Teaching Residency Program Expands K-12 Students’ Learning Experience By Bringing Artists To The Classroom

The Arts & Science Center partners with Arts in Education (AIE) teaching artists to enrich students’ learning experience.

ASC, with the teaching artists, collaborates with Pine Bluff area schools on innovative ways to engage students and help to improve literacy and classroom engagement. 

“If we’re able to engage the students in a way that is interactive, that engages a different part of the brain, that shakes things up, then we’re more likely to be able to see a result because it’s something completely new and it changes the environment,” says Dr. Rachel Miller, executive director of ASC.

ASC seeks to make a meaningful impact in Pine Bluff through its AIE program.

2023-2024 Academic Year

FALL 2023

Poetry with Jasmine Harris

Jasmine Harris is ASC’s Arts in Education artist-in-residence for fall 2023. Harris will lead students in learning about the art of spoken word. This includes a focus on poetry in an after-school residency.

Harris will lend her extensive artistic talents to the Pine Bluff Community Center and Townsend Boys & Girls Club. After-school classes are at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, October 10-13, at ASC. Students will create, learn, and explore the process of spoken-word poetry. The classes are available to middle through high school students at no cost.

She will also lead a free poetry workshop for the community. Details and registration here.

For more information, contact ASC Education Programs Manager Shakeelah Rahmaan at srahmaan@asc701.org or call (870) 536-3375.

About Jasmine Harris

Jasmine Harris is a secondary educator for the Little Rock School District, living and learning in central Arkansas. She’s a certified wordsmith, holding a Bachelor of Arts degree in Linguistics, a Master of Arts in Teaching degree in Secondary Education, and an Educational Specialist degree in Building Administration. She’s also a published poet, featured in the International Poetry Digest, Ink & Voices, Rigorous, and more.

A collection of poetry I May Have Been In My Feelings focuses her writing on identity, relationships, and the climate of society. Harris frequently quotes her inspirations as Maya Angelou, Ntozake Shange, and Tupac Shakur.

Previous residencies

Fall 2022 & Spring 2023

Pulse: African Music & ART from the Soul, with Aida Ayers

Alica “Aida” Ayers is ASC’s Arts in Education artist-in-residence for the 2022-2023 academic year. The multidisciplinary artist is leading students and workshop attendees in music and art, with an emphasis on African culture. This includes a focus on music in the fall and art in the spring.

Ayers will lend her extensive artistic talents to Pine Bluff-area students in a weeklong after-school ceramics class at 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, March 6-10, 2023, at the Arts & Science Center. Students will create, learn, and explore the process of designing beautiful, African-inspired clay pots. 

This workshop is open to any student in sixth grade or above. To enroll, please contact Shakeelah Rahmaan at srahmaan@asc701.org or call 870-536-3375. There is no cost to attend.

She will also host a free, all-ages workshop on March 11. Register HERE or by calling 870-536-3375.

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Spring 2022

Quilt Project with Aida Ayers, Elly Bates, Brie Boyce, and April Gentry-Sutterfield

During spring 2022, students at Pine Bluff High School, Dollarway High School, and Robert Morehead Middle School, worked with three artists: Alice “Aida” Ayers, Elly Bates, and Kabrelyn “Brie” Boyce. 

This quilt installation project resulted from a conversation with Tavante Calhoun, a social worker at Morehead Middle School. He explained that the students and teachers lacked access to arts enrichment resources. Calhoun offered the idea of involving the students from the different schools in a project that would bring them together, providing a creative outlet and a way to celebrate the students and the community. 

AiS coordinator April Gentry-Sutterfield and teaching artists Ayers, Bates, and Boyce developed this multi-layer project. Elly Bates began the project with Ms. Shalisha Thomas’s art students at Pine Bluff High School. The PBHS students created portraits of Pine Bluff legends from baseball stars to social activists. Then Alice Ayers took those portraits to Dollarway High School where she led Ms. Bethel Byrd’s Family & Consumer Science classes in stitching the portraits on top of landscapes evocative of Pine Bluff in four different quilts. Finally, Brie Boyce worked with Ms. Valarie Elders’s Social Studies students at Morehead Middle to write and record poems, songs, and raps inspired by the quilt’s patches. 

The quilts and patches created during this project were on display in the Loft Gallery of The ARTSpace on Main.

April Gentry-Sutterfield

In partnership with ASC, April Gentry-Sutterfield has developed hands-on, arts-integrated, in-school literacy programming with Dollarway High School. Gentry-Sutterfield is an AIE roster artist who runs Arts Integration Services — a contract-based in-school arts programming company. The project is schoolwide for ninth through 12th grades. 

At the heart of the project lies the idea that good writing involves painting with words, and all students explore this idea through the observation and analysis of artworks on display throughout the year at ASC.

In spring 2019, ASC hired Gentry-Sutterfield to facilitate a weeklong poetry residency at Dollarway High. She led students in writing poetry inspired by a visual art exhibition at ASC, culminating in a trip for all students to see the exhibition in person.

In the 2019-2020 school year, the program expanded with a professional development series, introducing all Dollarway High School English teachers to drama-based instructional techniques (DBI). During each workshop, Gentry-Sutterfield taught a different DBI technique and presented a set of three lessons for her following three-day residency at Dollarway High. 

ASC provides a field trip tying artwork from our Permanent Collection to the themes explored in the classroom. Gentry-Sutterfield and ASC staff lead the students through exploratory art activities based on ASC’s exhibitions. 

In March 2020, more than 200 Dollarway High students visited ASC for the spring program. In addition to an activity with Gentry-Sutterfield, collaborative exercises included painting a large canvas backdrop, drawing a chalk mural, and using art as a prompt for games. Dollarway High students also visited ASC in May 2019 and October 2019 for similarly structured lessons.

Gentry-Sutterfield said she wants the students to enjoy literacy more because of how the lessons connected it to visual art and drama. She also wants them to see additional possibilities for themselves.

“I believe the arts can uncover possibilities for people they never knew existed,” she said. “Whether it’s discovering the healing power of expressing themselves or realizing the freedom in an artistic process or any of a whole litany of social and emotional learning goals, I truly believe that the arts are transformative.”

The 2019-2020 residency was funded by an Arts Engagement in American Communities grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Program Expanded in 2020-2021

ASC and Gentry-Sutterfield collaborated again in the 2020-2021 school year, with an updated and expanded residency program that focused on social studies.  

The teaching artists will now spend one four-day residency with each Dollarway High School teacher so that teacher can work more closely with the teaching artist, and so all social studies students benefit from having lessons delivered by the teaching artists. The social studies programming will connect its content to current ASC exhibitions and events. The program will be conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2020-2021 program is funded by the Carl B. and Florence E. King Foundation and an Arts in Education (AIE) After-School/Summer Residency grant from the Arkansas Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Winter 2021

Chris James: Slam Poetry and Spoken word

The Arts & Science Center wanted to expand the teaching artist residency to our after-school programming. Effective after-school programs bring a wide range of benefits to youth, families and communities. They can boost academic performance, reduce risky behaviors, promote physical health, and provide a safe, structured environment for the children of working parents. 

Spoken-word artist, writer, and arts community leader Chris James visited ASC in 2020 to lead slam poetry workshops and a camp. His engaging style and passion for poetry and teaching were an ideal fit for the students.

Using fun activities, including ideas and examples from James’ book Joe Got Flow, students learned how to write, perform, and critique their own poems. The sessions culminated with a mock poetry slam. 

In January, James led a weeklong afternoon workshop at ASC for high school students from the Boys & Girls Club and S.O.A.R. (Students of Achievement and Responsibility) programs. In July, he led a weeklong summer camp for ages 10-17. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the camp was conducted via Zoom. All classes were recorded so students could watch if missed or wanted to revisit a session.

Research has shown that poetry motivates children to read, builds phonetic awareness, and builds essential skills like vocabulary, expression, and writing. ASC’s goal was to create a fun and empowering educational experience for students that not only helped strengthen reading and writing abilities but introduced a new way to express themselves. 

James’ residency was made possible by an Arts in Education (AIE) After-School/Summer Residency grant from the Arkansas Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.