Review of Kentucky and North Carolina Standards
Review of Kentucky CCD (Combined Curriculum Document)
“Created to show the connection between the Academic Expectations (what students should know and be able to do), the Program of Studies (minimum required content standards), and Core Content for Assessments (content appropriate on state assessment).”
For the middle schools
Grade Specific.
In the arts there 5 areas:Structure in the art; Humanity in the Arts; Purposes for Creating the Arts; Processes in the Arts;Interrelationships Among the Arts.Each area begins with a Big Idea, and the Academic Expectations.The Program of Study for each area includes Understandings, Skills and Concepts, and Core Content.
Breakdown:In each of the areas the Understandings remain the same for each year but the Skills and Concepts, and the Related Core Content vary based on grade level.

Review of North Carolina Standard Course of Study
Begins with Group Emphasis and Individual Emphasis short essays.
High points, Group Emphasis:“the artist creates an imagined world; it is the role of theatre to lead the audience into this visual , aural, and oral world.Middle School students use drama as a means of confidently expressing themselves, thus developing their ‘personal voice’ “
High points, Individual Emphasis:“use drama more discriminatingly and productively in daily living and as a participant or viewer. . .theatre as a means of pleasure, communication and learning.”
Each grade level is given a bulleted list of emphasis for the particular grade level.Following the bulleted list are “strands” which are lists of action verbs.Following the Strands are a “Competency Goals”with objectives.
There are 8 competency goals which remain consistent at all three grade levels:
The learner will write based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature and history.
The learner will act by interacting in improvisations and assuming roles.
The learner will design and produce theatre by conceptualizing and realizing interpretations from informal or formal productions.
The learner will direct through planning and presenting informal and formal productions.
The learner will research by finding information to support informal or formal productions.
The learner will compare and integrated art forms by analyzing traditional theatre, dance, music, visual arts, and new art forms.
The learner will analyze, critique, and construct meaning from informal and formal theatre, film, television, and electronic media.
The learner will understand context by analyzing the role of theatre, film, television, and electronic media in the past and present.

The objectives which follow the competency goals vary by grade leveland show a fundamental evolution and progression of activities and skill development

SUMMARY THOUGHTS:
Rigor/Measurability:although both states use active verbs in describing the skills to be evaluated, neither defined level of proficiency in the practice of the skills.
Coherence/Focus/Clarity:Kentucky used the same Understandings and Skill and concepts at each grade level with a difference in Core Content, showing a good progression of skill acquisition.North Carolina used the same goals for each grade level with varying objectives based on grade level with increasingly active verb choices, but no core content.
General:since what we deal with is skill acquisition I would like to see more definition in rigor and measurability.