle School: Katie Aylward-Smith (Art), Shawn Ackerman (Social Studies). Students engage oral histories, local sites, state archives, fiber arts, and photography to ‘stitch together’ a narrative about the connection between the city’s past and present. The outcome of this co-taught unit will be a community quilt.
Fairview Middle School: Janine Falah (Art), Benita Brown-Lyons (Media Specialist). Students will research the history of their neighborhood on the south side of Tallahassee and respond to this research by creating graphic novels.
Florida State University School ELE/HS: Egda Claudio (Art), Marlon Williams-Clark (Social Studies). In this unit, Out of the Shadows, HS history students will help 4th & 5th graders create and perform a shadow puppet theater piece about the civil rights movement in Tallahassee.
Florida State University School HS: Michelle Hartsfield (Art), Shannon Axtell (Language Arts). In this HS unit, Language Arts students will use the state archives to find and research images of past social movements. They will then develop a visual response to this image in their digital art classroom.
Montford Middle School: Dr. Donald Sheppard (Art), Sara Hogan (Social Studies). 6th graders will be invited to explore the presence of names in their town (on streets, schools, and so on) and then investigate what it means to leave a legacy in your community. Through field trips and visual mapping, students will work come to know Tallahassee, and will work on designing and naming a building they would like to have in their community.
Springwood Elementary School: Stef Prieto (Art), Mary Winsett (5th Grade). The co-teachers in this unit propose developing a new art club where 4th and 5th grades learn about the school community, identify areas for improvement, and then create a project that contributes to improving the school community and leaving a legacy in it before graduating. This project will become recurring for the 5th grade class.
