During lockdown I did some reading about integrated learning and came across Susan M. Drake and Rebecca C. Burns book Meeting Standards Through Integrated Curriculum. Reading parts of this book made me realise that we where only touching the surface of integrated learning in our department.
In the Arts department we do a unit a year where we come together and work on one theme. We call it a MEGA unit. The theme so far have been countries and their respective cultures/traditions. This a great way to include various subjects in a project. Culture is by nature multidisciplinary.
The next step was to go deeper and integrate shared skills and concepts. Interdisciplinary Learning. In the Arts this is natural. We share similar skills and concepts. I wanted to see if I could use skills and concepts from english (writing skills) to inform my teaching of music composition. The head of english shared this visual. 
The connection to musical composition is almost immediate. I found that I could reach more complex levels of music by making analogies with this visual than by trying to drill in music theory concepts. The results from students where also more creative. I did teach a lot of music theory at the same time!
This is what i’ve learned:
- The visual really helped EAL students to understand an abstract concept without using a lot of what would have otherwise been advanced music theory. I did this project from grade’s 8 to 10. 10 was obviously more through than 8.
- Students can compose before they get taught theory. Considering the tools available now this is very possible. Using analogies makes the topic more creative and the connections are stronger.
- It is very hard to get out of the multi disciplinary thinking as a meaningful form of integrated learning. It’s much better than disciplinary learning but far from having the impact other forms of integrated learning can have.
- Off course some students did not get it! but maybe if they get it in english they will get it in music?? idk…
