This summer, as part of Hartford Public Schools’ Early Start, Hartford Performs brought the Arts Literacy program to 17 school sites.

In this program, students became members of an arts-centered literacy learning community.  Using Sophocles’ Antigone as an anchor text, students  explored the play’s key themes including “loyalty and betrayal,” “sibling rivalry,” and “power and control.”  The program’s curriculum is modeled on the Performance Cycle developed by Brown University’s ArtsLit Project.  It culminated in a public performance of student-created work inspired by the anchor text, and which sometimes included the performance of selections from the anchor text itself.