The Guild’s In-Class Arts Partnership program is a collaborative process in which teaching artists and teachers work together to encourage students to explore the arts through words, musical sounds and visual design elements. In partnership, the teaching artist and partnering teachers establish the goals for their work and choose appropriate teaching strategies to use within each classroom.

Students, partnering teachers and a Guild teaching artist collaborate to create a story, write a script and lyrics, add melodies and other musical moments, and visual design elements to enhance the telling of their story. Through this process, students acquire and learn to express themselves in multiple ways and build confidence through theater games, improvisation, and music composition. Every partnership is designed to meet the specific needs of each class, and culminates with a staged reading.

A full day of Professional Development is required for teachers embarking on an In-Class Partnership. During this Professional Development, participating teachers are led through the program process by their partnering teaching artist, and begin coordinating and customizing the areas of focus for their classroom.

The Guild’s In-Class Arts Partnerships are standards based and strive to meet the goals and needs of individual students and classes. The Guild is equipped and excited to work with individual schools to custom-design arts-integrated curricula. For a list of sample partnerships, please click here.

Teachers interested in an In-Class Arts Partnership should complete the school programs application. For more information, please call 212-769-7026, email schoolprograms@operaed.org.