2014 CEIT Instructional Innovation Conference

ARTS NOW

Arts Now Overview • Narrative of the project and its evolution from Theater Now to Arts Now:

http://www.bu.edu/theaternow/theater-now/ • Dean Sapiro’s call for courses that connect students with the city of Boston

and its cultural and historical offerings. • The First Year Experience and Dean Steven Jarvi. • The BU Arts Initiative and Ty Furman.

• Plans for Arts Now courses outside the Writing Program.

• “One BU” at the heart of our thinking: Writing Program, Mugar Library, CFA, FYE, and the BU Arts Initiative.

WR100/150:Theater Now

• Plays and guest speakers / films / multiple course sections.

• Outside-of-the-classroom learning: expanding the learning community and breaking the boundaries of the traditional classroom

• Different plays and different venues: establishing partnerships with venues and institutions outside of BU.

• Outside-of-the-classroom “experiential learning” and its impact inside the college

classroom. • “Curriculum-based” means more than a field trip: impacting the academic concerns of the

course. • Transferability: any course that is project-based should benefit from this model. Other Arts

Now courses as examples of transferability.

WR100ESL: Boston Jazz Now

• WR100 ESL: introducing ESL students to a quintessentially American artform, and music as an international language.

• Live performances and guest speakers: jazz and the Boston jazz scene. • Writing for an audience outside the college classroom: student reviews of

the 2012 John Coltrane Memorial Concert: http://artsfuse.org/72071/fuse-jazz-concert-review-35th-annual-john-coltrane-memorial-concert/

• Plans for interaction and collaboration between ESL and non-ESL students.

WRX100/150: Poetry Now

• Arts Now lays the groundwork for the WRX initiative in the Writing Program:

outside-of-the-classroom learning paired with experiments and innovations in curriculum.

• Poetry readings and guest speakers: poets working here at BU and in the

greater Boston area: poetry is created right here, right now. • Writing for an audience outside the classroom: students were contributors to

The First Experiment, an online journal and collaborative class project. • Poetry Now Valentine’s Day Project

WR100/150: Museums Now• Our newest Arts Now seminar focuses on the value of museums to civic

life in Boston and the importance of international research and archaeological inquiry for launching exhibitions.

• Students explore 19th century legacies of excavation and collection through visits to installations at the Boston MFA and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

• Guest speakers in museums and in the classroom.

• Plans to pair with a section that focuses on the fine arts.