Dancing Sentences
Description
Explore sentence structure and punctuation through dance!
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
"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
Dance Across the US of A
Description
These activities will allow students to become explorers and travel across the United States to encounter a variety of land forms. Students will create a story about their trek and then create choreography to match the sequence generated in the story.
Dance Graphs
DANCE GRAPHS
Learning Description
Students will interpret data on graphs and use the information to explore dance composition, form, and order of choreography.
Learning Targets
"I Can" Statements
“I Can…”
- I can group and interpret data.
- I can recognize different types of graphs.
- I can interpret data in a graph to create choreography.
Essential Questions
- How can dance and movement be used to demonstrate understanding of graphs and data interpretation?
Georgia Standards
Curriculum Standards
Kindergarten:
MGSE2.MD.10 Draw a picture graph and a bar graph (with single-unit scale) to represent a data set with up to four categories. Solve simple put-together, take-apart, and compare problems using information presented in a bar graph.Grade 1:
MGSE3.MD.3 Draw a scaled picture graph and a scaled bar graph to represent a data set with several categories. Solve one- and two-step “how many more” and “how many less” problems using information presented in scaled bar graphs. For example, draw a bar graph in which each square in the bar graph might represent 5 pets.
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.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.
ESD2.CN.3 Identify connections between dance and other areas of knowledge.
South Carolina Standards
Curriculum Standards
Kindergarten:
K.MDA.3 Sort and classify data into 2 or 3 categories with data not to exceed 20 items in each category.
K.MDA.4 Represent data using object and picture graphs and draw conclusions from the graphs.
Grade 1:
1.MDA.4 Collect, organize, and represent data with up to three categories using object graphs, picture graphs, t-charts and tallies.
1.MDA.5 Draw conclusions from given object graphs, picture graphs, t-charts, tallies, and bar graphs.
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.
Key Vocabulary
Content Vocabulary
Graph - A diagram that shows the relationship between two or more things.
Data - A collection of individual facts or statistics.
Analyze - Examine a subject methodically and in detail, typically in order to explain and interpret it.
Arts Vocabulary
Choreography - The art of composing dances and planning and arranging the movements, steps, and patterns of dancers.
Choreographer - A person who creates dances.
Level - The vertical distance from the floor that a dancer occupies during a movement
Plane - An imaginary flat surface running through the body.
Materials
- Music source and speakers
- Graphs/Data, printed or projected
Instructional Design
Opening/Activating Strategy
Teacher tallies the number of students born each month. Students group birthdays into seasons.
As a group, lead students in a warm up that includes these dance elements:
- Levels, body shapes, plane
- Locomotor and non-locomotor movements
- Identify these dance elements so that students learn dance vocabulary.
Work Session
Movement Discovery
Look at a variety of types of graphs and discuss:
- The basic, overall shapes of each graph, i.e., a bar graph may be described as rectangular while a pie chart may be called a circle
- Looking inside the graphs, how different shapes and symbols express data in each example, i.e., a pie chart contains angles while a picture graph may contain hearts and stars.
Collaboration:
- Divide the class into small groups and assign either a picture or a bar graph to each group, using various examples of graphs.
- Students describe the graph form (overall form and form of value symbols) using the dance vocabulary and concepts from warm-up
- Students assign dance movements to the visual expression of the form of the graph, i.e., bars on a bar graph may be jumps; stars on a picture graph may be spins.
Choreographic Process:
- Students analyze the data that the teacher gathered at the beginning of class: How many students have birthdays in each season?
- Students draw the data in their assigned graph.
- Create a graph dance by sequencing the movements from the previous step so that they reflect the data, i.e., a bar graph with data of 5 and 2 may include a person standing on their toes and extending their arms overhead 5 times and another person repeating the movement 2 times.
- Students decide how to order the data, such as least to most or progression of seasons in the calendar year.
- Students decide how to demonstrate the type of graph, as well as data.
Performance and discussion:
- Perform each group dance.
- The audience identifies which type of graph the peer group is presenting.
- The teacher asks questions about the data represented in each graph dance (How many? How many more? How many fewer? Which season had more birthdays? the most? fewer? the least?).
Closing Reflection
The audience explains how movement observed represents the form of the graph, as well as the data.
Groups explain why they chose certain movements to express the data and form of their graph.
Assessments
Formative
- Students engage in a collaborative discussion about movement choices, graph form, and data.
- Students correctly use dance vocabulary during the discussion.
Summative
- Students correctly interpret their assigned data.
- Students present choreography that accurately portrays their assigned data.
- Students/audience will accurately identify and interpret the data expressed in peer choreography.
Differentiation
Acceleration: Show dance photos that contain multiple dancers; count the dancers and then express the data in scaled picture or bar graphs. Suggested photos in Additional Resources, below.
Remediation: Analyze data and draw it in different types of graphs as a whole class and then divide into small groups to create choreographies.
Additional Resources
Classroom Tips:
Set up chairs and tables in a circular format to maximize students’ engagement and ability to see their peers during the activity and performance. Also establish parameters for acceptable movement choices and discuss audience behavior/etiquette with students.
Suggested dance photos for first grade acceleration:
Two dancers:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MX_MM_BALLET_FOLKL%C3%93RICO_DE_M%C3%89XICO_-_40289925045.jpg
Four dancers
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballet_Flamenco_de_Andaluc%C3%ADa19_(48628989227).jpg
.jpg){kind=link}
Six dancers
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Opening_Performance_and_Address_(52146422509).jpg
.jpg){kind=link}
Eight dancers
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dance_Ensemble_Sofia_6_Women.jpg
Ten dancers
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NIGERIA_Group_Dance1.jpg
Remediation: Analyze data and draw it in different types of graphs as a whole class and then divide into small groups to create choreographies.
*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 and updated by: Julie Galle Baggenstoss and Melissa Dittmar-Joy
Revised and copyright: August 2022 @ ArtsNOW
Moving Motion
MOVING MOTION
Learning Description
Move to learn! Students will create movement sequences to represent and better understand the impact of force on different types of motion.
Learning Targets
"I Can" Statements
“I Can…”
- I can use dance to communicate ideas about science.
- I can identify patterns and pathways that a dancer makes when performing movements.
- I can copy the movements of a dancer to make patterns using my own body.
Essential Questions
- How can dance/movement demonstrate science concepts?
- What are different ways we can represent call and response in choreography?
- What are the different ways we use patterns in locomotor movements?
Georgia Standards
Curriculum Standards
Kindergarten:
SKP2. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to compare and describe differenttypes of motion.a. Plan and carry out an investigation to determine the relationship between an object’s physical attributes and its resulting motion (straight, circular, back and forth, fast and slow, and motionless) when a force is applied. (Examples could include toss, drop, push, and pull.)
Arts Standards
Kindergarten:
ESDK.CR.1 Demonstrate an understanding of the choreographic process.a. Explore working independently and collaboratively with others.b. Create and perform a dance sequence.c. Explore dance elements through structured improvisation and play (e.g. body, space,time, energy).d. Respond to a variety of stimuli through movement (e.g. scarves, songs, sounds, images).
ESDK.PR.1 Identify and demonstrate movement elements, skills, and terminology indance.a. Identify and demonstrate basic creative and locomotor movements and body isolations.b. Demonstrate the difference between personal and general space.c. Demonstrate the ability to perform simple movements in response to oral instruction.
ESDK.PR.2 Understand and model dance etiquette as a classroom participant, performer,and observer.a. Demonstrate attentiveness, full participation, and awareness of others in the dancelearning and performance environments.b. Understand and demonstrate appropriate behaviors as a dance performer, and as anaudience member.
ESDK.PR.3 Recognize the relationship between human anatomy and movement.a. Identify basic body parts and how they move.
South Carolina Standards
Curriculum Standards
Kindergarten:
K.PS.2.1. Plan and conduct an investigation to compare the effects of different strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object.
Arts Standards
Kindergarten:
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
Move - To change place or position.
Motionless - Without movement.
Push - To press something away from you.
Pull - To tug something closer to you.
Arts Vocabulary
Locomotor skills - Movements that make the body travel in one direction, or a combination of directions, from one point to another, i.e., walking, skipping, jumping.
Axial skills - Stationary movements that happen in place, without a body traveling from one point to another.
Pathway - The pattern that a body or body part takes during a movement, i.e., straight, zigzag, round and round, back and forth, up and down.
Choreographer - A person who creates dances.
Materials
- Music recordings
- Method of playing the recordings including speaker, Bluetooth, HDMI, mp3
- Printed images
- Projector (to show images of shapes if they are not printed)
Instructional Design
Opening/Activating Strategy
- Project a selection of photos that show objects in motion, and ask students to name objects, motions, and/or pathways that they see in the photos.
- Warm-up with students for approximately three minutes.
- During dance warm-up, use movements that convey movements and pathways that can be identified using science vocabulary, i.e., rolling, zig-zag, motionless, push, and pull.
- Use a handle question to prompt students to look for motions and pathways as they dance and then name them when the warm up is completed.
Work Session
Process
- Compare and contrast locomotor and stationary movements, pathways, and motionless objects.
- Identify movements that can be made with the body that represent the ways objects travel when in motion, including patterns, pathways, and speed.
- Divide students into groups to create a choreography based on call and response.
- Ask group members to select one kind of motion and one pathway (i.e., roll, zig zag, slide, etc.).
- Ask one member of each group to be the “Force Director,” who will initiate the call(s) in the choreography, which would be either a pull or a push. The force director will use a push or pull movement with one or more body parts to elicit a response from one or more team member.
- Upon receiving the call from the Force Director, team members put their bodies in motion as per movement/elements selected in #1 above.
- Ask the Force Director to use a fast and sharp push/pull and ask team members to imagine how that adjustment would modify their responses. Repeat with a slow and soft push/pull. Repeat with a small push/pull. Repeat with a very large push/pull.
- Ask group members to consider rhythm, distance traveled, and number of repetitions in a phrase (i.e., skip along a curved path) with each of the modifications in #4 above.
- Ask groups to select three movements to perform in a sequence; this results in an ABAB pattern of call, response, call, response, call, response.
- Ask the audience to explain the actions of the Force Director and the resulting responses of the group members in the choreography, with a rationale to substantiate their answers.
Closing Reflection
- Ask students to name the body parts they used for movements.
- Ask students why they chose their selected elements in the call and response activity.
- Ask students to describe the connection between science and dance that they experienced in this lesson.
- Ask students to describe what a choreographer does.
- Ask students to explain how they worked as choreographers during this lesson.
Assessments
Formative
- Students should correctly perform the type of motion with the correct body part.
- Students in the audience should be able to correctly identify the type of motion and body part used in the performance.
- Call and response dances should include appropriate relationships between force of push/pull and the resulting “response” or motions made by group members.
Summative
- Students identify movements, patterns, and pathways that dancers, including their peers, make when moving their bodies.
- Students create pathways and locomotor movements using their own movements.
- Students create and remember a short choreography.
- Students perform choreography clearly showing shapes in movement.
- Students move to the beat of a musical rhythm.
Differentiation
Acceleration: Ask students to dance to a different song with a different or faster/slower beat. Ask students to consider including stationary/axial movements in their dances as a layer of contrast. Ask students to include both push and pull “calls” in their dances.
Remediation: Ask students to name, describe, and demonstrate their movements and their relationships to the push/pull forces that initiate them.
Additional Resources
Classroom Tips: Set up chairs and tables in a circular format to maximize students’ engagement and ability to see their peers during the activity and performance. Remind students about rules of movement; they are in control of their bodies and you want to see that movement does not require our mouths. Also establish parameters for acceptable movement choices and discuss audience behavior/etiquette with students.
*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 and updated by: Melissa Dittmar-Joy and Julie Galle Baggenstoss
Revised and copyright: August 2022 @ ArtsNOW