A Look Back on the 2023 Weber State University Arts Integration Conference

Weber State University held its annual Arts Integration Conference on Friday, February 3, 2023.  This year’s conference theme was Wonder | Discover | Create, and we were happy to welcome presenters in visual arts, music, drama, dance, media arts, language arts, and Utah Core Standards.  The conference was held in person in the Shepherd Union on Weber State’s Ogden campus and directed towards arts teachers and classroom teachers alike.

Keynote Highlights

Our keynote speaker, Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor, traveled to us from the University of Georgia where she is a Professor of Language and Literacy Education.  Melisa’s keynote address, Repeat After Me: Poetic Repetition for Creative Classrooms, focused on repetitive literary devices in poetry.  Melisa guided participants through a writing exercise that made poetry accessible for young students, and teachers wrote poems in just five minutes with the prompt “I hear.”  Melisa highlighted repetition in language arts and connected it to why we repeat ourselves as teachers and how to make repetition effective instead of a drone.  Melisa lifted our participants up and reminded them the work they do is essential, and our teachers left feeling inspired.

Session Highlights

Amy Miner from In Focus Education Group led a full-group session about Social Emotional Learning in the Arts Classroom as well as a breakout session “Wondering, Discovering, and Creating as the Answer to Student Well-Being.”  In these sessions, she spoke to us about how the arts help students meet Utah’s Core Standards and Portrait of a Graduate, preached the message “Teachers, you matter,” and focused on topics such as resilience, empathy, managing emotions, and decision-making.

Jazmin Gallegos from the Book Arts Program at the University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library taught participants how to make different book forms in her breakout session “Explore, Express, Create with Bookmaking.”  She showed us how books are a flexible medium for students to collect and record information, form connections, share what they know, and express their own ideas.

Penelope Caywood from Youth Theatre at the U presented two sessions.  Through “In the Shadow Light,” Penny led groups in writing group poems inspired by a book and using shadow puppets to perform their poems.  In “Beats for a Better World,” participants created instruments with found objects and used those instruments to create a rhythm ostinato and spoken chant to bring a book to life.

Ashley Boyack from Tanner Dance at the University of Utah and Deja Mitchell from Weber State University had participants drumming and dancing in the breakout session “Experience African Drumming, Dancing, and Culturally Appropriate Dancing with Students.”  Participants created small drums out of common materials, learned to play rhythms, and used their bodies as instruments for dance.

K Stevenson from Weber State University led “Sustainable Printmaking” and taught participants how to create using Mokuhanga, a form of printmaking.  K emphasized this as an art form for educators to use to feed their own creative spirit, not just for their students.

Melisa Cahnmann-Taylor led the breakout session “Poetry in Motion.”  Participants used drama improvisation games to explore poetry, visual arts, and English language arts.  Melisa emphasized that poetry can be acted out in ways that celebrate language and discovery, making it accessible to teachers and students alike.

Alisa Petersen from Southern Utah University led “The Art of Noticing.”  In this breakout session, participants completed drawing exercises that asked them to observe from close, medium, and far ranges.  They learned how to encourage awareness and curiosity and apply these techniques to other subjects.

Erinne Roundy from Weber State University led “Go With the Flow!” where participants were encouraged to wonder, discover, and create in three open-ended visual art activities using watercolor.  Erinne encouraged participants to be process-oriented and think about how they can get their students to focus on discovery rather than the end product.

Julie Gale from Utah Film Center led the breakout session “Create Great Stories with Animated Artwork” where participants learned to create stop motion animations using an app and simple materials.  Julie highlighted basic ingredients of a story, how to transform a story into artwork, and how to transform artwork into animation.

In Conclusion

Our participants reported feeling inspired, energized, and refreshed.  They were happy to spend a day creating with their fellow educators and felt like they had new ideas they could try with their students.

The 2024 Arts Integration Conference is scheduled for Friday, January 26 in the Shepherd Union on Weber State University’s Ogden campus!  Registration will open winter 2023.  We hope to see you there!

For more information about the WSU Arts Learning Collaborative and the Professional Development opportunities we offer, please visit weber.edu/artslearning