Arts & Letters™ —
Arts & Letters is Great Minds’ K to 8 English language arts curriculum. Fine art is integrated throughout the curriculum, each of which is correlated to a module within the grade level, allowing students to deepen their knowledge and form connections from what they have learned and the art associated with it. Each grade and module has a Teach book for instructors and Learn book for students.
During my time as a designer at Great Minds, I had the pleasure of working on many Arts & Letters-related projects, such as the visual themes, supplemental texts, vocabulary cards, and additional supporting materials.
Creative Director: Whitney Lyle
Associate Creative Director: Julia Dantchev
Designer: Amy Ng
Arts & Letters™ Visual Themes
There are unique visual themes associated with each grade level and module.
When it comes to designing a visual theme, my process looked something like this:
Conducting general research based off of the given theme.
Reading the trade books that are related to the grade level and module.
Doing more in-depth research into the topic finding art pieces or photos that would be a good fit.
Compiling different options for review.
Reviewing and finalizing the chosen option for print.
Arts & Letters™ Supplemental Texts
Throughout Arts & Letters’ Learn books, there are module-related supplemental texts for the students to read. These texts provide knowledge about topics related to the module they are studying. Some of these texts include articles, folktales, and poetry.
Knowledge Deck™
In Arts & Letters, there are vocabulary cards that accompany each grade and module. These cards are known as the Knowledge Deck. They supports students’ vocabulary learning and practice.
Each Knowledge Deck card includes a key vocabulary term, part of speech, a sample sentence, and image, all of which relate to the module topic.
Prologue™
Prologue is a pre-teaching companion to the core Arts & Letters curriculum. Each grade in Arts & Letters comes with four (4) Prologue books (for each module). By providing important content and language in this additional resource, Prologue strives to support K to 8 multilingual learners and students with language needs.
During my time at Great Minds, I shepherded many of the art that was part of Prologue, whether it was a photograph, an illustration, or even both.