Greetings from NYC

I hope everyone is off to a wonderful new year. I've been reading everyone's posts with much interest, and I thought I'd chime in with what I've been up to.

After a harrowing 48 hours of looking for an apartment (with a 70 lb. dog, no less), Luke and I found a cute, furnished apartment on the Lower East Side. I have about a 10 minute walk to work, which rocks. We're lovin the neighborhood, which is kind of a night spot. Lots going on all the time--I actually sleep really well with all the noise outside (trucks, people, etc.). Somehow it feels really private.

My internship is great. The place is called Abrons Arts Center (www.henrystreet.org/arts) and is part of the larger Henry Street Settlement, which is a nonprofit serving the Lower East Side through "social services, arts and health care programs." My first week was kind of crazy, because Gossip Girl was filming on location in our playhouse, and we had all sorts of people around. I have never seen the show, but did get to see them film a little bit and wow, it is really tedious work.

I'm working in the Arts-in-Education department. My main project is to work on an arts partnership between P.S. 110, an elementary school down the street, and Abrons. The two received an Empire State Partnership grant (http://www.espartsed.org/), one which is designed to foster sequential and comprehensive visual arts programming for the school across a span of several years.

The particular aspect I'm working on are these ETSL units (Evidence of Teacher and Student Learning). They are a really neat tool actually based off work at C.A.P.E. - Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education (which I ironically reported on with my group in our museum class--yay Facos!). These online units basically are a way of showing how the arts integration is working in the classroom. I'm really excited about them because not only do they serve as a method of evaluation--they also serve to show anyone what goes on in the classroom when art is brought in as its own discipline AND what it does for other curriculum areas.

If you're interested, you can look at a sample unit at: http://esp.sicreative.com/preview_units.php?id=90&page=home&preview=8613985ec49eb8f757ae6439e879bb2a.

I miss you all. Write and let us know what you're up to.

Best,
tracy