D695 Elementary Fine Arts Methods, catalog number EDUC 2264, is a three-CU elementary education course at WGU covering the integration of fine arts into the elementary classroom with instructional strategies that engage all learners. The word integration is where submissions succeed or fail. Genuine integration means two subjects are being taught and assessed, and the version most candidates write first has one subject and one decoration.
What counts as integration in EDUC 2264
The test is simple to state and hard to pass. If the arts element were removed, would the other subject's lesson be unchanged, and would any arts learning be lost? A poster illustrating the water cycle fails both halves: the science lesson stands without it, and nothing about visual art was taught. A lesson in which children compose a short rhythmic pattern to represent the stages of the water cycle, and are taught what makes a rhythmic pattern work, passes both.
That means arts integration requires an arts objective. Not an arts activity, an objective, drawn from arts standards, that a child could meet or fail to meet. Visual arts has content: line, shape, colour, texture, composition, and the deliberate choices an artist makes among them. Music has content: beat, rhythm, pitch, dynamics, form. Dance has body, space, time and energy. Theatre has character, situation, voice and intention. Each is teachable at elementary level and each is what makes an arts lesson more than a craft session.
The second scored idea is process against product. Elementary arts instruction that judges the finished object rewards children whose fine motor control is ahead and teaches everyone that art is about neatness. Instruction that attends to the choices made, the revisions attempted and the reasoning behind them assesses something children can actually learn. Templates, colouring sheets and step-by-step copies of a teacher model are the clearest signals that product has replaced process.
Access is the third strand, and it is unusually concrete in the arts. Children who cannot grip a brush, cannot hear a pitch, cannot move freely or will not perform in front of others can all participate fully with planned adjustments: alternative tools, visual representations of sound, seated variations of movement, a recording rather than a live performance. A plan that names one adjustment per art form has answered an inclusion aspect properly.
Assessment is the fourth and the one most often missing. Arts learning can be assessed: whether a child used contrast deliberately, whether a rhythm kept a steady beat, whether a character's voice was sustained. A lesson that assesses only the other subject has confirmed that the arts element was decoration, whatever the introduction claimed.
Responding to art is the strand candidates forget entirely, and it is half of what arts education consists of. Children who only ever make things are practising production; children who also look, listen and describe are building the vocabulary and attention that make their own production deliberate. The elementary version is straightforward: show two works that handle the same element differently, ask what children notice, then ask what the artist did to produce that effect. Ten minutes of that before a making task changes what children attempt, and it gives an evaluator something concrete to score under any aspect concerned with arts content rather than with activity.
Building the outline from the scored aspects
The scored aspects live in your Course of Study, not the public catalog. Count them before drafting. Each aspect is judged alone against a three-point scale and each needs a 2, and in this course the arts objective aspect is the one that most often falls short.
If your D695 work is a performance assessment, write to the aspect list in its order and use its nouns. Where an aspect asks you to address more than one art form, give each its own subheading, because a single narrative covering visual art and music usually leaves one of them without an objective.
A worked word budget. Assume five scored aspects and directions pointing at roughly 1,900 words. Reserve 120 words for context naming the grade, the partner subject and the art forms in scope, and 90 for a close. That leaves 1,690 across five aspects, or 338 words each.
Then weight for the hard part. The aspect requiring genuine integration and dual objectives deserves 430, since it carries the argument of the whole submission. The aspect on assessment of arts learning deserves 380, because it is the least practised and the most often thin. Descriptive aspects on materials or grouping can hold at 270. A drafting rule: any paragraph in which the arts appear only as a medium for the other subject is a paragraph to rewrite rather than to shorten.
A shape that fits an arts integration lesson
Directions with a template win. Where the arrangement is yours, this order keeps both subjects visible from beginning to end.
| Element | What it must contain | The decorative version |
|---|---|---|
| Dual objectives | One objective from the arts standard, one from the partner subject | A single objective, with the art as a delivery method |
| Arts content | The specific element being taught, such as contrast or rhythm | An art form named with no content inside it |
| Connection logic | Why this art form suits this idea rather than any other | An arbitrary pairing that any subject could have used |
| Instruction in the art | Modelling and guided practice of the arts element itself | Materials handed out with instructions to be creative |
| Creation and revision | Time to make, look again and change something deliberately | One attempt, collected and displayed |
| Access adjustments | Named alternatives for tools, sound, movement and performance | An assurance that all children can participate |
| Dual assessment | Evidence for both objectives, described separately | Assessment of the partner subject alone |
Write the revision step into the timings. Deliberate change is what makes an arts task instructional rather than expressive, and it is the first thing cut when a lesson runs long.
Evidence craft in an arts methods submission
Arts education has a research base that candidates rarely use, and using it separates a serious submission quickly.
- Quote arts standards with codes, from the arts documents rather than from the partner subject's standards.
- Cite research on arts integration specifically, and be careful with broad claims about the arts improving performance in other subjects.
- Name works and artists accurately when you use them, with dates, and treat them as sources rather than as illustrations.
- Where cultural forms are used, attribute them properly and avoid presenting a living tradition as a craft activity.
- Keep children anonymous and composite, and avoid describing individual abilities in identifiable terms.
- APA throughout, including for any published arts curriculum or lesson you adapt.
Add a sentence on what the arts element contributes that nothing else would. If the honest answer is engagement alone, the integration is not yet doing the work, and noticing that yourself is better than having an evaluator notice it.
What separates Competent from a returned lesson
Aspects score independently, so returns in this course almost always name a missing arts objective or an assessment that covered only the partner subject.
- Two objectives appear, one of them drawn from an arts standard.
- A specific arts element is taught rather than assumed.
- The pairing of art form and content has a stated reason.
- Children make a deliberate change to their work before it is finished.
- Both objectives are assessed, with evidence described for each.
Work is recorded as Competent or Not Competent at WGU, with no letter grades, and performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted with no grade penalty, so a return costs calendar. In a six-month flat-rate term, the number of courses closed determines your effective cost per course, which is why the arts objective is worth checking before you submit rather than after.
The boundaries stay in place: proctored objective assessments are ours to prepare for and never to sit, credentials are never requested, and any classroom-based component of a course is yours to complete.
Five mistakes that weaken a D695 submission
- Using art to illustrate. A drawing of a science concept teaches science and nothing about drawing.
- Handing out a template. A step-by-step copy of a teacher model removes every choice the lesson could have taught.
- Naming an art form with no content. Music is not an objective; keeping a steady beat is.
- Skipping revision. One attempt collected and displayed makes the task a product rather than a lesson.
- Assessing only the partner subject. It is the clearest possible evidence that the arts element was decoration.
How support works on D695
Send the rubric out of your Course of Study, the task directions and the grade plus the partner subject you want to integrate with. The draft returns aspect-mapped, with two real objectives, specific arts content taught rather than assumed, a stated reason for the pairing, revision built into the timings and assessment described for both subjects.
The graduate version of this material is D703 (EDUC 5094) at two CUs. This course also sits well next to D694, since both are specialist methods courses that generalist candidates tend to underestimate and then rush.
Three questions candidates ask about D695
Is D695 the same course as EDUC 2264?
What is the difference between D695 and D703?
I have no arts background. Can I still pass this course?
Writing real arts integration for D695?
Send the rubric and directions naming your grade and the partner subject. You get an aspect-mapped draft with two genuine objectives, specific arts content and assessment for both.
Where D695 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 4 current WGU programs. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.