Social Problems through Artistic Expression: Creating Arts-Based Research and Educational Products

A Culture of Community: An Educational Artistic Endeavor for Elementary Students

Kaitlin Wolla

“The arts improve human life: the quality of our thoughts, acts, choices- the cultural events that make us who we are.”

-Nellie McCaslin

Introduction

Kathleen H. Wilbur is an elementary school in the Colonial School District that serves 1,100 students ranging from Kindergarten to 5PthP grade. Even though the school has only been open for 10 years, it has grown to be a wonderful place for students to come to learn and grow in a safe and supportive environment. This Title 1 School was given the award of a National Model School in 2015 from the International Center for Leadership in Education. Wilbur is known for its use of state of the art educational technology and new STEM lab that utilizes materials such as SmartBoards, iPads, laptops, Chromebooks, and coding devices to further the education of its students.

Not only is Wilbur able to integrate technology to heighten student interest, the staff at Wilbur has also been trained in a cooperative learning program created by Dr. Spencer Kagan, the creator of Kagan Cooperative Learning, where students are working and learning in tiered teams to help each other grow together through interactive and co-dependent structures.

Wilbur is also known for creating its own opportunities for students to learn about community through monthly lessons given by the administrative staff that center around valuable character traits such as perseverance, optimism, kindness, fairness, and open-mindfulness. These lessons teach students what this trait is, scenarios where you may see this trait, and how to show it to yourself and others. Beyond Wilbur’s dedication for growing model students within its walls, it is starting a new beginning of incorporating a new cultural community within our school.

Wilbur is one of the newest locations for the Spanish immersion program where students are immersed in the Spanish language to learn about math and science starting from the grade of Kindergarten through a co-teaching model. When they are not speaking Spanish, they are learning and speaking in English in the content areas of

English/Language Arts and social studies. I am teacher for the English-speaking portion of the immersion student’s day. The students who are in the immersion program will be learning two different languages simultaneously throughout the day. I believe they can also add an additional language to their repertoire: artistic expression.

I will be teaching two different classes of first graders throughout the day. Both groups of students will be learning English/Language Arts and social studies material while in my classroom. I will only be speaking in English. It will also be my job to bridge the language gap for the students when they are learning a new concept in Spanish, whether it is number combinations or a new vocabulary word.

This group of students has a particularly unique learning experience since the immersion program is new and has some flexibility in learning styles and opportunity. While I am only teaching the students in two core content areas, I believe that adding elements of artistic expression such as theatre, role-play, photography, and music, into the learning can increase their comprehension of characters in stories, while also increasing their own self-awareness of their own characters in our community.

I recognize that my current co-teaching situation in Spanish Immersion is unique where I am able to work with two very different groups of children within one school day. Although this may not be the norm, this kind of implementation of artistic expression in the curriculum can be done in any classroom with any kind of student across all ages and stages of development. I actually encourage it! It can open so many doors to learning and may be able to reach those students who have not found their specific genre of learning just yet.

Rationale

The focus of this curricular unit will be centered on the idea of community and how we all can be a part in something larger than ourselves. The following questions will be essential for the development of this unit:

The social issue that I have selected for my artistic expression focus is the idea of community. My unit is focused on having students understand the meaning of a community and how we can feel a sense of fellowship and belonging. A community can be successful if its citizens can overcome challenges that arise. Some of these challenges

can be violence, disrespect, disunity, and unproductivity. The idea behind choosing community as my focus is that currently I find that there is quite a lack of the feeling of community in classrooms and schools. The notion of feeling like you belong or are appreciated is lost on students. They come to school, they stick around for a while, and then they go home. But if you instill the ideas of community through showing respect, empathy, cooperation, and creativity the students may be more invested in what goes on within the walls of the classroom. By using the English/Language Arts and Social Studies curricula provided from my school and the state and implementing various methods of artistic expression to enhance the student's learning experience by increasing their own intrinsic motivation and engagement in what they are doing.

As researched and studied by Lauren Stevenson, this artistic implementation can send students into a metaphorical ‘third space’, where students (in a first space) are connecting to a work of art (in a second space) and create a transformed learning environment in this ‘third space’. In Stevenson’s case studies conducted in economically disadvantaged communities, similar to the population that I work with, the results have shown that the integration of arts education provides safe spaces for students to take risks and explore solutions and ideas, fosters student’s ability to adapt and become more flexible in their thinking, helps students to develop ownership of the creative process and their own learning- including taking responsibility for setting goals and monitoring their progress, and can build self-efficacy, which is an essential component of student success in school and life.P0F1P Through adding the arts into education, I firmly believe that students will make deeper connections to the material being taught as well as allowing them to have the opportunity to truly explore their own imagination and creativity in a safe and welcoming environment.

Teaching Strategies

During seminar, I was able to experience so many different forms of artistic expression. Some forms of art that we learned about I already use in the classroom; and then there were some that I had never thought I could manage with my students without the help of Lynette. The benefit of Lynette’s seminar is that you are able to play both roles: teacher and student. I am learning so many new artistic approaches while at seminar and then applying them to activities that I am already doing through the curriculum I use on a weekly basis. These art forms include puppetry, acting, pantomime, improvisation, tableau, photography, and dance. These will be the main artistic teaching strategies that I am implementing in my community unit.

Puppetry

Puppetry is a traditional form of artistic expression that has lasted over centuries. The use of puppets can range from entertaining storytelling to the communication of human ideas and feelings. All puppets are given the ability to come to life from puppeteer by whatever emotion they are feeling; puppets are able to show and feel sadness, happiness, sorrow, revenge, or shyness with only the movement and voice from a student. According to Cagda Kivanc, a faculty member of the education department at the European University of Lefke, states that there is a common misconception that puppets can only be used in Kindergarten or with elementary grade students but it is fact that puppets are loved by all ages and can be used in any classroom.P1F2P As mentioned in Piaget’s theory, puppet play helps children develop creative and cognitive skills by forcing them to use their imagination while also assisting in language development.

The idea behind puppetry is that it will not be used as a teaching method but more as a teaching tool in this curricular unit. Puppets can be easily coordinated to fit the needs of any curriculum whether it is Common Core or any other system. By adding the use of puppets, there will be an increase in motivation and engagement since students will be creators and manipulators of the puppet that they make. They not only get to make their puppet using classroom materials, they are responsible for their own roles in the performance they present.

For my unit, the students will have the opportunity to create different kinds of puppets. There will be many different kinds of puppets that the students will be able to construct. The different types of puppets are the following:

All of these different kinds can be easily made with simply classroom materials such as brown paper bags, popsicle sticks, markers, glue, old socks, and construction paper.

The puppets will be expected to move in action such as a jiggle talking puppet, a clearly speaking puppet voice, and a present (not hiding behind another prop) puppet. The stage that the puppets will perform is also another thought to consider. Will the students go behind a blanket and crouch down to show their show? Will they use a table to perform with their puppets? Whatever method works best for you classroom can be utilized.

Having students practice with their puppets will be necessary before a class is expected to put on a performance. The students need to become comfortable with their props as well as with their stage space. They also need to map out the movement of their hands so the puppets have appropriate stage blocking so every puppet can be heard and seen. The entrance and exit of the puppets are as important as the movements they make

in the show. Each student should develop two to three different movements for their puppet as well as a different voice for different characters. Some puppet movements can be shaking wildly or laughing heartily; swaying side to side or walking and groaning; tripping over something and falling down with a yell; racing around, glancing here or there as if searching for something. The students should also practice the voice of the puppet that they are using. Are they a small, shy character? Are they a large and demanding character? The voice should match the image the audience sees. There should also be a range of pitch in the voices as well. No two voices in a performance should be the same or be spoken at the same time unless necessary to the plot of the show. The more realistic movement and voice, the more the audience will relate and connect to the puppet characters!

The evaluation process of puppetry assesses many different aspects of not only the props but also the performer. The puppetry evaluation is a score from 0 to 5 and assess the performance on puppet posture, clear and meaningful movements, freezing when other puppets are talking, good use of props, good puppet voices (clear, audible, and distinct), meaning movement and important words, convincing characterization, and clear development of the story (the beginning introduces the characters and the conflict, the middle develops the conflict, and the end resolves the conflict). Not only does this evaluation assess the artistic expression behind then puppetry, is also is an assessment on whether the students are able to comprehend the story that they are performing or to photograph that they are analyzing. It assesses both general education and artistic learning objectives.

The experience that we used in seminar was that all of our participants broke into grade level groups and picked a form of literature that we could turn into our own puppet performance. The lower grade group, that I was a member of, we selected the book “It’s Okay to be Different” by Todd Parr while the older grade level group chose different poems that they would use their grade level students. For our group, we created our own interpretation of the characters in the book based on what we saw in the illustrations. Each member of our group made two to three different puppets and we were responsible for giving each one of our puppets an appropriate voice and body movements. We were able to rehearse once by ourselves using our table stage and then rehearsed once more with critique made by Lynette. It is important for us to hear the critique since we were able to use what our audience noticed about our performance and we were able to add those changes before our final ‘evaluated’ performance.

My vision for my two classes is that they will be taking the art of puppetry and applying it into many different activities in both English/Language Arts and Social Studies. For example, the students have been learning about story elements and problem and solution in a text. The students can use this simple comprehension task and have them artistically explain their thinking on the literature by re-creating characters from the story in puppet form and putting on a small performance to demonstrate their knowledge.

They also could use this activity and create their own story line that compares to the story previously read to them. They would create their own characters, setting, problem, and solution and make their own plot using similarities between their background knowledge of the previous story and their own creative minds. For Social Studies, puppetry can be used in a variety of ways. In Kindergarten, the socio-emotional curriculum of Al’s Pal’s already implements the use of puppets to have students understand their emotions at school. This could be carried on into some of our first grade social studies lessons such as explaining rules or laws in and out of school.

Drama

Creative drama is one of the least difficult artistic forms to implement in a classroom and has one of the greatest potential for learning within it. Creative drama can take its place is so many forms. During seminar, we have used improvisation, tableau, role-playing, and pantomime- and these were the activities that we were able to plan, act out, and revise all in one night! There are so many opportunities that creative drama could be used in the classroom when having days or weeks to play out and create a piece of drama with your students. With that being said, creative drama can also be one of the hardest for students to invest into. In Nellie McCaslin’s book “Creative Drama in the Classroom”, she states that students will need to learn how to work cooperatively in groups, for drama is a communal art, and each person is necessary to the whole.P2F3P This promotes the idea of beginning to lay the groundwork of a positive community of learning in safe learning environment starting from the very first day of school. I could not expect my students to fully participate in a creative drama activity without the kind of emotional and social preparation that comes from building that kind of classroom community.

The general educational objectives of a modern curriculum are focused on the maximal growth of a student in the classroom. The objectives center on the general idea of reading, writing, math, science, social studies, social skills, and the mental and physical health of the students. The learning objectives that can be implemented on using creative drama in the classroom aim not only to educate the student in core content areas but also to help grow the students as members of a community as well. These educational objectives try to ensure that each student will be able to do the following:

In my unit, I will be using many different forms of creative drama with my students. The forms will be: role-playing, tableaux, pantomime, and improvisation. I will be

utilizing the idea of role playing to have them interpret scenarios; having them use improvisation as an ice-breaking game or a warm up activity; having them create their own tableaux to represent feelings of others and themselves.

The different forms of artistic expression are hard to digest at first. I myself was caught guilty of being somewhat nervous when I heard that I would have to perform a solo act of pantomime in front of my fellow teachers without much practice or preparation. Imagine how a first grader or fifth grader would feel! That is why teaching the tools and skills of creative drama are needed before expecting students to perform and fully engage with creative drama. The skills that will need to be addressed are that the students will need to tap into their imagination or deep into their own minds without feeling embarrassed in front of their peers. We all have to accept that sometimes we will be a little silly! Students also need to know the tool that is their voice; how loud they should speak, what tone they should have, whether we should use our voices or stay completely silent when we perform and only rely on our body movements. Body movement is also an important skill and tool for students to use in drama. Our body is one of our most important props. How we move our bodies can show our emotions, our actions, and can be used to show the setting around the actor (temperature, culture). The last tool students need to learn about creative drama is concentration. Everyone will have the inkling to begin to turn into a comedian if they lack the concentration of an actor. If there is a serious scenario that will need to be performed, the students will need to have the knowledge of concentration to create and carry out a performance without losing their composure while ‘on stage’. Some ways that we first used to practice some of these creative drama strategies are my imaginary object, mime it down the alley, and zip-zap-zop. All of these activities can be used for introducing the tools and skills needed for when students perform drama in the classroom.

Role-playing

Role playing in the classroom provides the students with a unique opportunity to assume different roles or characters and solve real world problems that are replicated in the classroom. While having students assume these roles, they are utilizing useful skills such as critical thinking, investigation, emotional recognition, and cooperation. Through the use of role-play, students will be able to make a deeper understanding of what they are learning due to their realistic engagement in the role they are taking on rather than memorizing or reading material again and again. As stated in a review by Suchismita Bhattacharjee (2015), role-play in the classroom can be broken down into four different parts: (1) preparation and explanation of the activity done by the teacher (2) preparation of the activity done by the students (3) present role playing activity to have better

understanding of the situation, and (4) discussion or debriefing of the whole process.P3F4P Role playing can also allow students to begin to solve realistic or challenging social issues within a safe and positive environment in the classroom. This is where the students can analyze what social injustices can occur within a community and they can begin to think about possible solution for problem that they may face in life, both in and out of the classroom.

This kind of procedure of using role-play in the classroom can be easily used for both English/Language Arts and Social Studies curriculum that center around the focus on community in the classroom. An activity to begin having students assume roles with their classmates where they are to play a character from a story that was read aloud that embodied the characteristics of a good citizen and how that behavior looks or does not look could be added into the classroom units.

Tableaux

Tableau is a French word for a still picture representing an idea physically created by actors and actresses. It is considered an acting ‘snapshot’. In drama, actors use their voices, bodies, and imagination to portray a certain word or idea. With tableaux, the actors and actresses are only creating voiceless frozen images as their performance. This type of drama requires the actors to have great concentration to be able to show an image and capture it accurately with only using their body. A tableau is a great type of artistic expression to use to have students analyze concepts and use their imagination to portray their thinking. For younger students, this type of drama will definitely need to be explicitly taught prior to any activity in the classroom due to its strict nature of being done without talking and picking only one body pose to represent their word or idea. For example, a good way to have students practice prior to independent performances could be:

Tableaux can be done as an individual activity or as a group presentation. If done as a group, the teacher can give the phrase or idea that the actors will portray and the group will come to a consensus, a positive community pillar of cooperation, within a certain time frame and present as a whole group showing the same tableaux pose. When it comes time to present, the teacher will count down from five so the students will have time to assemble into their positions. Once in position, the students should not be talking and hold it without moving- taking great concentration from each student in the group. The students do not need to touch one another, but the audience needs to be able to understand that each member of the group is somehow connected to the idea. If the idea

is unknown to the rest of the class, the other students may try to guess what idea the group is trying to portray through the body poses.

In our seminar, the tableaux workshop that we participated in was very insightful as to how decisive and particular our body movements have to be. As a seminar, we read and listened to Power poems where students created poetry about themselves and their heritage. Using this guideline, we created our own power poem and picked the three most powerful words we wrote.

From these three words we had to perform our own tableaux to portray our powerful words. At first, it was hard to pick just one body movement to portray the word ‘strong’ or ‘vast’. Every part of your body must be engaged and your face must be full of emotion to portray your word since you are without a voice in this form of drama. We all picked one pose for each one of our three words. With that, we put our three words together and created a three-step tableaux where we performed by moving around the classroom doing our three poses, all still without talking. The three-step movement has to be fluid and precise so that your body was still able to portray each one of your words without moving when one needed to be still. Every individual did their tableaux at the same time so no one person was having all of the attention or fully as if they were center stage. After we did our own three-step tableaux using our own three power words, we formed group and created a group three-step tableaux by working as a team to combine our words into one communal tableaux act. We were able to perform as a group in front of our class and the other groups tried to guess what our power words were. This can be applied into the community focus by having students pick a social issue from the community and create a tableaux scene to interpret their emotions on what they know about the idea. They can create more tableaus also be a response to learning additional information about the community or the injustices the community faces.

Pantomime

Pantomime is quite well known due to the mimes that we may see as entertainers. Lucky for us, no makeup is required. Pantomime is a form of drama where the actor uses body movement and facial expressions to communicate information. Pantomime is similar to tableaux in this matter of voiceless acting. Pantomime is a very good place to begin teaching drama in the classroom due to its quiet but well-known nature to young students. This can make pantomime activities easy to manage during the drama-based lessons in this unit. Pantomime requires great focus of not only the actor but also the audience since the body and emotions of the actor are the only form of communication. The use of pantomime in the classroom is great. As written in her article, Angelica R. Magno (2016) states that pantomime enhances subject areas of study by being implemented into reading lessons to have the students understand what they are reading by having them act out the characters in stories, emote important feelings, or to put themselves in the characters situation. Pantomime activities develop self-confidence by

freeing children to move, imagine, concentrate, and create effective communicative ideas with their peers. In addition to these benefits to students, pantomime also enriches personal interaction between peers. Through the use of non-verbal communication, pantomime trains young students to show their own emotions while also being able to detect how others are feeling around them. These interaction skills are important for students to have to recognize how other people are feeling around them or how to recognize how we make others feel with our words or actions. P4F5

In our seminar, we used a very fun pantomime game to get us adjusted to this form of drama. This game was my imaginary object. This activity had us pretending to hold an object in our hand- we were to try to see, feel, and smell the imaginary object. We also had to create a movement to show the use of the object that we were holding. For example, if we were holding a hairbrush, we should show that we were brushing our hair with our imaginary object. We had a short period of time to brainstorm our object and create our movement before joining altogether as a group. After our practice, our group made a circle and we began our show! We passed our own ‘imaginary object’ to our neighbor who turned it into their own imaginary object and then passed again and again. After everyone had shared their object, we all went around the room and tried to guess what object each participant had in their hands. This activity is a great way to begin the introduction into pantomime since it is very fun and does not require as much preparation or consensus as other pantomime activity or other forms of drama.

Beginning to teach pantomime in the classroom is simple. To start, have the students act out movements that they are very comfortable with, such as the activity My Imaginary Object. This movement can be anything ranging from brushing their teeth to picking some flowers. After students feel comfortable with their basic idea of pantomime, take them through a guided pantomime activity as a whole class. This could be reading a story and showing the students the parts that you would ‘act out’ as I would read. Once the students understand the guidance of pantomime, invite the students to create their own pantomime independently during an activity which is a comprehension activity or a reaction to an illustration.

Photography and PhotoVoice

Photography and PhotoVoice are types of art where pictures are the main source of artistic expression stem from photographs. The use of PhotoVoice is to tap into visual literacy of the audience. The background of PhotoVoice stems from the use of empowerment education, where photos speak to the audience about social injustice such as homelessness, discrimination, and physical ailments. PhotoVoice methods of art can be used to create powerful, visual representations of social issues that would elevate the significance level of understanding of issues in the community and how the transform

them. The benefits of using PhotoVoice in the classroom are that it enables people to record and reflect on their community’s strengths and concerns. PhotoVoice can also promote discussions and build knowledge about social issues that may not have been known by using one of the photographs. It can also be very therapeutic by providing an outlet to make the connection between yourself and something bigger than you, whether it is your community, neighborhood, or environment. P5F6

Some of the challenges that I may face as an elementary teacher is the technical aspects of photography. The use of light, formatting, and perspective may be a little too complex for my young students to understand and be able to execute with a camera. I may also run into the issue of the technology aspect of photography and PhotoVoice. I would be able to utilize iPads in the classroom but taking photos on an iPad is not as artistic as composing a photograph with the proper formatting. I may also face the challenge of the ethics behind using such technology. Permission from parents may be needed to allow students to use technology in the classroom.

Although the challenges will be present, I do still believe that my first grade students would still be able to use PhotoVoice in the classroom by observing and analyzing photography that I provide on the Smartboard and by taking meaningful photos in the classroom by themselves using what technology we have provided to use. To guide their understanding and connection to any photograph during a discussion, I would use these guiding questions:

Dance

“I am a teacher, not a dancer. How can I possible teach dance in my classroom when I know little about it and am not comfortable doing it?” –Lynette Overby

How true. The art of dance is one that is full of discipline, focus, and poise. How can I be the one to do this in my classroom when I feel like Phoebe from the old sitcom FRIENDS when she tries to go on a run? Dance has only been comfortable for me when I am either all alone or with a partner who leads me. But, dance as an art form is much more than that. It is all centered on the idea of movement. Body movement can be used

for non-verbal communication, physical health, and harnessing emotions. As stated in Lynette Overby’s book, dance can be successfully used in the classroom due to its innate desire held by every child: to move. Dance is uniquely suited to support conceptual learning because the dance vocabulary is expressed in terms of the body, space, time, and force- concepts also fundamental to understanding the universe. Although dance can teach such fundamentals in exciting ways, its most powerful contribution to learning may be the wonderful web of connection it provides to understanding our place within the universe- an understanding of what it is to be human, to belong to a society, to respect and appreciate “otherness”.P6F7P

Dance is an extremely engaging activity for students to use while in the classroom. Not only is dance engaging their bodies to move, but it is more than just a ‘hands-on’ learning approach. Dance is a bodies-on, minds-on approach to learning. Creative dance gives all children the opportunity to think and move in new satisfying ways. Overby writes in her book that creative dance is intended to develop the creative, physical, mental, and artistic aspect of a person in a non-performance setting. The student will explore and create as a process, not as a product. Dance also will tap into the students understanding of self-control and body awareness, spatial awareness, group cooperation, listening and direction following skills, reasoning and problem solving, self-expression, and creativity. With this, I as the teacher will be able to teach the students literacy and language skills, mathematics and counting, science and social studies, and concepts such as shapes, colors, and opposites.

I am so grateful to have been with Lynette for seminar due to her knowledge in so many forms of artistic expression but her vast knowledge of dance and her book will truly be my bible of how to implement dance expression in my lessons and classroom. Her approach to dance is an interdisciplinary approach where, as stated by researchers Mansilla, Miller, and Gardner (2000), “students demonstrate interdisciplinary understanding when they integrate knowledge and modes of thinking from two or more disciplines in order to create products, solve problems, and offer explanations of the world”. In her book UInterdisciplinary Learning through Dance: 101 MOVEenturesU, everything a teacher would need is laid out and explained to perfection. Each lesson in the book is formatted by grade level, length of lesson, materials needs, national standards, learning objectives, introduction, The Moving Adventure, assessment, assessment forms, and extension activities. Need I say more?

Classroom Activities

In “A Culture of Community”, the students will understand that they influence members in something that is larger than themselves. They will begin to understand how communities are built on the traits of the members that are within them. The main traits

that we will be learning about are respect, empathy, and cooperation. The use of artistic expressions such as tableau, pantomime, role-play, and photo voice will make these classroom activities shine while also addressing English Language Arts and Social Studies standards.

Classroom Activity One

Topic: Communities Around Us

Artistic expression: Creative movement

Warm-up: Lead a warm up of leading the students in a creative movement lesson on high movement, low movement, medium movement and different ways to move around a space (jump, walk, gallop, skip).

Essential question: How can I affect my community?

Activating strategy: Begin the lesson by having the students play a round of Room to Move. This game begins by having the students freely move around in a space (walk, skip, jump, turn) within a defined space made by chairs, desk etc. The rules are that they are not to touch each other. After the students move around in the defined space for a few minutes, reduce the space to move by moving the chairs and desks closer together. Impose more rules of only walking without touching each other. Continue to reduce the moving space. If the students do not conform to the rules, they are out and they are moved to ‘jail’ (a different space that is not included in the moving area). Continue the game until there are only a few students left who are conforming to the imposed rules.

Have the students reflect on the experience. How did they feel in the beginning of the game when they were able to move freely around the space? How did they feel when they were told to follow to a set of rules? How did they feel when they were not able to follow the rules and were put in jail? Did you feel respected? Do you think you would want to be a part of this community?

Vocabulary: community, rules. citizen

Lesson: Begin by asking the students about the word community. Have the word Community on a piece of chart paper on a graphic organizer of a web. Where have they heard this word? What does it mean to them? Record their responses using the web.

Introduce how the word community means a group of people that live or work in the same place or have a particular characteristic in common. Brainstorm places where they might see or be a part of a community (classroom, school, team, and neighborhood). Ask them do you like being a part of that community and why. Explain how our classroom is a community where we come to learn and play. Emphasize that everyone in the class in a member of our community here at school.

Take a class vote and ask: would you rather be a member of the community like in Room to Move or in a community that you belong in now?

Explain communities can be happy places when the people who belong in them are respectful, empathetic, and cooperative (the main focus words of the next three lessons).

Culminating activity: Have the students’ think of ideas on how we can change the rules on the game Room to Move so that we can feel respected by our community. After the brainstorm, play the Room to Move game once again and use the revised rules to see the difference on how we feel and move in a respected community. To finish, ask the students the follow questions: How can I affect my community? How do others affect my community? Record the word Community on a piece of chart paper that you will use continuously throughout the unit. You will add more to the paper as you teach the other traits of a member of a community.

Assessment: Informal conversation with the class.

Classroom Activity Two

Topic: Respect

Artistic expression: Role-playing

Warm-up: Role-playing exercise

Give the class a fun and easy role-play scenario to have their bodies and minds prepare the lesson today. Some ideas could be the following:

· Standing up, they are the teacher and they are teaching their class

· Moving around, they are a basketball player in the final seconds of the game

· Sitting in their chairs, they are a racecar driver

· Moving around, they are astronauts who just landed on the moon (space walking in slow motion)

Essential question: How does respect help my community?

Activating strategy: Listen to the song Respect by Aretha Franklin. Tell the students to listen to the song and what words they think are the most important. After the song, take note of what words the students find.

Begin by asking the students what does respect mean to them? What does it look like? What does it sound like?

Vocabulary: respect, disrespect, unique, embrace, role-play, active-role

Lesson: Begin the lesson by reading the book A Rainbow of Friends by P.K Hallinan. Throughout the book, ask the students to find the similarities and differences between the

characters in the story. What do you see? How are the characters unique? After the story, ask the students why the author said that we are a rainbow of friends.

Have the students move into a circle so they can all see each other. Have the students look at themselves and at their classmates quietly for a moment. How are we the same? How are we each unique? Lead a discussion on how although we are unique in our own special way, we can still respect each other and ourselves by embracing our differences and learning from each other.

After the lesson, have the students divide into groups of four. Each team will put on a role-play performance on a scenario given to them by the teacher. Explain to the students how a performance is just like a story; it needs a beginning, middle, and end, characters, setting, problem, and solution.

· Scenario 1: A new student comes to our classroom community. They are from a different country and sometimes speak a different language. How could we show respect to this new student?

· Scenario 2: A new family moves in next door to you. They have a kid who is the same age as you. How could we show this new neighbor respect?

· Scenario 3: A friend is sharing an answer for a math problem and ends up getting the answer wrong. How could we show respect to this friend?

· Scenario 4: It is clean up time in the classroom. You were playing with the blocks but the puzzles still need to be put away. How can we show respect to our classroom?

Give the students 20 minutes to prepare their role-play performance with their teams. Each student should have an active role in the performance. During this time, have each time come up and practice their performance so they feel comfortable with their set up. This performance can be done the same day or the following day with an additional rehearsal, depending on comfort level of your students. They may need additional time to practice their scenario. When the class is ready, have each team come forward and share their scenario with the rest of the class. Use the role-play performance rubric to assess the students.

After each team has performed, ask the class what the scenario would look like if we had shown disrespect? How would it feel? Would we want to stay in our community?

Explain how members on the community are responsible to be respectful to everyone we meet, even if we look, sound, or have different opinions.

Culminating activity: To conclude, have the students reflect on the following questions. Have the student’s record one their responses on the respect reflection paper provided:

How can I show respect to myself?

How can I show respect to others?

How can I show respect to my community?

Add to the Community chart paper a picture of a head and some eyes- through a think aloud, explain to the students that to build our good member of our community, “we first need to have respect for each other. We can all see that we have different color eyes- so I

will draw the head and eyes of our good citizen to help me remember what respect means: to accept our similarities and differences and to grow from them.”

Assessment: Use the writing samples to see their understanding and continue informal observations and conversations with the class.

Classroom Activity Three

Topic: Empathy/Emotional Awareness

Artistic expression: PhotoVoice/Tableaux

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Essential question: How can I show empathy to myself? How can I show empathy to others? How can I show empathy in my community?

Activating strategy: Begin the lesson by leading the students in a game of Simon Says. Start off by doing the standard ‘Simon Says touch your ears, Simon Says tap your nose’ etc. Then move into commands such as ‘Simon Says, show me a sad face; Simon Says, show me a mad face; Simon Says, show me an excited face.’

Ask the student if there was ever a time when they felt happy or sad. What happened? Did someone help you?

Vocabulary: empathy, emotions, awareness

Lesson: Read the story My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook

After reading the story, define the word empathy: the ability to recognize and share other people’s emotions.

Have the students break up into pairs, stand up, and find a safe spot in the classroom. Using the tableaux, have the students show emotions that they may feel with their whole bodies. How would your body look if you were excited? How would your body look if you were shocked? After a few emotions, bring your students back together.

Using the steps created by Project Happiness, teach the 5 steps to develop empathy. After you teach the five steps to develop empathy, show the students photographs of other children who have a variety of emotions (happy, sad, angry, surprised, etc). Have the students identify emotions that they see in the photograph. How do you know how this person is feeling? What do you think happened? What can I do to show them empathy? Have them practice what they could say if they knew this person by showing empathy towards them.

Culminating activity: Have the students break into their previous pairs once more. This time, assign each team a partner 1 and a partner 2. Tell partner one to show a tableau of

someone feeling sad. Have them hold that position. Tell partner 2 to carefully sculpture their partner, without talking, into them feeling happy. What body parts did you have to move? What would you say to them if you were able to talk? Switch roles and use the emotions of angry to embarrassed.

To finish this activity, refer back to the community chart paper. At this point you may have a head with eyes and some arms. At this point, add a heart to represent the trait empathy. This will show how we can feel emotions and how we are able to recognize other people's emotions and care about them.

Assessment: Using formal observations, assess to see whether the students are using appropriate body language and poses to represent the emotions they are showing. Continue to lead informal conversations with the class on the topic of empathy and emotion.

Additional Follow up Classroom Activities

To continue the students learning process on the ideas of community and the character traits of a good community citizen, you can teach a lesson on the trait of being cooperative in a group. This can be used with any of the artistic teaching strategies listed above (dance, PhotoVoice, tableaux, creative movement). To tie this cooperation activity into the community citizen poster, add legs and feet and have a discussion on how we use our legs to get to place but our legs must cooperate with each other for us to successfully move forward.

Culminating Classroom Activity

Topic: Creativity

Artistic expression: Puppetry

Essential question: How can I be a good member of our community? How can others be good members of our community?

Activating strategy: Ask if the students have ever seen a puppet show. Have they seen it in a theatre or on television? Show a clip of Sesame Street to build knowledge of puppetry.

Vocabulary: puppetry, stage, movement,

Lesson: Begin the lesson by having the students recall the three traits of a good member of a community are: respect, empathy, cooperative and how they build us into the citizens that we are (eyes, heart, legs). Explain how today they are going to take all the

knowledge that they have gained over the past few weeks and apply them over the next few days. Tell them how they will be creating and making their own puppet show performance with a team of students that focuses on one of the community traits. They will make up their own plot, including their own dialogue, and perform it in front of the class. This whole process may take a few days due to the creation of the plot, building of different kinds of puppets, and rehearsals. The students can create any type of puppet they like. Let the students rehearse their production at least twice before going on stage.

Emphasize the point that we will appreciate and respect other team’s productions. Each team has worked hard to put on their show.

Assessment: To assess the students on their performance, use the performance rubric provided. Continue to use informal conversations with the class on the topic of community.

Culminating activity: Refer back to the citizen of our community- look how it has grown from just one word to a full person. We know the traits of a good citizen and how we can help our community grow in a positive way because it starts with you!

Bibliography/Teacher Resources

Caganaga, Cagda Kivanc. "The Role of Puppets in Kindergarten Education in Cyprus." Open Access Library Journal, 2015: 3.

Cook, Julia. My Mouth is a Volcano. Chattanooga: National Center for Youth Issues, 2006.

Hallinan, P.K. A Rainbow of Friends. Guidepost Books, 2001.

Happiness, Project. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/. n.d. http://cdn1.edutopia.org/pdfs/blogs/edutopia-taran-lesson7empathy.pdf (accessed 12 10, 2016).

McCaslin, Nellie. Creative Drama in the Classroom. Studio City: Players Press, 1990.

Overby, Lynette. Interdisciplinary Learning through Dance: 101 Moventures. Champaign, 2005.

Stevenson, Lauren. Third Space: When Learning Matters. 2005. http://www.tcg.org/pdfs/tools/TSCompiled.pdf (accessed 12 12, 2016).

The Signifiance of Pantomime as a Learning Tool. 07 04, 2016. http://udyong.net/teachers-corner/8196-the-significance-of-pantomime-as-a-learning-tool-8586 (accessed 11 30, 2016).

Usefulness of Role-Play Teaching in Construction Education: A Systematic Review. 2013. http://ascpro0.ascweb.org/archives/cd/2013/paper/CEUE112002013.pdf (accessed 11 25, 2016).

Using PhotoVoice to Empower K-12 Teachers and Students through Authentic Literacy Engagement. 2014.

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=coe_papers (accessed 11 27, 2016).

Appendix A

Standards English/Language Arts

Throughout this unit we will be describing characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details, (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.3), comparing and contrasting the adventures and experiences of characters and people (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.9), identifying who is telling the story at various points in a text (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.1.6) through use of puppetry, follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion) (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.1.a), describing people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly through use of PhotoVoice (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.4), as well as creating drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings. (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.5).

Social Studies Standards

This unit will also cover State of Delaware Department of Education Social Studies standards by having students understand that respect for other, their opinions, and their property is important for us to recognize (Civic Anchor Standard Two: K-3a). They will also be able to demonstrate the skills necessary for participating in a group, including defining an objective, dividing responsibilities, and working cooperatively (Civics Anchor Standard Four: k-3a).

Art Standards

This unit will cover the National Core Art Standards of by having the students generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work, propose potential choices characters could make in a guided drama experience (e.g., process drama, story drama, creative drama).

The students will also be collaborating with peers to conceptualize costumes and props in a guided drama experience (e.g., process drama, story drama, creative drama) (Theatre Anchor Standard 1). The students will also be organizing and developing artistic ideas and work by creating their own productions throughout the unit (Theatre Anchor Standard 2). The students will be choosing movements that express an idea or emotion through body movements (Dance Anchor Standard 2) as well as exploring, refining, and changing artistic movements to represent different emotions through distinct and precise sequences. (Dance Anchor Standard 3). The students will be analyzing and describing pieces of visual art, such as photographs, that illustrate daily life and experiences. They will use these pieces of visual art to identify and relate to emotions that they observe (Visual Anchor Standard 7).

Appendix B

Project Happiness Steps to Empathy

Step 1 – Watch & Listen: What is the other person saying and what is their body language?

Step 2 – Remember: When did you feel the same way?

Step 3 – Imagine: Imagine how you might feel in that situation. Validate the wide range of emotions that come up. Step 4 – Ask: Ask how the person is feeling.

Step 5 - Show You Care: Let them know that you care through your words and actions.

• 1. Watch & Listen: What is happening? Ask, “How does the person feel?” “How can you tell?” Discuss strategies to figure it out, such as asking: “What do their words say? “What does their body language say?” “Does what they say match their body language?”

• 2. Remember: Have you felt the same way? Ask “When did something like this happen to you?”

• 3. Imagine: Imagine how you might feel. Ask the class for examples of what it might feel like, and how they might act. Examples: “I’d feel like crying; I’d want to hit back; I’d feel very embarrassed.”

• 4. Ask: Find out how the person is feeling. Have students provide examples of what they could say to someone, such as “Are you OK? What happened to you? How do you feel? How are you doing?”

• 5. Show you care. Ask the students how to show someone that you care, and list answers on the board. Some examples: “Listen with all your attention, spend time with

them, stay with them (don’t leave), say, “I’m sorry you’re feeling this way.” Encourage them, “Let’s get help, How can I help? Do you need a hug? I’m here for you, etc.

Appendix C

Performance Rubric

Appendix D

Respect!

I can show respect by…