Mona Grib

“We plan to lead a semester of arts exposure workshops encompassing art, storytelling, and digital media. During a ten week period in Spring 2023, three ELL classes at West High School will receive twice weekly instruction from guest teaching artists. Students will explore storytelling through a variety of new artistic mediums, including fabric arts and digital media. By the semester's end, students will create a piece of artwork on a topic of their choice, and develop a podcast or video to support their artwork. Through this project, we hope to bring opportunities for creative and artistic expression to students in an accessible manner. Many ELL students at West have had challenging experiences with art classes due to their writing intensive nature. We will create an accessible and engaging avenue for students to express themselves and tell personal stories through a variety of new artistic forms. Through the course of the semester, students will be exposed to several new mediums via instruction by teaching artists. Fabric artist Amy Meissner, videographer Rafael Bitanga, and podcaster Kaitlin Armstrong will each lead 3-6 class-long workshops on their respective disciplines. By the semester's end, students will each create a piece of artwork and podcast or video to support their artwork. Student art will center around themes of self-awareness and/or self-management. Students will choose a personal story or area of interest to explore throughout these classes, and class curriculum will be designed in accordance with ASD's existing SEL standards.”