In this curriculum unit, we have posed a question about the value of arts education: “How do we measure success in American society?” Our contention is that without the arts, the depth and complexity of what makes us human will be lost. Education provides a vehicle for students to experience the arts and to determine from the diverse range of choices what best helps them express their individuality. Without arts education, students will have limited choices available to them. Our purpose and focus of this unit is to provide a cross-cultural arts experience for students as they study indigenous peoples of North America, Appalachian communities, and contemporary Hip-Hop culture. In a culminating activity, students will create their own musical play about the absence of the arts in society. In collaboration with the art teacher, classroom teachers, and the music or dance teacher, the play World Without Art will graphically and emotionally depict the void left in the human experience. Students will discover that there is compelling evidence that music, art, dance, and dramatic traditions stay alive in the context of their invention to perpetuate the values of a given culture. In other words, we recognize the people of a particular society for the ways that they express human nature and pass along traditions in the education of their youth.