SAN MARCOS -- With the help of artists from Cal State San Marcos, hundreds of San Marcos Unified students have been able to explore creative and interactive ways to learn in the classroom this year.

The university's center ARTES, an organization dedicated to arts education in K-12 schools, has created a partnership with the district's middle schools and high schools to broaden the horizons of students enrolled in the AVID program, which stands for Advancement via Individual Determination.

Since the beginning of the school year, the partnership, known as "AVID for the Arts." has exposed more than 300 students to sculpting, puppetry, theater, storytelling, music, painting, visual arts and mixed media.

"This (partnership) is about integrating the arts and using them as a vehicle to teach kids real life skills," said Merryll Goldberg, who founded the ARTES program in 2003.

Learning through art

Goldberg said the university's art organization wanted to reach out to students who do not get a lot of exposure to the arts in school or at home.

The Advancement via Individual Determination program, which is designed for minority and low-income students in grades seven through 12 who do not have a college history in their families, was the best avenue to accomplish that goal, Goldberg said.

"We wanted to reach out specifically to at-risk students and help them improve their communication and critical thinking skills," said Goldberg.

The partnership is paid for through grants from the Rancho Santa Fe Women's Foundation, Qualcomm and the California Arts Counsel, said Goldberg.

For one hour a week, various artists in the organization present workshops to the students and teachers to help make the class curriculum more interactive.

Eduardo Parra, an artist with the organization, has helped teachers at San Marcos and Woodland Park middle schools use the art of theater to improve their class presentations and help students with speeches and oral expression.

Program coordinator at Woodland Park, Tanya Ross, said Parra visited her class over the course of 10 weeks.

Parra taught her students different methods of self expression and allowed them to incorporate theater in the classroom assignments, she said.

Students were challenged by the artist to do public speaking, incorporate facial expressions when speaking and act out words by playing games of charades.

"They were deathly afraid of getting up in front of people," said Ross. "He (Parra) was able to bring them out of their shell."

Ross said the students were able to apply to class speeches the theatrical skills they learned and have since become more engaged in presentations.

"They don't shrink back anymore," said Ross.

Ross said she has requested another artist from the university to help her class the rest of the school year in various projects.

Since the school does not have a drama program, Ross said, the partnership has filled a big void at the school.

"This was a great gift to the kids," said Ross. "I look forward to getting another artist in here soon."

Students at San Marcos Middle School also benefitted from Parra's visits, said program coordinator Julie Felix.

Felix asked that Parra help her students in the outreach program with a "discovering self" class project that focuses on helping students define their career choices and personal goals.

"Eduardo was able to reach the students in a theatrical way that I could not," said Felix. "They grew emotionally and learned how to present themselves in front of an audience."

Parra's exercises included asking the students to stand in front of the class and try to sell a product to the audience. The students also were asked to express themselves thoroughly by writing biography poems about themselves that included their biggest fears and future goals.

Eighth-grader Maria Valencia said Parra helped her write honest answers about herself for the class project and helped her present it orally to her peers.

"There was no right or wrong answer," said Maria. "He just told us to let loose."

Broadening horizons

Middle schools are not the only places that have been benefitting from the partnership.

Both Mission Hills and San Marcos High School students in the outreach program have reaped benefits from the visiting artists.

Iain Gunn, another artist from the university organization, helped students at Mission Hills High gain inspiration for a scholarship application that required them to paint posters, said Jamie Yorba, a teacher for the outreach program at the school.

"He (Gunn) came in and taught them symbolism in art and how to build a theme," said Yorba.

The 55 students in the program had to create 22- by 14-inch posters that answered the question "why should California leaders save you a spot in college?"

Gunn exposed the students to artists such as Leonardo DaVinci and Vincent Van Gogh, and made the students re-enact Da Vinci's "Last Supper" as a way to create inspiration for their posters, said Yorba.

The result was posters that emulated Van Gogh's famous paintings "Starry Night" and "Yellow Sunflowers."

"You can see the artist's influence on them," said Marcia Kern, coordinator of the AVID program at Mission Hills High. "It's amazing."

Across town at San Marcos High, AVID coordinator Bill Koffield said artist Silvia Mejia helped his students create sculptures with clay and poster murals.

Koffield said the clay assignment, which challenged students to make a two-dimensional sculpture into a three-dimensional sculpture, was used to show students they have the ability to think outside of the box.

"Art was used to identify the student's weaknesses," said Koffield. "She (Mejia) challenged them to think spatially."

After receiving a lot of positive feedback from the San Marcos district, Goldberg said the organization is planning to expand the partnership to schools in Vista and eventually all of North County.

Contact staff writer Brenda Duran at (760) 761-4408 or bduran@nctimes.com.