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Lesson Plan

This lesson was excerpted from the Afterschool Training Toolkit under the promising practice: Expressing Yourself Through the Arts

Description:

This lesson is one example of how you can implement the practice of Expressing Yourself Through the Arts. Using basic concepts of dance, students will create dance phrases that depict various emotions.

Learning Goals:

• Learn and demonstrate various basic elements of dance
• Understand that dance and movement can be used to depict meaning
• Use dance elements to create a dance phrase

Materials:

• A copy of Ballerina! by Peter Sis
• Open space for dancing
• Masking tape to designate a stage (optional)
• A CD player, record player, or tape deck for music (optional)

Preparation:

1. Review some basic elements of dance so that you feel familiar enough to demonstrate them to your students:
   • Level: high, medium, and low
   • Direction: forward, backward, left, right, diagonally, turning
   • Speed: fast, slow
   • Locomotor: walk, run, hop, jump, leap, gallop, slide, skip
   • Axial: bend, twist, stretch, swing
2. You may want to do some additional research on traditional folk dances and their meanings to share with your students.

What to Do:

• Begin by reading aloud Ballerina! by Peter Sis with your students. Discuss how the main character Terry changes her movements and costumes for each dance. (Compare, for instance, her "Nutcracker dance" with her "fire dance.") Talk about why Terry might make these changes.
• Discuss how dances often tell a story. Examples include traditional folk dances from Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as ballets such as "The Nutcracker" and "Swan Lake." If you have time, you may want to show your students clips from various folk dances or from a famous ballet.
• Ask students to make up short dances to depict a thought. Begin with an emotion, such as anger, happiness, fear, surprise, annoyance, etc. Once students have identified the emotion they want to express, ask them to create three to five tableaus to demonstrate that emotion. (A tableau is a "freeze frame"-- a stop-action combination of facial expression and gesture.)
• Discuss the basic elements of dance with your students, demonstrating how they can move through these elements:
  • Level: high, medium, and low
  • Direction: forward, backward, left, right, diagonally, turning
  • Speed: fast, slow
  • Locomotor: walk, run, hop, jump, leap, gallop, slide, skip
  • Axial: bend, twist, stretch, swing
• Instruct students to use these elements to connect their tableaus. Students will start with one tableau, and then create a movement to get from the first tableau to the second. They will create a new movement to connect the second to the third, and so on. Ask students to keep in mind the "integrity" of the emotion as they create their connecting movements. (A "sad" movement would probably be slow instead of fast, etc.)
• Allow students to perform their dances before the class. See if the audience can guess the emotion that each student is expressing through dance. Allow students to ask questions and provide feedback.

Evaluate (Outcomes to look for):

• Student engagement and participation
• Students' ability to demonstrate basic dance elements
• Dances and tableaus that depict emotions clearly
• An appreciation for dance as a way to communicate meaning

Standards:
Click this link to see additional learning goals, grade-level benchmarks, and standards covered in this lesson.