When Kennedy Elementary School in Madison set out to deepen literacy learning through the arts, music educator Christian Bonner stepped forward with a vision. Backed by a Wisconsin Art Celebration Project Funding award, Bonner ’20 Music Education is leading a schoolwide integrated arts initiative that uses poetry, music, and student creativity to explore the ways words connect us to one another and the world.
“At Kennedy Elementary School, the Related Arts team really values incorporating content literacy and grade-level literacy standards into our various classes,” Bonner said. “This year, Kennedy Principal Vanessa Kent really wanted to push the envelope on how the Related Arts teachers at Kennedy were incorporating literacy learning and grade-level standards to generate an equitable amount of access to grade-level standards for all students. I applied for–and received–one of six Wisconsin Art Celebration Project Funding awards from Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction for an integrated arts project.”
Bonner’s team is working with the poem Yellow Birds of the Morning by Nicholas Gulig. The poem is one part of the 2025 Wisconsin Arts Celebration Project, a project that School of Music ensembles participated in, as well. The poem’s topic focuses on how words and music connect each of us to each other and the rest of the world.
“In each of the classes, students will take this poem and engage with the poem through a culturally expressive mode, to demonstrate how words and music can connect each of us together in a world that normally operates to create division,” Bonner said. “Students will create different mediums of projects to demonstrate and share their learning of this project with families during an in-school performance.”
Like other projects, Bonner’s project will be posted on the WiseLearn platform for other teachers and schools in the state to replicate and use what they have done in their own buildings.
“I know my entire Related Arts team and I are ready to highlight a positive learning experience,” Bonner said.
Bonner is currently in his third year as the full-time general music teacher at Kennedy Elementary. He received his undergraduate degree in Music Education from the School of Music while studying with Professors Teryl Dobbs, Julia Koza, and Alicia Lee.
Bonner also earned a Master of Music in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where he primarily studied with Professors Tami Draves, Jennifer Walter, and Connie McKoy. His work as a music educator centers around the joy of music making as a social activity, placing students’ stories and cultures and the core of his curriculum.
Currently, Bonner is a member of the Madison Metropolitan School District Leadership Pipeline Program cohort, and is planning on graduating this coming summer with a Master of Science in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis with a K-12 Emphasis from UW–Madison.
