MELANIE RICK LAYNE

Melanie Layne is an Arts Integration Specialist at Baileys Elementary School for the Arts and Sciences in Fairfax County, Virginia. As a Resource teacher, she brings arts integration strategies (drama, dance, music, visual arts and writing) into the K-5 classrooms.  She has over ten years experience integrating the arts with general education, special education and English Second Language Learners in elementary and middle school classrooms. She has been a classroom teacher in 3rd, 4th, 6th and 7th grades.

She is an education consultant for Focus 5 Inc., a national Arts Education consulting company where she designs and leads workshops, in-depth courses and summer training institutes for teachers. She often works in collaboration with her husband and Drama Specialist, Sean Layne, to combine visual art, writing and drama strategies that integrate with the K-8 curriculum.

She also is a coordinator and course leader for The John F. Kennedy Center’s Changing Education Through the Arts program in Washington DC.  Through a variety of professional development efforts for teachers, this program helps teachers consider the theory and practice of arts integrated instruction aimed at increasing and deepening student learning.

Melanie, a National Board Certified Teacher, holds a BA in Elementary and Special Education (learning disabled and mentally handicapped) from Clemson University and is currently working on her Masters in Literacy Curriculum and Instruction at Virginia Tech.

In 2005, her teaching of Integrating Drama into the Language Arts and Social Studies classroom was filmed by the Discovery Channel and can be viewed on Discovery Education’s United Streaming website   

(http://www5.unitedstreaming.com/index.cfm) under
Teacher to Teacher: Professional Development for Today’s Classroom: Language Arts Volume 2.

LOOKING THE WRITE WAY:  Reading Art as a Catalyst for Writing

3 hours (can be extended)

Grades 2-8
Workshop Leader: Melanie Rick Layne

Meaningful writing comes from meaningful experiences. Analyzing art provides the engagement and meaning necessary to think critically both as an artist and writer. This workshop explores writing and visual literacy as a process that analyzes art as the foundation for writing in a poetic, expressive way.  This strategy has proven effective for all types of learners, including English Second Language
and Learning Disabled.