Sabrina Hooper knelt on one knee, holding her arms out like wings. Two of her classmates squatted on the floor and looked up at her. They stayed frozen in a tableau - a dramatic concept the sixth-graders at Wiley H. Bates Middle School in Annapolis are learning about in language arts class.
"Scene!" said Patricia Watkins, giving the students the cue to drop their poses.
Watkins asked the class earlier this week to guess which scene the three students were depicting from the book Wings, by Christopher Myers. It took a few guesses, but the class figured out that Sabrina portrayed Ikarus Jackson, a boy with wings who had flown to the top of a roof to avoid his taunting classmates. The two other students acted as the pigeons on the roof.
"Group 3 recognized that even if you're not a person, you still have a role," Watkins said.
Watkins said getting the students to form tableaux - frozen pictures - is a way to teach two concepts at the same time. Bates is the only school in Anne Arundel County that is testing an arts integration program in which the visual and dramatic arts are woven into every subject. The federal government is funding similar initiatives in schools in Howard, Montgomery and Prince George's counties. School officials from all four counties will get together in April to discuss their progress.
Studies have shown that students pay more attention in class if they are doing something active, said Maureen McMahon, director of advanced studies for the county school system. The county received a $666,000 federal grant over four years to do the program at Bates. Officials also want to roll it out at Arnold, Crofton Meadows and Riviera Beach elementary schools next year.
The county school system chose Bates because it is scheduled to become a performing and visual arts magnet school next fall. The school is behind the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts and was believed to be the best place in the southern part of the county to start a magnet program, said Lori Snyder, the project director at Bates. School system officials have not yet selected an arts magnet school for the northern end of the county, she said.
Part of the federal money will go toward field trips and having three different artists-in-residence at Bates to help with teaching. Some of the money was used during the summer to train 70 teachers on how to develop new lessons. Three weeks ago, a history teacher taught eighth-graders about forms of democracy and had students display it by painting historical architecture, from the Parthenon in Greece to the U.S. Capitol.
