Meeting Students & Community Where They Are.
Arts Integrated Education Programs
About the Programs
CREATIVE CONNECTIONS provides arts integrated education that focuses on using the arts to colorfully enhance academic experiences for students and staff. Our methods include both social emotional learning and cultural responsive teaching. We genuinely work to holistically impact students in the classroom. We have worked with over 10,000 students across the country. Creative Connections currently offers three programs to K-12 schools and two professional development trainings.
Student Programs
Poetry Saves Lives
A 5 to 10 day poetry writing residency where students are taken on a journey to explore their emotions, their environments and their learned experiences and shown how to creatively express their thoughts. The goal is to push students to not only be more creative writers but to also be comfortable and confident in being critical thinkers when it comes to their emotions, conflict and in their daily social skills. During a residency, we cover the entire figurative language family; similes, metaphors, alliteration, idioms, personification, etc. We also practice recitation and performance. This segment of the residency has proven to build student confidence tremendously with speaking and overall self-esteem. The residency wraps up with a school-wide poetry slam where students compete with their poems having the opportunity to be a poetry slam champion.
The Author's Lab
The Authors Lab is everything that the Poetry Saves Lives program is but with some changes in the details. Yes, the students would still explore the same level of writing but during this program they’d be writing to become published. After time has been spent being creative, they would now learn the more technical side of writing where they are challenged to edit and format their writing in a way that it is comprehensible for the reader. Students get to choose a title for their book as well as contribute to the art work and book cover design. Within weeks they will receive copies of a physical book with their name and writings in it.
Black Boys Better
A program designed to help black boys become more emotionally literate so they can most affectively express themselves and manage interpersonal conflict. This program is led by black men. Black males make up only 2% of America's educators so this program places positive black males in the school setting in ways most black boys have never experienced. This program is designed to be a round table set up and intimate.
Professional Development
Who am I?: The Power of Voice
Poetry workshop designed to give educators a voice and to also introduce themselves to their students or co-workers in a more affective and creative manner. In this writing and performance session, the educator is given the opportunity to express how human they are. The goal is to bridge cultural and personal disconnects between the students and educators. "When the student believes they truly see you, they'll become comfortable showing you the true them."
Cultural Responsive Teaching
Culturally responsive teaching (CRT) is a research-based approach to teaching. It connects students' cultures, languages, and life experiences with what they learn in school. These connections help students access rigorous curriculum and develop higher-level academic skills. It's our goal to make the students feel that they are a part of their learning experience. The issue isn't that students don't like school or learning. The issue is, they aren't inspired by how it is presented. CRT provides true equity in academia.
Cultural Responsive Teaching
GET OFF THE COUCH
Get Off The Couch is a program designed to provide an energetic and engaging experience through lecture, spoken word and a hands on workshop to help students and professionals better understand mental health and how to go about the healing process in a way that that they feel is digestible and doable.
Get Off The Couch details practical ways to begin the self-care and healing process as well as how to effectively be first responders to peers battling with mental health struggles. The experience includes an informative lecture, poetry writing exercises, self-care activities, open discussions and more.