• Each participating classroom teacher is paired with a partnering teaching artist.
• Classroom teachers and teaching artists attend program training together.
• Teaching artists visit each classroom for a 60-90 minute lesson each week for 20 weeks; lessons can be split into multiple visits or weeks can be adjusted depending the school’s needs.
• The classroom teacher and teaching artist collaborate to ensure lessons are uniquely tailored to each classroom's students, needs, and curriculum.
• Classroom teachers gain new techniques that can be utilized beyond the program.
• Lessons consist of verbal and physical story dramatization, text analysis, creative writing and performance with a scaffolded curriculum that focuses on generating independent written prose from each student.
• The program culminates in a trip to the theater at which time each classroom presents a rehearsed story drama on stage at one of Blumenthal’s venues and each student receives a printed book copy highlighting one final written and illustrated piece by each participant.

“Students who read on grade level by third grade are 96% more likely to graduate high school, a key economic mobility indicator. Currently, only 39% of CMS third graders are reading on grade level.”

Charlotte’s upward mobility study highlighted the importance of reading proficiency as a key indicator to opportunity. Since the publication of this study, many initiatives have been put in place in 3^rd grade classrooms. By targeting 4th and 5th grade, L.E.A.P. seeks to bridge the gap by cultivating enthusiasm for and proficiency in reading and writing before students enter middle school, continuing the efforts in earlier grade levels. By using theater as the vehicle, students who have participated in previous program iterations across the country have consistently demonstrated a renewed, or new, excitement for reading and writing; a task that has become laborious and a requirement for testing shifts to an imaginative creative process giving students a voice and the opportunity to express their perspectives.  Students in 4th and 5th grade are able to engage in critical discourse, allowing the program to explore how text is used to influence and express opinion; students who can understand that every text is affected by the author have a greater ability to form and express their own opinions, use text as a tool for their own success, discern influences to make educated choices, and become the storytellers of their own lives.

Learn more https://forcharlotte.org/resources/focus-area/upward-mobility