Archived Arts Lessons & Resources
Compendium of Lessons
The California County Superintendents Arts Initiative has archived its compendium of lessons that included examples of teacher learning and exploration in Arts Assessment.
These lessons were the work by K-12 specialist and generalist teachers from across California and were aligned to the 2001 Visual and Performing Arts Standards. We thank the many teachers who shared their work and the work of their students with us.
While they are no longer posted, most of the files from these lessons are available upon request. Please contact us for more information. See below for a list of the archived lesson titles by discipline.

Dance
- Character Dances
- Ancient Civilizations Dance
- Narratives in Motion
- Complex Dance Compositions
- Stone Soup Trepak Dance
- Elements of Rock Dance
- Powerful Observers
- Learning Multicultural Dances
- Improvisation to a Five Counts of Eight Dance Sequence
- The Primary/Secondary Color Dance
- Dance Matters
- Communicating Through Dance
Music
- Self-Assessment in Band
- Song Comparisons for Deeper Understanding
- Music Appreciation
- Ad-Lib Solos
- Listening To and Evaluating Soundtracks
- Elements of the Blues
- Where Are You, Polar Bear?
- Imani and Sight-Reading
- Jamming
- Creating Original Improvisation Compositions
- Assessing Vocal Pitch and Rhythmic Skills
- Getting Beyond the Notes on the Page
- Jazz and Miles Davis
- All Music Has Meaning
Theatre
- Masks in Theatre
- Character Traits Through Pantomime
- Stories to Tableau
- Weather Around the World
- Improvisational Comedy
- Performing a Weathering Process
- Story to Script
- Historical Event Monologue
- Identity Monologue
- The Tempest in Three Languages and with Puppets
- Bringing History to Life
- Dramatization Through Tableaux
- Range of Student Expression on Stage
- Monodramas: Missing Voice, Social Issue, or Biographical
- Tool and Building Basics for Technical Theatre
- Finding a Writer’s Voice
Visual Art
- Pop-Up Green Dream Houses
- Indian Temples as Art
- Modern Totems
- Beyond the Wall
- Loteria Night Paintings
- Shelter in Artwork
- Deep Exploration of Color Theory
- Reflective Self-Portrait
- It’s About Balance
- Artists and the First Amendment
- What Do You Stand For? A Portrait Point of View
- A Journey in Life: The Westward Migration
- Revolutionary War Journal/Portfolio
- The Artist as Activist
- What Art Means to Me- Investigative Write
- Creating a Picture Book
- Working with Patterns and Portraits
- From Story to Book
- My Life as a Sneaker
- Writing and Illustrating a Short Story with Performance and Multimedia Integration
- Split Portrait
- Mask Masking Research and Presentations
- Video Production (Levels 1-3)
- Personal Mandalas
- My Voice
- Self-Portrait Statements
- Self Portrait
- Cesar Chavez Reader’s Theatre
- Lead Creations
- Artful Poems
- In Depth Study of a Master Painting
- Art with a Message and Symbolic Self Portrait
- Fourth Grade Visual Arts, Math, Geometry, Music
- Emotion Drawing
- Biographical Portrait
- Tessellations
- Public Sculpture
- Introduction to Printmaking with Mentor Artist- Katsushika Hokusai
- Short Title
- Landscape, Seascape for Animal Research
- Comic Book Showcase
- A Sense of Place
- Geometric Shapes in Art