ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the ArtsLiteracy Performance Cycle and emphasizes the Building Community component of the cycle with examples from its application in Bearing Witness classrooms. It pays particular attention to the Building Community segment of the ArtsLiteracy Performance Cycle. The Performance Cycle begins with Building Community in the classroom. Students participate in activities that provide carefully structured approaches to getting to know one another, sharing their background experiences and interests, practicing oral and written language, introducing a topic or theme, and generating a sense of purpose for collaborative work. The combination of activities from the initial Building Community to final Performing Text creates a coherent overall logic that teachers and students can understand and connect with; the process establishes possibilities and purposes for studying a topic. The chapter then offers steps that enable students to move toward creating and presenting what they come to know and understand.
