Fine Arts

The Summit Christian Academy Theater program is a thriving program that offers secondary students the ability to explore their God-given talents in the theater arts. We offer engaging theater courses as well as a variety of performance and competition opportunities. Students build self-confidence, increase self-awareness and gain skills in collaboration and cooperation by working to create theater. Course work covers improvisation, character development, theater history, stage movement, voice/diction, pantomime, film acting, and solo, duet and ensemble stage acting. Stagecraft students learn set, costume and makeup design. Performance and competition opportunities include one-act and full-length play productions, musicals, and madrigal dinners as well as solo and duet acting.

Art is an integral part of the human experience; it enriches us, inspires us, challenges us, and helps us to see the world’s beauty. Visual art is instrumental in helping us understand the world’s history, current events and the world’s reactions to them, as well as providing a vision of the future.

Guided by the New Visual Arts Standards and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, students will learn to apply the elements and principles of art to create dynamic and meaningful pieces in a variety of 2D and 3D art mediums.  Through the study of art fundamentals, art history and contemporary artists, and aesthetics all infused with a Christian worldview, students will cultivate life-long skills of decision-making and problem-solving, visual literacy, evaluation, and cultural appreciation.

Students will learn primarily through the Discipline-Based Art Education method: art production, art criticism, art history, and art aesthetics. In addition to DBAE, other teaching methods will be employed based on the age level of students and the objectives of lessons being taught providing a differentiated learning environment that will meet the needs of all learning styles. Through classroom exercises and projects, students will learn to evaluate and apply a variety of mediums (2D and 3D), techniques, and processes to a range of subject matters. Students will also explore the significance of art as it relates to personal experience, faith, culture, and human history through discussion and analysis that will aid them as they make decisions through the creative process. By engaging the imagination and fostering the development of creativity students learn to be a “light” to the world in new and fresh ways through the creation of meaningful artwork. It is my desire to stimulate the students’ interest in the visual arts, and to help them understand and appreciate its components so that they have the capacity to develop their talent and approach art from a Christian worldview.

Students have the opportunity to compete at our annual school Art Festival and can advance on to the ACSI District Art Competition. We have had many students received high-level awards including Best of Show at the National Congressional Art Competition with their artwork displayed in the Congressional Hall.  SCA also offers college-level art through our Pre-AP and AP Drawing Portfolio classes.  

Students learn the techniques of playing band instruments, working to develop tonal quality and technical facility. Students discuss and constructively comment on their own performances and on the performances of the band. Emphasis is placed on proper breathing, tone control, reading skills, development of the embouchure, intonation, articulation, and development of range. Students develop individual and group performance skills, using various styles of band literature. Instrumental music remains an important component of a Summit education. Students are challenged and afforded the opportunity to grow into skilled, lifelong, servant musicians by performing, leading, and serving in a variety of settings.

The Summit Christian Academy Elementary, Intermediate and High School Choirs are growing and exciting parts of the fine arts department. They are designed to give students the opportunity to gain technical music knowledge, while working towards developing their vocal skills. This is accomplished through learning to sing in multiple voice ranges, understanding and getting to know their voice through breath training and warm-ups, developing the ability to stylize their voice for various music genres, and understanding how to interpret and deliver a song’s message.

The Journey, Summit’s award-winning yearbook, has worked to establish a tradition of excellence. The staff’s goal is to define and record the year in a poignant and provoking historical record that creates lasting memories of and for the people who breathe life into our school.

Members of the staff are entrusted to plan the yearbook from cover to cover. Under student leadership, we decide content, interview, photograph, write, design, and represent Summit Christian Academy, a role we take very seriously. Staff members learn principles of journalism, photography, and design and apply these principles by using personal and school-provided digital cameras and industry-standard Adobe Creative Suite, including InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator.

This fine art elective provides students with real-world experience and practical skills and tools that they can carry into their everyday life beyond Summit. Yearbook students are given the skills necessary to work on a college-level yearbook staff, a position that can lead to scholarships. Furthermore, students who take yearbook are uniquely equipped to succeed in competitive, deadline-oriented workplaces.