Dance and Science

For me, Science is one of those subjects that I did not like when I was in school, but I have seen many engaging instructional strategies and methods to make this subject more enjoyable. Dance is a great strategy to get students engaged and involved in their learning.

The Elements of Dance (body, space, time, energy, and relationship) can all be related to Science. By just looking at the vocabulary, you can notice that the words are related to both the Science and Dance curriculums.

To get students moving and into the right mindset for dance, Action Pak Resource has cards that are an excellent resource for students to use. These cards have action words and use word art to illustrate the action. This helps students incorporate the elements of dance and allows students to experiment, and link action words to develop a dance vocabulary.

Woolley, E. © 2017

These cards work well with the Science curriculum because the vocabulary is linked. For example, words like "freeze, expand, and shrink" can be used to represent something like the water cycle, or states of matter.

An activity that highlights the use of these cards is to learn/review states of matter and as an extension, the water cycle. Students show how the process works through dance as a confirmation of understanding. You can have students brainstorm which action words are associated with each state of matter, and each process of the water cycle (i.e. expand, melt, etc.). You can assign a state of matter to each group of students (gas, liquid, solid) and they can explain how the particles move for each state of matter through dance. As an extension, assign each group a part of the water cycle (solidification, condensation, melting, evaporation, sublimation) and they can create a dance using the action words to represent the process.

They can explain the choices for their movement to show that they understand the properties of matter. With this type of activity, students should be explaining and experimenting. As a teacher, you should not be overly concerned with the final product (the dance), because the process is the most important part, as it shows their thinking, communication, and understanding of the information.

Language Arts and Drama

I collaborated with some of my peers to create an integrated Language and Drama lesson. The literary source of inspiration for this lesson is fables and common fairy tales. The language arts focus is to establish a distinctive voice and so we chose a literary source that many students would be familiar with. Goldilocks and the 3 Little Pigs provides students with several perspectives to consider and reenact. The goal is to provide students with simple stories that they can easily understand and relate to. Other fairytales could be used for variety or to introduce a specific theme. In this case, each story includes a villain (Goldilocks and the wolf) and 3 victims (the 3 bears and the 3 pigs). The purpose is to provide many perspectives for the students to consider and expand on through both Language Arts and Drama. Depending on the class community, the literary source may need to be adapted to ensure students know the stories. For example, if your class has a high FNMI population you may want to consider using stories that originate from their culture. For ELLs, other literary sources could be considered such as a story from their language or using characters that the student is familiar with.

The curriculum connections for this lesson include both Language Arts and Drama expectations for grade six:

Language Arts: Writing

Specific Expectations:

2.2 establish a distinctive voice in their writing appropriate to the subject and audience.

2.5 identify their point of view and other possible points of view; determine, when appropriate, if

their own view is balanced and supported by the evidence; and adjust their thinking and

expression if appropriate.

Drama

Specific Expectations:

B1.1 engage actively in drama exploration and role play, with a focus on identifying and examining a range of issues, themes, and ideas from a variety of fiction and non-fiction sources and diverse communities, times, and places

B1.3 plan and shape the direction of the drama or role play by introducing new perspectives and ideas, both in and out of role

Minds On

Hot seating:

Discuss the idea of multiple perspectives - how would another character view the story?
Have a volunteer answer questions based on a specific role (the wolf in the three little pigs)

Action

Read Goldilocks story as a class and discuss the roles in the story:

• Goldilocks
• Papa bear
• Little bear
• Mama bear

Divide students into groups of four: tape character roles under their chairs.

Every Goldilocks character will come together, every Papa bear will come together, every mama bear will come together, every Little bear will come together.
In groups, they will discuss the story from their own role

Create character map for their role as a group using hardcopy or online version

i.e : little bear might say that he was upset because he had been saving his porridge all day, and now he doesn’t have a bedtime snack.
Groups will brainstorm and write their own group perspective by writing in role
Groups will come together and discuss the story based on their own perspectives:

• i.e : Goldilocks: I was just tired, I didn’t mean to ruin anything
  Little Bear: I was just upset because I was saving my porridge for later.
  Using Collective role strategy

Consolidation:

In groups, students will choose one of the perspectives in the story and re-write it (as a scene) and present it to the class.

We used four drama strategies to create this lesson and included modifications and extensions to differentiate:

Hot-Seating

A character is questioned by the group about his/her background behaviour, and motivation. This method can be used to develop a role in a drama lesson, rehearsal, or to analyse a performance. This can be done as an improv or prepared activity, individually, pairs, or in a group. The student/pair/group sits in front of the class and takes on the role of their character. The class asks questions about the character.

Modification:

• Lower level/younger grade - prepared questions. Students have time to research the point of view that they will be arguing, and plan responses to questions.
• Comfort levels - can work in pairs or groups, and will not be the center of attention.

Extension:

• Research character and prepare in-depth character analysis (questions and responses)
• Research characters with opposing points of view and then be hot-seated by the class as part of a debate.

Writing in Role

Students will write or document the perspective of a character that may not be the focus of a short story or narrative. When writing, student will use the character’s voice to express thoughts or feelings about a situation. This can be done in the form of stories, diaries, letters, or spoken word.

Modification:

• Lower level/younger grade - limit the content of the point of view (i.e limit the size of the story, discuss why the character might be angry, happy, upset OR sorry instead of discussing the full character)

Extension:

• Create a storyboard or script using the perspective of their character

Character mapping

Students use a mind map to map out the key elements of a character to have a deeper understanding of the character’s attributes. Focus on attributes such as: motivation, goals, emotions, perspectives, physical description, etc. to develop a character role.

Modification:

• Online graphic organizer or hardcopy to organize ideas

Extension:

• Map more than one character’s point of view

Collective Role

A group will defend a character and speak from that character’s point of view. One person represents the character without speaking, while the rest of the group defends them based on the characters point of view. It could also be used to have a character represent themselves with a group to help the character to argue or debate for their own point of view.

Modification:

• Lower level/younger grade - Elect a speaker to give the arguments that the group has generated
• Give more time to develop a character point of view.

Extension:

• Structured discussion where each member of a group provides individual arguments.
• Formal debate: have goldilocks defend her position to the “court-room”

Finally, the guiding theory that led us was Dwyer's Learning Theory (1996). Dwyer’s Learning Theory discusses how students are able to retain information. During a school day, students are expected to absorb a lot of the information that they hear, however, according to this theory, students retain most of the information that they discuss, do, and teach. Students are more empowered when they are in charge of the information that is shared, for this reason, our lesson focuses on discussion, experience through point of view, and sharing their perspective with the whole group.

Math and Drama

I never would have thought to integrate Math into a Drama class, (or Drama into a Math class). In my mind, math and drama never cross paths, so I was really interested to see these activities.

Laman, A. © 2017

The first activity involved angles on cards. stand in a circle hold it up to the person next to you and say what kind of angle it is (ex: this is a right angle), the person says "a what?", the first person repeats "a right angle", and the other person says "oh, a right angle". That person takes the card and continues this process with the next person. Add in more cards and send it in the opposite direction. Allows students to teach each other angles and have fun with it.

Woolley, E. © 2017

Scenarios of fairytales:
Each group gets a different drama convention to use during their scene, based on a different fairytale. Students must incorporate 3 math questions into the scene that their peers must answer for the scene to continue.

The image shows the example that my group had. The fairy tale was Cinderella and the convention was an interview. We had one person act as the king and 3 others act as princesses who has to be interviewed to go to the ball. The king asked them one of these math questions and then the scene would freeze. This is the time the students would have to give the correct answer for the scene to continue.
Other examples included Rapunzel, with the convention of a news anchor, Goldilocks with the convention of people as objects, and 3 Little Pigs with the convention of tableau. Each fairytale and convention is used to quiz students on math questions to engage and entertain. The math questions can vary depending on grade and strand.