My Dance Portfolio

1. Laban's Effort Exploration 

Laban's Movement Analysis is a theoretical/experiential system for the observation, description prescription, performance, and interpretation of human movement. In other words, it provides a way for people to label and use set movements to express and create (in the context of this course) a dance piece. These movements can be used to invoke an emotional response from the audience. Laban  stated that there are four main parts to movements, with each part having two elements. These parts and their elements includes:

• Direction: Direct or Indirect
• Weight: Strong or Light
• Speed: Quick or Sustained
• Flow: Bound or Free

Below is a video that can be used to show students examples of what these terms would look like when presented through dance. 

The Importance of Dance Education

Dance education enables students to use movement as a means of expression and communication. When we think about designing lessons for diverse learners, dance is an excellent way to provide various opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding. 

By teaching Laban's Movement Theory, students are provided with a framework for movement that allows them to learn how to dance rather than recall a series of dance steps. It also enables students to label and describe the movements that they are performing, as well as design a dance to invoke a certain emotion or theme for the audience. 

Theory Into Action 

A teacher could introduce this theory by have students move through space using different ways of travelling (ie. leaping, galloping, skipping, etc.). Students could also be asked to sink, and rise. Effort tasks could include exploring weight, time, or flow of movement for expressive purposes. Weight could be emphasized through sudden movement, communicating a sense of urgency or spontaneity. Time movement could be sudden or sustained and flow could focus on free or bound movements. Space can relate to general  as well as personal space, pathways, direction, levels, which can all be used to express feeling through dance. Relationship deals with the relationship of body parts to one another (ie. leading/following, mirroring/matching, toward/away) and responding to those movements. 

Cross Curricular Connections

Dance and movement cross-connects to other strands of the curriculum easily. The following document entitled Applying Laban’s Movement Framework in Elementary Physical Education, is a great resource for applying movement to the phys-ed curriculum. 

Why should students understand this theory of movement? 

During my practicum experience I was provided the opportunity to teach a dance unit. At first many of my students were resistant to the idea of dancing and would ask me why it was important. My response to them was that if they learn how to move their bodies, they can better understand and apply those movements to be successful at other sports they may play. This demonstrated to me that not all students recognize the importance of understanding movement, and as educators, we need to incorporate this as a foundation for knowledge for our students. 

2. Connecting Dance and Science 

In week two we learned about connecting dance and science. Dance is a great way to have students communicate and gain understanding in a kinesthetic way. This is a connection that I have made before when designing a science unit where students learn about the human digestive system.

The Digestive Dance

The digestive dance is a fun and creative way for students to demonstrate their understanding of how food moves through the digestive system. Students work together to choreograph an perform a dance routine that communicates how food moves through the various organs in the digestive system. 

This activity also provides an excellent opportunity for students to incorporate technology and research. Students, in their groups, must research which organs are part of the digestive system and how they work to move food through the body. 

Next students must decide who will play what parts (ie. the teeth, tongue, esophagus, stomach, intestines, etc.). Student may use props but are encouraged to remember that food changes form as it moves through the digestive system. 

One example of how the final product may look can be observed in the video below.

3. Combinations and Shapes 

In week three we learned how to connect mathematical concepts with dance instruction. We were instructed to create two dimensional shapes using our bodies. The activity can be extended even further by having two students, or even groups of students combine their shapes. Students can identify the shape they have created, or the teacher could ask the students to form a given shape (ie. hexagon, octagon, etc.). 

This activity is a great way to incorporate art and technology as well. When considering students who may have diverse needs, some students may not have the fine motor or gross motor skill necessary to fully complete the activity. Each student will have different needs, however, here are some suggestions on how a teacher could accommodate those students:

• creating by dictation 
• having students use their hands or props to create shapes
• having students identity the shapes that his/her classmates have made to assess understanding

4. Incorporating Bloom's Taxonomy 

In week four, my group and I created a lesson that combined the social studies curriculum with the dance curriculum. Our group also incorporated Bloom's Taxonomy when designing the lesson for more effective instruction. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a framework created by Benjamin Bloom in 1956. This framework consists of six major categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation.

Remember: In this case it would be the knowledge that students gained about First Nations peoples during the Heritage and Identity unit in Social Studies.    

Understand: The student understands what the concept of Powwow dance.  

  

Apply: Students apply this knowledge by learning and performing the Friendship Dance, also known as the Round Dance.

Analyze: analyzing specific dances to connect movement, speed, regalia and dance steps to deeper cultural meanings. 

Evaluate: Putting together elements of dance, history, and social studies to form synthesis of knowledge and application when observing various types of powwow dance. 

 Create: Students create their own dance using steps learned and incorporating the knowledge and understanding they have developed throughout the lesson. 

The final activity encouraged students to incorporate their knowledge and understanding of how Powwow dances tell a story, to in turn create a story of their own to communicate the Turtle Island creation story. Students were encouraged to use the five elements of dance (body, space, time, energy, and relationship) when creating their interpretation. 

5. Flocking 

In week five we learned about dance strategy called Flocking. Flocking is a type of improvisation in which students move in groups, with no set pattern or in a diamond formation (resembling a flock of birds), following a leader and all doing the same movements simultaneously. This is an extended version of mirroring for three or more people. Participants do not necessarily need to be able to watch each other, as long as they can see the leader.

The leader demonstrated one movements that they formulated. The other students will simultaneously copied the movement. Once all students have gained an understanding of the movement, they switched so that a new leader demonstrated a movement. After all students had the opportunity to be the leader and share their movement, we were encouraged to create a second movement. During the second round, music was added to create atmosphere and different interpretations. 

We were then asked to present our dance and received feedback from our peers. We further discussed the impact of the movement compositions and how they conveyed specific messages. We further discussed the transitions that were used and how focused was maintained during the dance. 

A Drama Portfolio

1. Learners Theory 

Theory Into Practice: Machine Drama Activity 

The activity Machine is a great way to incorporate Learners Theory into the classroom. This is a game in which students connect multiple, simple repetitive body motions in a sequence to represent an idea, theme, or process. By completing this activity, students are able to explore body and vocal theater skills (ie. projection, articulation, shape and level in space, quality of motion, and tempo). By practicing these skills, students are able to consider how an individual action is part of a larger connected system. 

This activity has a great cross-curricular connection to the science curriculum. I would introduce this activity by having students meet together in a large circle and by asking the question What is a machine? This provides an opportunity for the whole class to develop a definition, providing various types of machines for examples. The class will then pick a machine to explore. I would brainstorm with the class the simple sound and movements that this machine might produce. I would invite one student to come to the center of the circle to make the simple and repetitive movement and then label this as the first piece of the machine. I would then invite another student to think of another sound or motion that could be added to the first persons. I would continue to call students or have students volunteer to add parts to the machine. Ideally each continuing motion would relate to the movements of the other students, just as parts of a machine do. 

Once the majority, if not all students are joined in, the teacher can then change the tempo."Turn up the speed" so that the machine is working faster, or slow it down so that the machine is working very slowly. 

To incorporate the students who are not acting as a piece of the machine, ask them to consider the movements that they are observing and have them consider what kind of machine it is. Encourage students to consider if the movements have altered their interpretation of the machine and ask What else could it be? 

Have students return to the circle and as a class discuss what worked well when creating the machine. I would then repeat the activity, giving them a theme that is less familiar, or have them make a machine that is named in the end. As the activity it repeated,  have students explore levels, tempo, quality of movement, and effect. 

Resources:

 DBI Network: Activating Learning through the Arts, Machine

Sourced from: http://dbp.theatredance.utexas.edu/teaching-strategies/machine  

2. Blooms Taxonomy 

Theory Into Practice: News Reporting 

Bloom's Taxonomy is a theoretical framework linked to learning and education. Drama is such a versatile subject because it enables students to go through different stages of the learning process, which can be observed in the chart above. 

One great way that this theory can be applied to a drama lesson is to use the "Newspaper Report Strategy". The link below is a great resource, outlining a workshop that can be used with students entitled, Exploring The Stories Behind The News Headlines. This workshop provides an excellent opportunity to connect the literacy curriculum and is adaptable to meet the needs of various students. This workshop also enables students to explore an incident from various perspectives.

By completing this workshop, students will learn to write for a specific purpose, while ultimately being able to devise, write, and perform a television news broadcast. This activity does a great job of incorporating Bloom's Taxonomy throughout the writing, editing, dramatic enacting, and evaluating.

3. Drama + Math = Dramath 

Drama can be an excellent tool to help students make sense of concepts that may at first seem confusing, thus meaning drama can be used as a source of clarity. One activity that I have discovered and used is entitled Word Problem: Acting Solution. This is an activity that I have found through an online resource entitled Drama + Math = Dramath. This resource provides a framework for connecting dramatic arts to the mathematics curriculum to ultimately enhance student understand and engagement. This resource also includes a nine lesson unit with a focus on writing mathematical word problems as scenes and paragraphs. 

To elaborate on how each lesson is designed, I will provide a brief overview of the introductory lessons. In lessons one and two, students begin by writing simple scenes with a given format (Action/Dialogue/Dialogue/Dialogue/Action/Dialogue) also known as the ADDDAD structure. 

An example of this is as follows:

A - Jennifer walks to a counter in a coffee shop.

D - Cashier: Can I help you?

D - Jennifer: Yes, I’d like a cup of coffee.

D - Cashier: That’ll be two dollars.

A - Jennifer hands Cashier two dollars.

D - Cashier: Thanks. 

Each scene has two characters and must happen in real time. In Lesson Three, students begin

adding mathematical components into their scenes which will be acted out in class. These scenes

still use the ADDDAD structure:

A – Byron drops a bag of marbles and they roll all over the floor.

D – Bruce: I bet I can pick all of those up with one hand.

D – Byron: No way, there’s 26 marbles.

D – Bruce: Watch me.

A – Bruce picks up 20 marbles.

D – Byron: Told you! You left 6 of them on the floor. 

During lessons four and five, students are provided with multiple opportunities to act and share the "word problem scenes", to help students develop an understanding of how math and text are translated into the real world. Students are able to learn from their peers by listening and observing the through processes of their fellow students. Students begin to shift the scenes they have enacted into a paragraph format, this serves as an introduction to the traditional mathematical word problem. 

To continue from our previous example, this is what the final product for lesson three should look like:

Byron drops a bag of marbles and they roll all over the floor. Bruce thinks he can

pick them all 26 up with one hand. Byron thinks he can’t. Bruce picks up 20.

Bryon points out that he left 6 on the floor. (The last line could be

replaced with ‘How many marbles were left on the floor?’ to become a

recognizable word problem.)

In lesson seven, students continue translating scenes, however, now they are written as all action and no dialogue and into paragraph form word problems. Lessons eight and nine allow students time to focus on interpreting the word problems and then staging and performing their scenes. 

The goal of this unit is that to have students write word problems based on dramatic reenactment. This would ultimately serve to make solving the mathematical component of the problem a more natural process that can be more easily understood.

4. Tableau 

The dramatic strategy of tableau comes from the French term tableau vivant, which when translated to English means "living picture". Students create a tableau by enacting a still picture, without talking, to successfully communicate a concept or ideas. Tableau is an excellent method for students to communicate their understanding because a true understanding is required in order to communicate it using physical poses, facial expressions, and gestures, rather than words. Tableau also provides learning opportunities for kinesthetic learners, while encouraging students to gain a deeper understanding of a concept collaboratively. 

Extensions of the Tableau

There are many extension activities that can be applied to the dramatic strategy of tableau. I have included some of these strategies I discovered at The Teacher Toolkit below:

Guess the Tableau

Give each group of students their tableau topic as a secret they should keep. When each group presents, the class should guess what each group is presenting and provide evidence for their choice.

Tableau Series

Have students create a series of tableau's with short narration or dialogue in between to link the tableau's (assuming each group has a different prompt or concept that they are working on, within the same unit).

Tableau With a Twist

After the students "freeze" into their tableau, the teacher taps a student in the tableau on the shoulder and the student makes a short statement about their character in the scene.

Tableau Interview

After the students "freeze" into their Tableau, the teacher (or a student) acts as a reporter and conducts short interviews with individuals acting in the scene.

5. Choral Speaking: There Is Meaning In Our Voices

Choral Speaking is defined within the Ontario Arts Curriculum as "The reading or reciting of a text by a group. Preparation for a performance may involve interpretation of the text; experimentation with language, rhythm, volume, pace, and different numbers of voices; and rehearsal".

The Council of Ontario Drama and Dance Educators (CODE), provides effective instructional approaches that can be used when teaching students choral speaking. These approaches include:

• Pre-select and display several short poems. (Some poems that work well are from authors Dennis Lee, Loris Lesynski, John Mole and Shel Silverstein.)
• Through a selection process (i.e. stars, vote) have the class select a poem.
• Students will need to have access to copies of the poem selected.
• Read through the poem with students, (focusing on interpretation), so that all students understand the meaning of the poem.
• Recite the poem with the students (everyone speaking at the same time).
• Following the first recitation, encourage the students to make the poem more exciting by emphasizing vocal elements in their reading.
• Repeat the choral reading of the poem several times, introducing and experimenting with different elements, deciding as a class how each element works best for the performance of this poem:
• Dynamics: Volume
• Pitch: the highness, or lowness of sound
• Tempo: speed
• Tone: light, medium or heavy sounds
• For more advanced lessons, develop the use of voice production stages: Respiration, Phonation, Resonation, Articulation.
• Once you have decided on how the poem will be vocally performed, ask the students what movements would make the meaning of the poem come to life. They could use gestures, large actions or even choreograph some movement phrases.  

Planning for Different Levels of Readiness

I really like the CODE website, as it provides educators with a toolkit to successfully teach drama strategies while considering planning drama instruction for diverse learners. When planning for students with different levels of readiness, there are many things that educators can utilize to ensure that they are meeting the needs of all students. 

Text Forms:

There are a variety of text forms that can be utilized for a choral reading lesson. This includes; writing in role texts created by students, fictional stories, newspaper articles, non-fiction literature, plays, etc. 

Experimenting With Format:

Students may experiment with canon, rounds, pair, small group or solo sections within a choral reading involving the whole group. One half of the class might read one section and the rest of the class can read another.

Alternative Vocal Techniques: 

Alternative vocal techniques that students could use includes; echoing words and phrases, alternating lines, chants, overlapping lines, repeating lines or words, whispering lines or words, changing tones in mid line, singing, creating sound effects, crying, whistling, clapping or other body percussion, and altering the tempo and rhythm or inserting pauses.

Extending the Lesson 

There are a plethora of ways that choral reading can be intentionally extended to create deeper understanding. The teacher could plan a presentation on a particular theme using various texts based on that theme. Another way to extend a choral reading lesson is to have students write a piece to be presented through choral speaking.

Choral speaking can easily be connected to other strands of the curriculum. When connecting it to the language curriculum, choral speaking can be used to demonstrate the interpretation of a text. When connecting it to the social studies curriculum, the teacher could select a text that has a cultural or historical significance, to have students then use choral reading to communicate the given meaning of the text.