Create Your Own is a month-long artist residency that introduces children to opera as a method of spinning a tale rather than as elitist, high-brow art. Students create their own opera company and are involved in every stage of the process from writing the story and music to building the set and making the costumes. (TD)

Addresses the common confusion about the nature and use of intellect in the arts. Attempts to demonstrate the forces that promote and reinforce this confusion in relation to the nature and use of intellect in the arts. (CMK)

The Tri-District Arts Consortium in South Carolina was formed to serve artistically gifted students in grades six-nine. The consortium developed a summer program offering music, dance, theatre, and visual arts instruction through a curriculum of intense training, performing, and hands-on experiences with faculty members and guest artists. (JDD)

Rates children's responses to selected probing questions after they viewed a theatrical production. Finds that (1) those who received continuous class drama and theatre-viewing experiences since kindergarten gave more high-level responses; and (2) there was no significant difference between the way boys and girls responded to the questions. (MS)

Testing and observation of 25 highly creative, intellectually gifted students and nearly 100 highly creative, non-intellectually gifted students participating in secondary and undergraduate theater arts programs revealed similarities and differences between the two groups in terms of acting technique, rehearsal technique, relationship to play…

Describes the efforts taken by the Cornell Interactive Theater Ensemble to provide interactive human relations training on date rape using live dramatizations, video with facilitated audience participation, and an electronic multimedia format with decision trees for interactive involvement. (EA)

Offers an adaptation of Readers Theatre based on nonfiction trade books as an alternative to content area textbooks. Discusses the benefits of nonfiction trade books and of Readers Theatre. Offers guidelines for adapting materials to Readers Theatre scripts. Discusses suggested titles and sample script excerpts for health, math, science, and…

Reviews 38 recently published children's books in the categories of music, opera and dance, theater and film, the visual arts, architecture, crafts, and language. Offers a 105-item bibliography of books for a science curriculum to add to those reviewed in the December 1991 column. (MG)

An activity book to help elementary teachers and students explore the environment offers information and questions about spaceships; an ecology primer and poster with questions; information on animal adaptation with poster and questions; ecological and dramatic arts projects; a script for performance; and suggestions to make Earth Day celebrations…

Examines how current education reform reports reflect arts and humanities education. Maintains that the reports are marginalizing the arts and are advocating a back-to-basics approach. Points out that National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) tried to overcome this trend by introducing "basic arts education." (KM)

Makes suggestions for professional performers working at community colleges, including learning about student demographics, the kind of performance sought, what has worked in the past, where and when the performance takes place, reason for the event, and how the college has presented performers in the past. Offers hints for making work with…

In a Canadian project, elementary teachers and professional artists collaborated to integrate artists' work into the curriculum. Teachers had opportunities to share ideas and concerns in learning communities and to develop leadership skills for arts education. (SK)

Objects to traditional scheduling practices in which band rehearsals are not started until well into the academic year. Argues that starting at the beginning of the year offers numerous advantages. Presents a number of lessons that can be employed in early band rehearsals, even before students are familiar with their instruments. (DSK)

Describes a CD ROM created by three co-authors which presents a multimedia exposition and comparison of three parallel productions of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by a single director staged sequentially at the Tokyo Globe in 1994. Provides specific suggestions as to how secondary English teachers could use this material.…

The use of technology is integral to learning at the Minnesota State Arts High School (Golden Valley, Minnesota), an arts-integrated school where students focus on dance, literary arts, media arts, music, theater, and visual arts. This article discusses technology use in the arts curriculum and in the learning resource center. (PEN)