Character Choreography

CHARACTER CHOREOGRAPHY

CHARACTER CHOREOGRAPHY

Learning Description

Working through the choreographic process, students will create a short choreographic work demonstrating the traits of a character and dance elements.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: K-1
CONTENT FOCUS: DANCE & ELA
LESSON DOWNLOADS:

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"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • I can demonstrate traits of characters in a story through choreography.
  • I can use the elements of dance to express ideas about character traits.
  • I can create a complete dance with a beginning, middle and end.

Essential Questions

  • How can the elements of dance be used to demonstrate the understanding of a character in a story?
  • How is the choreographic process similar to the writing process?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Kindergarten:

ELAGSEKRL3 With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story

ELAGSEKRL9 With prompting and support, compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

ELAGSEKW2 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and supply some information about the topic. 

ELAGSEKW3 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened. 

ELAGSEKW5 With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed. 

ELAGSEKW6 With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of tools to produce and publish writing, including digital tools in collaboration with peers.

Grade 1:

ELAGSE1RL3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

ELAGSE1RL7 Use illustrations and details in a story to describe its characters, setting, or events. 

ELAGSE1RL9 Compare and contrast the adventures and experiences of characters in stories. 

ELAGSE1W2 Write informative/ explanatory texts in which they name a topic, supply some facts about the topic, and provide some sense of closure. 

ELAGSE1W3 Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure

ELAGSE1W5 With guidance and support from adults, focus on a topic, respond to questions and suggestions from peers, and add details to strengthen writing as needed. a. May include oral or written prewriting (graphic organizers). 

ELAGSE1W6 With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of tools to produce and publish writing, including digital tools and collaboration with peers.

Arts Standards

Kindergarten:

ESDK.CR.1 Demonstrate an understanding of the choreographic process.

ESDK.CR.2 Demonstrate an understanding of dance as a form of communication

ESDK.PR.1 Identify and demonstrate movement elements, skills, and terminology in dance.

ESDK.PR.3 Recognize the relationship between human anatomy and movement.

ESDK.PR.4 Understand and apply music concepts to dance.

ESDK.RE.1 Demonstrate critical and creative thinking in dance

ESDK.CN.3 Identify connections between dance and other areas of knowledge

Grade 1:

ESD1.CR.1 Demonstrate an understanding of the choreographic process. 

ESD1.CR.2 Demonstrate an understanding of dance as a form of communication

ESD1.PR.1 Identify and demonstrate movement elements, skills, and terminology in dance.

ESD1.PR.4 Understand and apply music concepts to dance.

ESD2.CN.3 Identify connections between dance and other areas of knowledge.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Kindergarten:

K.RL.MC.8.1 With guidance and support, read or listen closely to: describe characters and their actions;

K.W.MCC.3.1 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, to tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and to provide a reaction to what happened. 

K.C.MC.1.4 Participate in conversations with varied partners about focused grade level topics and texts in small and large groups.

Grade 1:

1.RL.MC.8.1 Read or listen closely to: a. describe characters’ actions and feelings; 

1.W.MCC.3.2 Plan, revise, and edit building on personal ideas and the ideas of others to strengthen writing. 

1.C.MC.3.1 Explore and compare how ideas and topics are depicted in a variety of media and formats.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 1: I can use movement exploration to discover and create artistic ideas and works.

Anchor Standard 2: I can choreograph a dance.

Anchor Standard 3: I can perform movements using the dance elements.

Anchor Standard 5: I can describe, analyze, and evaluate a dance.

Anchor Standard 7: I can relate dance to other arts disciplines, content areas, and careers.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

Beginning - The starting point of a story, including the introduction of who, where, what, why, and when.

Middle - The phase in which a story line develops, introducing conflict. 

End - The ultimate resolution or conclusion to conflict signaling that a story is stopping.

Transition - A word or phrase that connects two ideas.

Writing process - A cycle of activities, including brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, and presentation, that are used to turn ideas into a literary work.

Emotion - A mental state that occurs depending on circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

Arts Vocabulary

Level - The height of a movement in relationship to the floor (i.e., high, middle, low).

Locomotor - Movement that travels from one location to another in a pathway through space.

Non Locomotor - Movement that occurs without the body traveling from one point to another point.

Tempo - The speed of the beats of the movements that dancers perform.

Energy Qualities - A group of actors frozen to create a picture.

  • Swinging - Oscillatory (not swing dance, a genre of dance)
  • Sustained - Smooth, continuous, even, without pause or stopping and possibly with a long duration
  • Percussive - Short, sharp, sudden, forceful
  • Vibratory - Repeating and often small and short
  • Suspended - Holding, as in pausing, at a certain point of a movement

Beginning/Middle/End - The phases of a choreography in which movement is used to communicate a starting point (beginning), the development of ideas, including complexity and conflict as necessary (middle), and a tying up or completion of ideas (end).

Choreographic Process - The steps taken to create movement sequences for dancers, which include testing, revising, and editing work.

 

Materials

  • A variety of music selections
  • Music source and speakers

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Letter Statues

    • In groups, have students select and practice one movement of their choice.
    • Guide students through exploring that movement with different elements of dance.
      • Practice the movement at different levels.
      • Practice the movement with different tempos.
      • Practice the movement in a locomotor and non-locomotor way.
      • Practice the movement using different energy qualities.
        • swinging
        • sustained
        • percussive
        • vibratory
        • suspended

 

Work Session

PART 1 - Explore Movement

  • Have students name a literary character to portray.
  • Instruct students to create a movement to represent something important about that character, which could be an action, emotion, or personality trait of the character.
  • Ask students to demonstrate their movement to the class.
  • Ask classmates to identify the artistic intent conveyed by the group; the presenting group identifies the correct peer answer or explains their artistic intent.

PART 2 - Add new movements to set an order

  • Have students create two more movements to communicate two more important things about their character. There will be three total movements, including the initial movement (part 1) and these two movements. These three movements can be referred to as the beginning, middle and end of the choreography.
  • Ask students to try their movements in different orders and then decide on the sequence that they feel best tells the audience about their character.

PART 3 - Choreograph and revise

  • Lead students through the choreographic process to revise and edit their choreography. Just as with the writing process, the intent of leading students through the process is to add “details” to make the choreography more exciting or interesting.
  • Ask students to add levels to their choreography.  Remind them to think of their character and where and why they would use different levels.  
  • Ask students to add tempos to their choreography.  Would their character move fast or slow?  When or why might that character's tempos vary?
  • Ask students to add energy qualities to their choreography. For example, if the character is excited a vibratory energy quality might be used. If the character is angry a percussive energy quality might be used.
  • Give students time to practice the revised version of their choreography.

PART 4 - Choreograph and revise

  • Once students have revised and edited their choreography, ask them to present their character choreography to the class. Option to choose music for each dance.

 

Closing Reflection

Ask students to reflect on how their dance evolved through the choreographic process.  How did adding level, tempo, and energy qualities make the choreography more interesting? 

Discuss the similarities of the choreographic process to the writing process.

 

Assessments

Formative

Visually observe the students' choreography evolving as they work through the choreographic process.

  • Teacher observes students adding the elements of dance to their choreography as queued: levels, tempo, energy qualities.
  • Teacher observes students using vocabulary of the elements of dance as they work.

 

Summative

CHARACTER CHOREOGRAPHY CHECKLIST

  • The choreography contains a clear beginning, middle, end.
  • The choreography contains levels.
  • The choreography contains varying tempos.
  • The choreography effectively uses dance to communicate ideas about the chosen character.

 

Differentiation

Acceleration: 

  • Have students work in partners to evolve work for a single person into a duet showing how two characters would relate to one another.
  • Compare and contrast two-character choreography works.

Remediation: 

Work through the process as a large group working on one character.

Additional Resources

While part of the standards discussion but not standards themselves, the statements below reflect the connection between the choreographic process and the writing process and are interesting to consider while implementing this lesson.

Fundamentals of Writing  

Employ a recursive writing process that includes planning, drafting, revising, editing, rewriting, publishing, and reflecting.  

Interact and collaborate with peers and adults to develop and strengthen writing.  

Produce writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, discipline, and audience. 

Fundamentals of Communication  

Employ a reciprocal communication process that includes planning, drafting, revising, editing, reviewing, presenting, and reflecting.  

Communicate using style, language, and nonverbal cues appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.  

Use active and attentive communication skills, building on other’s ideas to explore, learn, enjoy, argue, and exchange information.  

Monitor delivery and reception throughout the communication process and adjust approach and strategies as needed.

 

 

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

 Ideas contributed by:  Melissa Dittmar-Joy

Revised and copyright: August 2022 @ ArtsNOW

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Creating a Compelling Story From Music

CREATING A COMPELLING STORY FROM MUSIC

CREATING A COMPELLING STORY FROM MUSIC

Learning Description

Encourage your students to exercise their imaginations and write with courage and conviction. Using music from a wide variety of cultures, students will develop good listening skills and write from the heart using their own voices. This aural exercise will help students think creatively.

 

Learning Targets

GRADE BAND: K-1
CONTENT FOCUS: MUSIC & ELA
LESSON DOWNLOADS:

Download PDF of this Lesson

"I Can" Statements

“I Can…”

  • Compose an original story inspired by a piece of music.

Essential Questions

  • Essential Question: How can music be used to inspire narrative writing?

 

Georgia Standards

Curriculum Standards

Kindergarten:

ELACCKW3 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.

 

Grade 1:

ELACC1W3 Write narratives in which they recount two or more appropriately sequenced events, include some details regarding what happened, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide some sense of closure.

Arts Standards

Kindergarten:

ESGMK.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

Grade 1:

ESGM1.RE.1 Listen to, analyze, and describe music.

 

South Carolina Standards

Curriculum Standards

Kindergarten:

K.MCC.3.1 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, to tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and to provide a reaction to what happened. 

 

Grade 1:

1.MCC.3.1 Explore multiple texts to write narratives that recount two or more sequenced events, include details, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

Arts Standards

Anchor Standard 6: I can analyze music.

 

Key Vocabulary

Content Vocabulary

Character - A person, or animal or other entity that has human characteristics, in a story.

Setting - Where and when a story takes place.

Event - A happening, something that occurs in a story.

Detail - A small, interesting part of a larger whole.

Title - The name of a creative work.

Arts Vocabulary

Dynamics - The volume of sound; how loud or soft it is.

Pitch - How high or low a note sounds.

Tempo - The speed at which a musical piece is played; how fast or slow.

Duration - The length of time a sound lasts; how long or short.

Timbre - The quality of a sound (round, brassy, sharp, bright).

Form - The structure or pattern in music; how the sounds are put together.

Rhythm - A pattern of sound which can be repeated to a regular beat.

 

Materials

  • Pencils
  • Crayons
  • Paper
  • Audio recordings
  • Sound source (CD Player, iPod, etc.) - 3-5 selections of instrumental music
  • Photographs and prints (optional)

 

Instructional Design

Opening/Activating Strategy

Warm-Up:  Moving to Music

  • Tell the students they are going to have a chance to move to music.  In order to stay safe, remind them to stay in their own personal space.  Have students stand by their desks or tables, or spread them around the room.  Have them keep their feet in one spot, and then stretch out their arms all around; if their hands or arms touch each other, reposition them, or have them reposition themselves, so that each student has ample personal space.
  • Tell students you are going to play instrumental music – just instruments, no words or singing - and as they listen they can sense how it makes them feel, and then move accordingly.  Remind them they must stay in their assigned places, and move only in their own personal space.
  • Put on a selection of instrumental music, possibly from another culture.
  • Model different ways of moving to the music, describing as you do (e.g, “I am waving my arms slowly,” or “This part makes me want to go up on my toes”) and encourage students to move in their own ways.  Possibly, use observational language to comment on some student choices (e.g., “I see Arianna swaying gently,” “Terrence is shaking his knees very quickly”).
  • After the activity, reflect by asking the students how they felt moving to the music, and why they made some of the movement choices they made.  Ask if the music made them imagine particular kinds of people, animals, places, times of day, weather, landscapes, etc.  Perhaps share some ideas of your own (e.g., “I imagined a teenage girl in a long blue dress.  I imagined a big rock along the seashore.”)

 

Work Session

  • Ask students to describe, in general, what we hear when we hear music, and how pieces of music are different from one another (e.g., some are faster, some have loud drums, some are sad, some have quiet parts).  Lead them to discussion of various elements of music – dynamics, tempo, pitch, duration, melody, etc.  Talk about the extremes in each (loud/soft, fast/slow, etc.)
  • Explain that students will listen to another piece of instrumental music.  This time, they will not move, but should listen for the musical elements, and think about the images these elements create in their minds.
  • Play a different piece of instrumental music, ideally one that contrasts the piece used in the opening activity.  Encourage students to listen with their eyes shut.
  • Tell students that they will be creating/composing original stories in response to the music.  Post and review with the students the following questions:
    • What is the title of my story? 
    • Where does my story take place? 
    • When does my story take place? 
    • Who are the characters? 
  • Give students paper and writing/drawing utensils.  Depending on the teacher’s goals and the students’ skill level, students can write and/or draw to create their stories.
  • Play the music again.  Ask the students to listen carefully again and to write or draw answers to the questions.
  • Repeat the process with two or three more contrasting pieces of instrumental music.  Have students create an idea page for each.
  • Have each student choose their favorite piece of music and compose a story that includes the title, setting, characters, and events inspired by the music.  Encourage them to include details.
  • Have students share their stories in pairs or trios.  Possibly, have volunteers share their stories in front of the entire class.  If they can speak loud enough, possibly play the selection of music softly as they are reading/telling their story.

 

Classroom Tips:

  • A wide range of music is best (e.g. Native American, Scandinavian, African, Asian, Latin American, flute, international jazz, violin, saxophone, harp); avoid using music familiar to or easily identified by students.

Closing Reflection

Ask students:  How did the music inspire story ideas in your mind?  Which elements of the music were most important to you in creating your story?  What did you like about this activity?  What was easy or hard about this activity?

 

Assessments

Formative

  • Students participate actively in the warm-up.
  • Students cite the elements of music in their reflections on their music-listening and story composition.
  • Students use their time efficiently to write or draw ideas for their stories.

 

Summative

Student stories as written or drawn show clear evidence of having characters, settings, events, and titles.

 

Differentiation

Acceleration: 

Add in the concepts of conflict/problem (“a challenge that the main character faces and must resolve”) and/or protagonist and antagonist (“the main character in the story,” and “the character who is opposed to or in conflict with the main character”) as elements that the students must clearly develop in their stories. 

Remediation: 

Work as a full class to develop the first story.  Then develop more stories as a full class, or have students work in small groups. 

Take care to choose musical selections that are not too challenging or jarring.

 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

  • Putumayo World Music can be accessed at Putumayo.com, or accessed through streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music.
  • Longer loops in GarageBand or similar apps can be useful.
  • A search of “World Music” will bring up links to YouTube videos that feature varieties of multicultural instrumental music.

*This integrated lesson provides differentiated ideas and activities for educators that are aligned to a sampling of standards. Standards referenced at the time of publishing may differ based on each state’s adoption of new standards.

Ideas contributed by:  Janice Akers
Modifications, Extensions, and Adaptations Contributed by: Peggy Barnes, Candy Bennett, Lindsey Elrod, Jennifer Plummer, Vilma Thomas, and Barry Stewart Mann.

 Revised and copyright:  Date updated @ ArtsNOW

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