Taft Elementary School has an artist-in-residence

YOUNGSTOWN

Taft Elementary School has an artist-in-residence this week and her work with students will culminate in published student work.

Dar James of New Hope, Pa., is in Youngstown as part of a week-long residency for the school’s students and families. The endeavor is funded through a grant from Turning Technologies.

On James’ agenda are a whole-school assembly, a Family Night and painting and writing workshops with teachers and students.

Third-grade classrooms will each publish a book with students’ original artwork and writing. Each child will have a double-page spread in the book and a class photo will be displayed on the book’s author page.

“This provides a wonderful opportunity for our students to unleash their creativity,” said CEO Krish Mohip. “I want to thank Dar James for her efforts and thank the Taft Elementary School administration for supporting this innovative project.”

Principal Jennifer D’Amico and Maria Pappas, chief of core curriculum, arranged a family night with the artist from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. today, supported through the grant that will also provide a copy of the books that the students publish to the student authors and illustrators.

“This week with Dar James is all about celebrating reading, writing and illustrating,” D’Amico. “We are thrilled to host Dar and to help each student unlock their creative genius.”

The idea for the grant which provided $5,000 to the school to implement the project came from Pappas, who also wrote the grant. She works as a district administrator and formerly served as a YCSD principal.

“Integrating the arts into the curriculum is one of the best instructional practices to engage students in reading and writing,” Pappas said. “Add a professional author and artist to the mix, and it makes for magical learning opportunities for the children. The more engaged the children are in their lessons, the more of a likelihood that they will produce high quality, publishable material. I cannot wait to see what the children create this week. We hope that our excitement about the project will be infectious with the children, many of whom would never have had the opportunity of private art lessons with a real, live artist.”

As a result of this grant project, students will become actively engaged in the reading and writing processes, garner a deeper appreciation of the visual arts, make connections between illustrations and their stories, develop love for reading and writing while also mastering the English Language Arts content standards, engage in a family writing workshop, participate in a collaborative product; and produce authentic writing products with original artwork.

All of those outcomes align with the Ohio Third-Grade Reading Guarantee which is the grant’s aim.

More information is available by contacting Maria Pappas, chief of core curriculum, at 330-744-8500 extension 6131 or by visiting the artist’s webpage at www.darsworld.com.