Wk 12: Dance and Literacy

This week’s workshop involved us looking at dance through literary text, in particular ‘Henry and Amy’ written by Stephen Michael King. This book looks at the idea of opposites and Iris (our dance teacher) had taken out words from the text as a stimulus for different dance activities that we needed to do. One activity involved us to pick a word randomly out of an envelope. All the words in the envelope have an opposite meaning to the word you would have picked up. 

These words came from the story book ‘Henry and Amy’. According to ACARA (2013), literacy is found everywhere throughout the Creative Arts subject, where words from texts and other forms of communication can be used as a stimulus to creating dance and meaning (pg. 15). As pre-service teachers, we need to know that literacy is linked to every KLA. That is why in classrooms students should be guided into understanding the meaning of words so they can portray them at any time, through any curriculum areas.

Reference:

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Authority Reporting Authority. (2013). Revised Draft Australian Curriculum: The Arts Foundation to Year 10 [PDF File]. Retrieved 30 June, 2014, from http://www.acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/Draft_Arts_Curriculum_22_February_2013.pdf

King, S. M. (1999). Henry and Amy. Schoolastic Australia

Wk 11: Moving our body through Sapce

In this week’s workshop we looked at space from one of the elements of dance. Space has two meaning in dance and that is personal space and general space. In this activity my partner and I found it quite hard to look at personal space while working with each other. We had to create movements that were different, that incorporated the terms ‘above and below’, ‘advance and retreat’, and ‘through and around’. These stimulus words had to be used with space. 

Creative dance involves choreographing movements and performing them (Gibson and Ewing (2011). This video shows our dance incorporating the ‘through and around’ aspect of dance and looked at personal space and general space. Implications as a pre-service teacher would be to teach the idea of personal space and general space. This workshop would be used in a late stage 2 to stage 3 classes because of the intensity of understanding the concept of space when working with a group or partner.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152419613102247&set=o.280958238648331&type=2&theater

Reference:

Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the Curriculum through the Arts. South Yarra, Australia: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wk 10: How do we move our Bodies?

Looking at how we move our bodies, dynamics within movement of the body.

In today’s workshop we looked at how the body moves using a key element in dance, which is Dynamics. Dynamics is apparently one of the hardest concepts to understand in terms of movement (McGill, I. 2014). For our last piece of dance in the workshop, we had to look at a musical ‘Matilda’s Revolting Children’. 

This song involved us as the revolting children meeting and greeting each other before class starts. We were split into groups of 3 and had to think of gestures that would be used in the everyday classroom or playground, to use in the overall dance performance. Our group concentrated on bullying and rejection of one “child” in the group, grabbing their bag and throwing it to other students. As pre-service teachers we must teach our students that negative gestures and bullying are not the correct way to treat others. Teaching students this dance gives them a different perspective on how to treat others.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152033626707142&set=o.280958238648331&type=2&theater

References:

McGill, I. (2014, May, 15). Creative Arts 3: Dance Workshop (Note of tutorial).

Wk 9: What can the body do?

In today’s workshop we looked at dance is as a whole and ‘what the body can do’ to create dance. When students understand their body’s limits, they develop “kinaesthetic intelligence, spatial intelligence, critical thinking and awareness” (ACARA, 2013, p. 28) of what their body can do. We should always think of the body as an instrument to express ideas, concepts and real life experiences while dancing in various contexts using different materials (Board of Studies, 2006). 

Dance is a very important because students learn how to reflect, analyse, and evaluate their own and others performances (ACARA, 2013, p. 28).  As pre-service teachers, we must understand that students may not feel confident in dancing because they feel embarrassed. Students must know that we are not there to embarrass them. You need to join them with their dancing so students feel comfortable and more confident in dancing with others and on their own.

References:

Board of Studies, NSW, (2006). Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus. Sydney, Australia: Foundation Statements

Wk 8: Music and Literacy

This week’s reflection looks at how we as teachers can connect music to other KLAs specifically literacy. We were given many choices of activities that involved looking at literacy through music. We were given many literacy books, ‘Henry and Amy’ written by Stephen Michael King was particularly concentrated on because of it’s fun and interesting writing style. 

Our group looked at ‘Rory’s Story Cubes’ (Wired, 2014) as a stimulus of creating imaginary storytelling. There are 9 cubes with each cube having a different picture of something on each side. Once they are all rolled and you have the pictures you have rolled, students must sort the cubes into something they can create through their imagination. We as a group created a story based on the picture we got on the cubes and started to discuss ideas of what our story could be about. We then were able to use an iPad to record our story with background sounds from percussive instruments.

Reference:

King, S. M. (1999). Henry and Amy. Schoolastic Australia

Wired, (2014). Exercise Your Creativity Muscle with Rory’s Story Cubes. Retrieved May 2, 2014 from http://archive.wired.com/geekdad/2010/06/rorys-story-cubes/

Wk 7: Listening and Appreciating Music

This week’s workshop looked at ‘listening to music’ or organising sounds. Students should not only be learning how to play a musical instrument but they also need to learn how to listen to a piece of music and understand what it is trying to tell the audience. It is argued that students in music class seem to only be listening to music passively and not learning that music is an “expressive artform” (Gibson and Ewing, 2011, pg. 114). 

The four musical pieces were Camille Saint Sáens Carnival of the Animals: ‘The Swan’, Edvard Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’, Danny Elfman’s ‘The Ice Dance’ and John Williams composition for the Harry Potter movies ‘Hedwig’s Theme’. These four songs had to be listened to very carefully to look for the main instruments that played the piece, and what elements of music were present in each. We had to listen for “duration, pitch, tone colours, dynamics and structure” (Gibson and Ewing, 2011, pg. 111). Teaching students how to understand the elements of music can make them a better learner in class.

Reference:

Gibson, R., & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the Curriculum through the Arts. South Yarra, Australia: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wk 6: Importance of Controlled Breathing when Singing

This week’s workshop looks at singing and why it is so important to have a good posture, with controlled breathing. Controlled breathing articulation of the words the lyrics you are singing. Having articulation of the words in the lyrics and understanding what the words mean allows students to express themselves in a deeper meaningful way through these lyrics. Today we sang a song from Razzamajazz called Calypso. This song gave us an opportunity to look at how music from another country is as important as music from a westernised country.

An implication for future teaching is that some students may not feel comfortable with singing because they feel like singing is thought of as some kind of “gift” for the musically gifted people (Neumann, 2008). It’s important to let students know that nobody in the classroom is going to judge on how you sing as long as you have a go and they feel comfortable. Singing in big groups and having easy repeated lyrics gives students that confidence to sing without feeling the pressure.

Reference:

Neumann, C. (2008). The Singing Classroom. The Canadian Music Educator, 49, 42-43.

Davis, S. (2014). Calypso. Sydney Australia: Razzamajazz