The Arts Integration Mentorship Model (AIM)
from the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at
Columbia College builds upon a literacy curriculum,
primarily writing, as a springboard for arts integration.
Cynthia Weiss, Director of AIM, describes the model
as a learning spiral (Weiss, in Weiss & Lichtenstein, in
press). The learning spiral engages teachers, artists, and
students in asking inquiry questions that, together with
the overarching big ideas are driving forces in arts
integration. Content goals, including arts goals, demand
the learning of shared language and language specific
to individual content domains. In the arts integration
learning spiral, reminiscent of Bruner’s spiral curriculum
(1960), learning occurs through immersion in doing,
making, and sharing that in turn engenders new
intentions for teaching and learning on the part of all
engaged in the process.