D703 Elementary Fine Arts Methods, catalog number EDUC 5094, is the two-CU graduate fine arts course in the WGU Master of Arts in Teaching sequence. It covers integrating fine arts into the elementary classroom, the same material as the undergraduate D695 (EDUC 2264). The graduate version asks a harder question than whether you can plan an integrated lesson. It asks how arts learning is sustained in a school where the arts are scheduled thinly and squeezed first.
What EDUC 5094 expects beyond a single lesson
Genuine integration still requires two objectives and two assessments, and that requirement carries over unchanged. What the graduate version adds is the professional context: specialists who hold the arts expertise, timetables that give the arts a fraction of the week, and a generalist teacher deciding what happens in between.
Working with a specialist is the most productive of these and the least planned. An arts specialist knows the sequence children are following in music or visual art and can say what a classroom teacher could reinforce this month. Integration built on that knowledge is coherent; integration built without it can teach something the specialist taught differently or has not reached. A graduate plan that names the conversation, what you would ask and what you would offer, is describing a working relationship rather than a wish.
Sustaining the arts across a year is the second graduate problem. A single integrated lesson demonstrates capability and changes nothing. A plan that identifies where in the year's curriculum an arts connection would be genuine rather than forced, and commits to a small number done properly, is a curricular decision. Forced integration is worse than none, since it teaches children that the arts are a delivery mechanism for other subjects.
Assessment gains a longer horizon. A portfolio of a child's work across a term, with the child's own commentary on what they changed and why, shows arts learning in a way that any single piece cannot. Setting that up takes planning, and it produces exactly the evidence an aspect on assessing arts learning is looking for.
Cultural material requires care that graduate work should demonstrate. Art forms belong to communities and have contexts, and using a form as a classroom activity while stripping its meaning is a professional error as well as an educational one. The defensible approach names the tradition, attributes it, presents it as living rather than historical where that is true, and avoids sacred or ceremonial forms as craft activities. Saying that explicitly is a small paragraph with a large signalling effect.
The last expectation is advocacy without exaggeration. The arts are often defended in schools by claiming they raise achievement elsewhere, and that claim is weaker than its popularity suggests. The stronger professional argument is that arts learning is content in its own right with its own standards, and a graduate submission that makes that argument accurately is on firmer ground than one that overstates transfer effects.
Your own competence in an art form is the constraint most candidates worry about and it is more manageable than it feels. A generalist teacher does not need to draw well, sing in tune or move gracefully in order to teach an element such as contrast, steady beat or the difference between a large and a small movement. What matters is knowing the element well enough to model a choice, to name what a child did, and to ask the question that makes them notice the effect. Saying so in a plan, and choosing an element you genuinely understand rather than the one that sounds most impressive, produces stronger instruction than ambition does.
Turning the rubric into a sustained arts plan
The scored aspects are held in your Course of Study rather than the public catalog. Count them first, because each is judged alone against a three-point scale and each needs a 2. The arts objective aspect remains the one most often underdeveloped at both levels.
Where D703 uses a performance assessment, write to the aspect list in its order and use its nouns. Where an aspect covers more than one art form, subhead each, since a merged treatment usually leaves one form without an objective or an assessment.
A worked word budget. Assume four scored aspects and directions pointing at roughly 1,500 words. Set aside 110 words for context naming the grade, the partner subject and the art forms in scope, and 80 for a close. That leaves 1,310 over four aspects, or about 327 words each.
Then weight it. The integration aspect with dual objectives deserves 420 and the assessment aspect deserves 370, since both carry the argument. Descriptive aspects can run at 260. In a compressed course the first cuts are general statements about the value of the arts; the evaluator wants the objective, the instruction and the evidence.
A shape that fits a graduate arts integration plan
Follow the directions where they specify sections. Where the shape is yours, this order keeps both subjects and the wider context visible.
| Element | What it must establish | The version that scores low |
|---|---|---|
| Context | Specialist provision, timetable and what you control | A plan written as though the arts were yours alone |
| Specialist consultation | What you would ask, offer and coordinate | Specialists mentioned without a role or a conversation |
| Dual objectives | An arts objective and a partner subject objective | One objective with the art as the delivery method |
| Genuine connection | Why this art form suits this content, and where it does not | Integration forced onto content that does not support it |
| Instruction in the art | The element taught, modelled and practised | Materials and an invitation to be creative |
| Cultural handling | Attribution, context and forms you would not use | A tradition used as a craft activity without context |
| Portfolio assessment | Work over time with the child's own commentary | A single finished piece judged on appearance |
Use the genuine connection row to say where you would not integrate. Naming a unit whose content the arts cannot serve honestly is stronger evidence of judgment than another example of a connection that works.
Evidence craft in a graduate arts submission
Arts education research exists and is rarely used by candidates, which makes using it a fast differentiator.
- Quote arts standards with codes from the arts documents, not from the partner subject's framework.
- Cite arts integration research directly and be careful with transfer claims that the evidence does not support.
- Attribute works, artists and traditions accurately, with dates and origin.
- Cite the assessment literature you rely on for portfolio or process-based judgment.
- Keep children anonymous and composite, including in any portfolio example.
- APA throughout, including any published arts curriculum you adapt.
Name the constraint you are working inside. Materials, time and your own arts background all limit what a generalist can teach, and a plan that states the limit and works within it honestly is more credible than one that assumes a specialist's resources. A lesson built around what a classroom actually holds, paper, voices, bodies and whatever the school already owns, is worth more to an evaluator than one requiring a kiln.
What separates Competent from a returned submission
Aspects score independently, so returns here usually name a missing arts objective, a forced connection or an assessment that judged the finished object.
- Two objectives appear, one drawn from an arts standard.
- The connection between art form and content is defended rather than assumed.
- The specialist relationship is described as a specific exchange.
- Cultural material is attributed and contextualised.
- Assessment covers work over time and includes the child's own account of their choices.
Work is recorded as Competent or Not Competent at WGU, without letter grades, and performance assessment work can be revised and resubmitted with no grade penalty, so a return costs calendar inside a six-month flat-rate term, where the number of courses closed sets the effective cost of each.
The boundaries stay in place: proctored objective assessments are for preparation only and never for us to sit, credentials are never requested, and any classroom-based component of a course remains yours to complete.
Five mistakes that weaken a D703 submission
- Forcing a connection. Integration onto content the arts cannot serve teaches children that art is a wrapper.
- Ignoring the specialist. The person who knows what children have been taught is the most useful resource in the building.
- Overclaiming transfer. Defending the arts by promising gains elsewhere rests on weaker evidence than defending them as content.
- Using a tradition as a craft. Attribution and context are professional obligations, not optional additions.
- Assessing the finished object. Portfolios with the child's commentary show learning that a single product cannot.
How support works on D703
Send the rubric out of your Course of Study, the task directions and the grade plus the partner subject and art forms in scope. The draft returns aspect-mapped, with two genuine objectives, a defended connection, a described exchange with the specialist, cultural material handled properly, and a portfolio approach to assessment.
If your Degree Plan lists the undergraduate code, build from D695. This course sits alongside D702, and both reward being taken by generalist candidates who plan them rather than improvising them at the end of a term.
Three questions MAT candidates ask about D703
Is D703 the same course as EDUC 5094?
Is D703 the graduate version of D695?
Is it better to argue that the arts raise test scores?
Planning sustained arts integration for D703?
Send the rubric and directions with your grade and partner subject. You get an aspect-mapped draft with two real objectives, a defended connection and a portfolio approach to assessment.
Where D703 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 1 current WGU program. 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.