For next class, please read Chapter 11 in our textbook. At the end of the next class, there will be some time again to work on the presentations.
Enjoy the long weekend -- Happy Canada Day!!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
After Class Eight
For next class, please read Chapter 11 in our textbook. At the end of the next class, there will be some time again to work on the presentations.
Enjoy the long weekend -- Happy Canada Day!!
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I loved the opportunity we had to discuss the arts and literacy during this week's class. Any cross-curricular activities instantly excite me; the fact that I was extremely into drama and visual art as a child made this even more personally engaging. My own personal bias is that drama is especially useful for Language Arts. When utilized properly it can bring an often dry, intangible subject to life and incorporate a larger variety of learning styles. Moreover, I feel that there is a sense of accomplishment and pride that comes from performing a skit, for instance, that cannot be found by filling out a worksheet or novel studies. In terms of assessment, finally, the arts give a seemingly endless list of possibilities for students to show what they know.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help but notice how engaged the whole class was during Reader's Theatre. Everyone really took their character seriously and as a result I think we put on a great show :) Although it went well for us, I wonder if this would always be the case, particularly in intermediate classrooms. Perhaps having the students take ownership of the script and allow them to write it would empower them and thus ensure they would take the activity to heart. Not only does Reader's Theatre allow students to actively perform the text rather than passively read it, it also exposes students to a variety of literacy forms, which I am certain can be found in the PLOs for almost every grade. In my opinion, this is just one example of how a variety of activities in ELA benefits students.
The value of fine arts in the classroom
ReplyDeleteFine Arts are a very important part of the school curriculum. Unfortunately, there are some schools that may not value the arts compared to academic subjects. Some schools may hold the attitude that subjects such as mathematics are more important for life skills whereas creative writing may be viewed as simply an art. Arts are a lot more valuable than some may believe. One point is that arts can encourage students to think outside the box. For example, instead of simply responding to questions for a novel study, students can create visual illustrations of an interesting part in the novel or present a skit for the class. The fine arts offer students a way to express themselves. It also allows them to explore their talents and share with the classroom in a unique manner. Fine arts are also more inclusive for students who may be less academic. One very important reason to use fine arts in the classroom is to engage the students. Many children become easily bored with the standard assignments, such as worksheets or drill exercises. Using fun activities that also promote learning not only motivate the students, but it enhances other skills. Fine arts including drama, music, visual arts, dance and creative writing all fine tune skills necessary for life. These skills may include listening skills, communication, team work etc.
Assessments
How to assess students on creative writing assignments or poetry can be a little problematic. I remember assigning a poetry booklet assignment during my practicum. The criteria sheet was structured and I believe I touched on all the points; conventions, content, presentation, neatness. Unfortunately, when it came time to assess these booklets, I found myself becoming subjective in the marking. It was easier to give a girl a decent mark, simply because I could relate and enjoyed her poetry more than a boy’s. This is unfair for the male population of the classroom. Perhaps, poetry or creative assignments should be marked differently to avoid this. Instead of including content in my criteria, I should have just focused on the format of the poem and conventions. In this way, it would not matter what the individual wrote about or how he or she designed their booklet. I would not deduct marks simply because the front page did not include glitter or flowers. Perhaps this is one method of marking more objectively.
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ReplyDeleteFine Arts In the Classroom
ReplyDeleteHaving the opportunity to discuss the use of fine arts in the classroom helped to highlight the importance of approaching language arts from a variety of directions. As our group talked about the value of music, dance, drama, and visual arts, a common theme emerged about the significance of fine arts for supporting individuality among students. Each area of art provides children with a unique opportunity to experience aesthetic appreciation, explore personal expression, and discover creative potential. These opportunities are important for children to experience because it allows them to discover a variety of learning styles and explore their personal and diverse strengths. Unfortunately, such opportunities of diverse instruction are often limited due to the teacher’s comfort level with teaching fine arts. Through collaborating with other teachers and specialists outside the classroom, teachers can gain the resources they need to introduce fine arts into the classroom. For example, a teacher may apply the expertise of a local artist by inviting them into the classroom to provide instruction for students. Other areas of discussion that I found particularly interesting include utilizing fine arts in teaching history and applying fine arts to cultural studies. For both historical and cultural studies, fine arts allows students to move beyond textbooks and ‘taste’ the richness of these areas of study.
Reader’s Theater
Today’s reading of “The Legend of Lightening Larry” was my first experience of readers theater. This activity really engaged students by allowing them to interact with one another through performing dramatic reading. I believe that this type of activity is very important to include in the classroom because it demonstrates an interactive component of language arts that is often excluded from instruction. As a student my experience of language arts was typically individual readings and responses. Occasionally, the teacher would have us partake in a class reading; however, such experiences were usually lifeless and uninspiring. Through readers theater students have the opportunity to explore character roles and dialogue by adding their personal touch to the script. I found “The Legend of Lightening Larry” to be particularly engaging because it incorporated a fun western story line that allowed students to use accents and act out short scenes. Readers theater is a valuable teaching tool that I will use in future classrooms.
Reader’s Theatre:
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the reader’s theatre activity today. I have never been part of one before and I was excited that I got to participate. In my 401/402 practicum the students were requesting the classroom teacher to do some reader’s theatre because the grade three class next door was doing it. They were so enthusiastic and motivated and now I can understand why. It turned language arts, which can sometimes be thought of as difficult or boring by some students, into something fun and interactive. The benefits of this activity include improving oral language skills, improving listening skills, comprehension, community building, and cooperative skills. Students can practice reading while also learning how to annunciate and articulate while they speak. They also have to listen to others for their cues and can discuss the activity afterwards for parts of a story and comprehension. Since it is a group activity, cooperation is required and the class can develop a strong sense of community where every student feels safe to experiment with their dramatic skills. The accents and acting by some students today was so entertaining and I think everyone felt safe to participate. In a classroom setting I think it would be beneficial to allow for roles like a director for students who are shy or nervous to speak in front of a big group. I look forward to trying this activity during my 405 practicum and hope the students are as excited about it as I am.
Multiple Intelligences:
The theory of Gardner’s multiple intelligences is a popular topic in education and psychology. I think as more research is done we will be learning more and more how to incorporate this into teaching and how to differentiate instruction so all students can experience success. It is important to consider all the different kinds of intelligences and offer opportunities for students to explore their talents in each area. By expanding the language arts to include things like music, drama, and dance we are introducing students to areas they might not have explored. Students can also find their niche and learn more about how they learn best. Teachers can see where students excel and provide opportunities for them to shine and be recognized for their excellence in a particular area. Offering choice of an activity or choice of how one wants to represent their work is a good way for students to display their intelligence. If students were to write poems and present them, a good idea would be to allow them to present it in a variety of ways such as musically, pictorially, orally, actively as a dance, or simply just in written form. This way students can show their knowledge of poetry in a way that is motivating and interesting to them. Multiple intelligences reminds teachers that students are all unique and teaching is not a one size fits all approach.
Rachel wrote:
ReplyDeleteREADER’S THEATRE
First of all, I had heard a few times about the reader’s theatre but never had the chance to see and experience what it actually is. During this week’s class, I found it quite interesting how this activity contains literacy component but still allows students to become highly interactive and to have fun. Unlike literacy being taught in a traditional classroom setting, reader’s theatre allowed students to practice not only active speaking and listening skills but also be creative and expressive in what they are reading in a script by putting feelings and appropriate voice into each word. Today, I believe it is essential for all teachers, especially in Language Arts classroom, to promote creative thinking and comprehension through active speaking; therefore, I believe it is a great tool for all elementary as well as secondary teachers for teaching ELA. In my 405 practicum in September, although I won’t be teaching my own (personally-planned) unit for ELA, I wish I would have an opportunity to do reader’s theatre with my grade 3 students.
INTRODUCING FINE ARTS IN LITERACY/ELA
Personally I found that getting into small groups to talk about fine arts of our own particular interest (music for myself) was the most valuable time of all the lectures I went to this week. Not only was it interesting to discuss our ideas about what the value of music or any other fine arts is and how possibly we might be able to teach it in diverse classrooms. I strongly believe it is extremely important for elementary children to be exposed to fine arts as soon as possible in their education since it creates the freedom for everyone to express and describe in their own style/form. According to Gardener’s theory of multiple intelligences suggests, children learn in different ways – some mathematically, others musically, sometimes linguistically etc. – and as a result children should be exposed to different ways of learning. After sharing in our personal groups, moving into a different group where all other Fine Arts people gather at once allowed each of us to share each groups’ ideas in teaching drama, dance, creative writing, visual arts etc. I agree it is not a complicated peer teaching method, but I have not thought seriously before how this strategy could help students’ learning (through peer teaching). I heard of so many amazing ways of integrating fine arts in ELA classroom which I would love to use while teaching a primary class in the future.
Readers’ Theatre
ReplyDeleteNow that I have participated in a readers’ theatre and have previewed some similarly entertaining performances on you tube, I am sold on this idea. For someone with minimal drama experience, this is something I could quickly adopt for use in the classroom. The process is much more captivating than I imagined it would be and I can see the many benefits it entails. For one thing, the students would definitely find motivation to read if they were given regular options to read aloud in this fashion, which is low risk yet open to spontaneous vocal elaboration. As well, it seems likely that this activity would draw students toward greater fluency due to the emphasis on bringing the text to life almost entirely through the use of expressive reading alone. Perhaps, one of the most valuable features of readers theatre is its potential for serving the needs of students with diverse learning styles and abilities. Not only could a struggling reader be provided with a role appropriately matched to her or his level but the more boisterous students could find major character parts to really ham it up in a positive way.
Integrating LA with the Fine Arts
On page 417, it is suggested that the goal of integrating the disciplines should be to “maintain the integrity of each area being integrated”. This is something I had not considered in my practicum. Basically, I was subordinating the visual art expression to the literature or language activities that the students were working with. ie. They were more or less just illustrating their ideas and not trying to learn about the visual arts techniques. Ideally, investigations of the visual design elements of colour, line and shape etc. would have been included as equally important objectives for these lessons.
Although reading literature and working with language does have aesthetic aspects, inclusion of other art forms adds a richer, multi-sensory dimension to the students’ learning. As Ken Robinson has pointed out (on TED.com), the fine arts are often ignored or sidelined in school resulting in a dull and deadening learning environment. He recommends that the arts be expanded in school because they provide opportunities for aesthetic experiences which by definition allow the students to feel fully alive, aware, and engaged in the world and are thus indispensable for the students’ holistic personal growth. Integrating fine arts with the core language arts curriculum is clearly one way of furthering this aim.
I greatly enjoyed looking at the Fine Arts this week as I think that they are powerful tools to improve literacy, as well as maintain engagement in ways that appeal to students who need more physical, tactile experiences. I find it amazing how much exercises such as these can contribute to improving literacy. In another class I am taking we read an article about students in grades K-6 who acted out their own stories as the teacher read them aloud – improvising all the actions. The writing improved because the students began to realize the kind of detail needed in order for the performance to be engaging. They would add more detail in the form of action verbs, emotions, and setting, all to make the performance more entertaining for their classmates. I also think that the Fine Arts pose a lot of opportunity for community building and creating a safe classroom environment. I find this extremely important and think this process must precede and continue alongside activities such as reader’s theatre to maintain trust within the classroom and a source of communal support. I particularly liked how we were able to collaborate and look at how we could combine the arts. I think this speaks to the concept of differentiation, acknowledging the value of each art form and therefore of each student who enjoys working with and through it.
ReplyDeleteOne aspect of activities such as Drama that I get concerned about the shyness that many students must overcome to be comfortable. Some find it absolutely agonizing to be on the spot and I feel that that should be respected. One thing that was suggested in class was the smaller groups, and also adjusting our assessment methods to consider this. I was also thinking that the activity that we did with reader’s thearte could help to combat this as students can choose the extent to which they want to get into character without feeling left out. I also think that the circle formation works very well because we could all see each other, but it also took away from the on-the-spot feel. I could hear everyone but I didn’t always have enough time to locate the person behind the voice. I feel this is acceptable because I did not miss out on the story, and it also doesn’t really matter who says the line, I don’t feel the need to be staring at them as they read because it is a group exercise. For those students who are shy, I think this is a great exercise because there is a degree of anonymity without sacrificing participation or a sense of belonging.
Here’s the article I mentioned if anyone is interested:
Swope, S. (1995). Changing shape and acting ou. In C. Edgar & R. Padgett (Eds.), Old faithful: 18 writers present their favourite writing assignments (pp.1-10). New York: Teachers & Writers Collaborative.
The first area I would like to talk about is Fine Arts in the classroom. I think introducing and including different elements of the fine arts is immensely important for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it is very helpful is helping to connect to the multiple intelligences. Many students are “arts type” students and learn best and connect best through these elements. By teaching using drama, music and etc. these students are getting equal learning opportunities. Besides providing these equal learning opportunities for the variety of students in the common classroom, fine arts are important for many other reasons. They allow expression and creativity as well, which I think is a huge necessity for learning and development. Students need to learn the facts and learn basics, but they also need to learn different ways to express themselves. By encouraging the students to use their imagination and their creative side, it is encouraging individuality and getting students to think in different ways. As well, I think it also encourages students to get out of their element and try something that they might not have known that they would enjoy. This can also get students to be more outgoing if we are encouraging them to get outside their comfort zone.
ReplyDeleteReaders Theatre
I don’t remember dong reader’s theatre when I was in elementary school, but I love the concept. I did a fairy tale based readers theatre in a grade 1 class, where the students broke into groups and had scripts to learn and they all seemed to really enjoy the concept. I love reader’s theatre for a number of reasons. First of all, I really enjoy its connection to literacy and comprehension. By learning the lines of the script, students are reading lines and are given the opportunity to help each other with reading and figuring out lines. For comprehension, the students are forced to not only read their lines, but also understand them in context and connect to how thee character is feeling in that place and time. Alongside the merits from a literacy standpoint, there are also a lot of benefits from a creative standpoint. It encourages students to work together, which might help draw out some of the more shy students, but it also allows them to get a little silly and have fun In my class, I tried to get the students to get out of their comfort zone by doing silly voices and accents which they all loved.
Fine Arts in LA:
ReplyDeleteThe hardest part about Fine Arts is the subjectivity of it which makes it seem difficult to assess. It is a common misconception that art should be free and expressive and that anything goes. There is always some form of theory or aim, etc. that constrains an art form. The talent lies in how an artist works within these constraints. The same should be kept in mind when assessing students’ art. It is not what their art looks/sounds like that should be marked but it is how well they work within the constraints or criteria given to them. I think when ever assessing anything subjective it is important first set out a clear set of class criteria and only rely on that to assess. This way you can intentionally exclude subjective things such as artistic skill etc. from your class criteria. For instance, in my practicum I did a unit on Folktales and had the students rewrite the Three Little Pigs. Throughout the unit we looked at two aspects of folktales: their structure and their cultural significance. As the summative assessment I had them write their own version of a familiar folktale, the Three Little Pigs, in order to see what aspects would change and what aspects would stay the same if we changed the setting of the story. I did not mark them on their ideas but rather on their ability to notice the conventions such as there are three little some-things, one big bad thing that would eat them, the building materials get stronger and stronger and are indigenous to that setting etc. In the end each students work was a unique piece of creative writing and yet I had no problem marking them because we had a clear set of objective Folktale features and project criteria laid out that I could use to mark rather than having to subjectively mark them on their creativity and imagination.
Sonja wrote:
ReplyDeleteGrowing up, I always remember being fond of the use of reader’s theatre, or any sort of dramatic art to teach Language arts. I loved drama and was part of a theatre sports team in junior high. I recall one teacher who used to get us involved in script reading when he would teach Shakespeare. To this day, I can still clearly remember details from the plays that we studied in his class, but my memory is foggy when it comes to plays I studied in other English classes. We acted out with scripts, both Othello, and Mid-Summer’s Nights Dream. They gave me far and beyond, the most comprehensive understanding of any Shakespeare plays that I ever studied. In order to really convey your role, you had to understand what the script was talking about. Plus it made it the story more interesting when the script is brought to life.
Teaching Language arts through music is another wonderful medium. Putting words to music makes it more interesting for the students to learn poetry, short stories, and so on. I still remember getting a poem in grade 8 English called “Bridge over troubled waters”. I knew the song, but many people didn’t. When the teacher finally played the song for us, people were excited because they had heard the song before too but had never played attention to the lyrics. We were all excited to know that we understood this song “on a deeper level” than ever before. This teacher frequently mixed in song lyrics with our poetry unit, and often we didn’t know what poems were songs and vice versa. It made it exciting and extremely relevant to us when we were an age at which poetry was boring. She made it fun.
Reader's Theatre
ReplyDeleteI loved the reader’s theatre activity (Lightning Larry) that we performed in the classroom last week. I found it really interesting to see the dynamics of the class during this activity. As the roles were being passed out I was particularly curious about how some of the quieter members of the class would respond in character. I had read many times about how many actors were painfully shy, but when it came time to perform on stage they thrived. I was definitely impressed by the entire class, but in particular by a few who rarely speak in class, but totally got into their character. I think using Reader’s Theatre could be an excellent opportunity to “give a voice” to those students in your class who might ordinarily be too shy or intimidated to speak out. This would be an excellent opportunity to build self-esteem for those students, and to promote social interaction with their peers. Even though you are speaking someone else’s words in reader’s theatre, I still feel that it creates a tremendous opportunity for the students to use their imaginations as they work towards representing their character. Just listening to Lightning Larry and his cohorts last week proved that.
Fine Arts
Something that we have been talking about in my curriculum development class is how the time allotted for the fine arts has been reduced over the years (during my short practicum my SA did not allot time for a defined art period.) Not only has it been reduced but it is generally placed at the end of the day (when kids are more tired) giving the subtle message that art is a frill, and certainly not as important as those classes such as math and language arts, that are generally placed in the morning. However, there are so many kids that thrive through the creativity of the arts, and we need to do everything we can to nurture all learners. That is why I believe it is more important than ever to weave fine arts across the curriculum. Not only does this engage more learners, but allows for more students to learn in ways that work for them best (eg. broader spectrum of the multiple intelligences). The world needs innovators and creative thinkers, and the inclusion of the arts throughout the curriculum is so important to creating a vision for the future.
“Because objects of art are expressive, they are a language. Rather they are many languages.” -John Dewey
I have become quite fond of integrating the arts into multiple subjects in the curriculum. My SA was big on this and I think that she rubbed off on me. I really tried hard to incorporate the arts into all areas of my practice and I found that Language Arts was the first place I started. I really connected to the piece of the text that was about integrating visual art and language arts. The authors spoke of the artist and writer in children’s literature. I related to this portion because I thought of story telling in this way as well. I used my novel study of “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” to incorporate visual art into the study. One assignment in particular, we were working on summaries, I did with the students was they had to give me a chapter summary but it had to be in a comic strip form. They must use their visual art skills to tell me what happened. They were only allowed limited word bubbles for speech. I found it was a great way for me to see their visual art work as well as it was a great way for some of my students to express their version of a summary. Some students were much more successful doing this as opposed to writing a summary. I really enjoyed this part of the text because I was able to relate to it very well.
ReplyDeleteThat leads me into my next point about the text. I loved the list of 10 reasons to incorporate the fine arts. I really enjoyed #9 about alternative forms of assessment. I used portfolios in my 405 that showed work from multiple subjects and was a cumulative project. It was a great way for me to gauge their improvement and level of ability. It really helped me see where they started at the beginning of the year before I got there and where they were while I was with them. I think this is a valuable tool for any teacher. It is a great gauge of the level of improvement throughout the year and that is what we are looking for with all of our students.
Readers Theater
ReplyDeleteI think that Readers Theater is a great way to incorporate reading and other literacy skills into the classroom. As we saw when our class preformed a play, people had fun, were ‘silly’ and really came out of their shells in ways we do not often get to see during regular class discussion. Thus, I think that readers theater would be a good ice breaker activity at the beginning of the school year in a intermediate class when students are can read; of course you need to be careful that even students who are behind in reading levels can read the script, but nonetheless, based on our classes reaction, I think new students would really enjoy it. I did some research online and readers theater scripts exist for all subjects; one that was particularly interesting was math. Having students act out a play to introduce a new math topic or by teachers preforming a puppet show for primary students to get them excited for a math unit seems like a really good idea to create energy and excitement for an often difficult and unappealing subject.
Fine Arts
I really enjoyed our discussion on the various types of fine arts and how to include them into our classes. I think that as a primary school teacher it is much easier to create multidisciplinary lessons that incorporate various forms fine arts into them, as opposed to secondary teachers whose subjects are more isolated and they have less freedom to include other disciplines. Until this lesson, I had not considered how drama incorporates so many fine arts into it. While primary students would be unable to write their own plays and make sets and costumes, one idea I had is that as a class, we could do a write aloud and they could dictate to the teacher the play, they could brainstorm costume and set ideas, and then the teacher could get the pieces ready so that the students could decorate them and contribute to making them. This idea does seem like a lot of work but compared to the other prep work primary school teachers do, this is not that much more. I have never done an activity like this where the students write a text as class but I think it would be very interesting to try.
Language Arts and the Fine Arts:
ReplyDeleteIn class, we broke into various groups (different areas of fine arts) and discussed the importance and activities how to create lessons involving a specific area i.e. visual arts, dancing, music, drams, etc. I found this to be very helpful as I was interested in drama. However, throughout my education (elementary, middle and high school), I was never really introduced to the arts. Creative writing, ability to express oneself was not emphasized; instead, memorization and preparation for tests and exams were of greater importance. Listening to my group members share with excitement the various activities that could be done with drama from their previous experience in school in our small groups was fascinating to me. There were so many wonderful ideas (from the discussions) and I plan to try a few of them and incorporate them into the curriculum during my long practicum in September. I was surprised to know that (from the readings) four of the seven multiple intelligences (verbal, visual, musical and kinesthetic) parallel the fine arts areas of visual art, music, dance and drama. Given that the fine arts can aid students in maximizing their full potential (intellectual capabilities), I wondered why it is not given greater emphasis in school curriculum.
Readers’ Theatre:
I have heard about Reader’s Theatre (RT) from other student teachers but was never given a chance to experience it. I found doing the activity in class a refreshing and fun experience! Everyone got into character and reading out loud was not as ‘threatening’ as I had anticipated. I can see the numerous benefits (i.e. increasing fluency in reading, creativity) in incorporating RT into Language arts as well as cross curriculum such as Science, Social Studies and Math. I think one issue that might arise is students who are shy or having trouble reading would be the willingness to participate in the activity. Community building is very important to be able to successfully incorporate RT in the classroom. For ELL or ESL learners, I think that a teacher has to take into consideration the support these students would have to practice their roles at home. If the parents of these students do not speak the English language, then, for these students to practice their scripts, it would certainly be a challenge. I suggest pairing students with a mix of abilities so that the stronger readers in the group can help the struggling readers in class, giving students ample practice time. This way, all readers can have a positive and enjoyable reading experience as well as build self confidence amongst ELL and ESL learners in the classroom. This is one aspect of incorporating fine arts – drama and reading into the curriculum such that students are learning without knowing it!
Drama and Writing
ReplyDeleteLove it! I agree with Jill that bringing in the Arts, especially Drama, makes every subject more fun. As we went over in class, all the different forms drama can take in the classroom can do so much for comprehension, idea generation and language development. I was recently thinking about a course I took on drama in education—the entire premise of which was that incorporating drama into any and all subject matter increases student attention, engagement and understanding. A great writing activity that involves the Arts is to do a unit on reviews. Have students look at newspapers, magazines and blogs to see what things are reviewed (movies, theatre, music performances, etc.) and to discuss and explore how reviews are written. What is the language used, style of writing, audience, focus and so on. Then, once students have been frontloaded with how reviews are written, you could go on a field trip to any form of a production and have the students write reviews about their viewing. This is such a fun activity because it takes the kids out of the classroom, enthrals them (who doesn’t love watching theatre?) and gives their writing purpose and relevancy. They could even try submitting it to a review blog or letter to the editor of a local Arts paper. I also think this would be a valuable activity to do at the beginning of your implementation of drama in the classroom because your students gain an appreciation of acting (many of whom have never seen a live performance before) and understanding of how fun and effective it can be as well as its potential.
Assessment and the Arts
I know this is a Language Arts class but if we are going to encourage including the Arts into LA then we need to consider how we will assess it. I’m impressed with Tristan’s experience with portfolio assessment; we talk a lot about it but I know few people who are brave enough or have enough time, to try it out. Using portfolios or not, it’s important to recognise the difference between our assessing a child’s LA mark and their Art mark. While you could argue a student’s oral performance in a play could count towards their speaking mark in LA, you need to be so sensitive in considering the effect your marking of a student’s Art performance will have on that student. I find the Arts are much more subjective and certainly, if you assign a mark for a drawing or montage without having justification for that mark, you are waltzing into dangerous territory. So, be very aware of what learning you are intending for your students to receive when you assign a LA project/activity that includes one or more of the Arts. Are you assessing the student’s comprehension of what they just read during Reader’s Theatre or are you assessing their ability to orally dramatize written text? These are two very different things to be assessing.
Integrating the fine arts with the language arts
ReplyDeleteI believe that it is very important to expose students to fine arts as it gives them a chance to express their feelings and emotions. I agree with Delicia that some teachers hold the belief that academic subjects like mathematics, science, etc. are more important that fine arts (drama, music, visual art, dance) and hence, the use of fine arts in the classroom often phase out. I think it is not only the level of importance that is given to fine arts but, also, maybe due to the lack of teacher knowledge of the arts and/or comfort level with teaching fine arts that there is limited instruction in fine arts. I must say that through exploration to fine arts, students gain a deeper understanding of the core subjects like mathematics, science, etc. For instance, readers theatre helps students to improve their fluency plus accuracy, which I think is required for understanding all the subjects. Through integration of fine arts with language arts, students experience different learning styles and figure out the different ways that are appropriate for their abilities and interests. The use of drama, music, visual art and dance in the classroom by itself or with other disciplines give students a chance to show off their abilities in different areas as some of the students might stand out when they are learning something via drama or dance than through traditional paper and pencil activities.
“I really liked looking at all the different ways of integrating the fine arts into language arts. The way we split up into our groups, moved around, then came back to our first group was a method that I had used or been involved in before so I found that a really great way to spread the ideas and info that had been gathered/ talked about. Some of the fine arts that we talked about I would probably have not thought to combine with language arts…like dance for example, but now I can see that anything is possible;) We have so many PLO’s to get through with our students, things like this make our job a little easier and a lot more fun!
ReplyDeleteThe reader’s theater activity was a blast! This is the kind of stuff that I love! Drama was a big part of my elementary and highschool experience, and even though I consider myself to be pretty shy now, I sometimes come out of my shell a little when doing these sorts of activities. Readers theater is great for developing fluency and comprehension in young children. Because the script is usually read and practiced repeatedly over the course of a week or two children are able to build an understanding of what is going on in the story. After a reading or two the children should be encouraged to use more expression or emotion in their characters lines. Another thing that reader’s theater is great for is teaching the children to read in sync with one another; if you have a story with only four characters you can split the class into four groups and have the groups practice reading together. There are tons of options in this area.”
First off, it looks like I missed out on a really fun class!
ReplyDeleteIncorporating the arts in the elementary curriculum:
As a young student I was painfully shy in the classroom, and I would rarely participate during class discussions. Outside of class; however, I was a very different individual. Throughout my school years, I have been involved in many different musical theatre programs, as well as choral groups . I enjoyed these after-school activities because they gave me the opportunity to do something that I loved. They also gave me the opportunity to showcase my talents, outside of the traditional classroom setting. I was lucky because I attended an elementary school that had a strong arts influence. In my grade three class we had a piano in the classroom, and my teacher even gave me piano lessons. In grade five, our class put on Oliver for the school. In grades six and seven, we did countless skits and drama activities. Although I was never the star of these productions or activities, I still was much more enthused and out-going when we engaged in them because I was doing something that I loved. I think it important to incorporate the fine arts into the classroom because it gives students the opportunity to showcase their talent. Not every student will do well academically; however, with the arts they have an avenue that is different than the traditional pen and paper format to express themselves.
Bringing Arts programs to the schools:
During my practicum, there was a dance instructor that came to our school for two weeks. Each P.E. period she would work on a dance routine with each of the grades. At the end of the two weeks, the whole school put on a recital of their dance routines. Although it can be a little pricey, inviting a professional to teach the students can be really beneficial. The students appeared to be more motivated and engaged, and this may be because they had someone who knew what they were doing teaching them. I, for one, would have great difficulty teaching dance classes because I cannot dance; therefore, I would rather leave it to the professionals. Another program that the whole school participated in was a two week drama program. I had finished my practicum by then, but it sounded like it was a lot of fun. Both of these programs are great for teachers who are not comfortable, or educated in teaching dance or drama. The instructors are also good role models for the students because they can see firsthand, how real professionals act and dance, and this is far more interesting than watching their teachers.
Discussing the variations of arts and literacy last week was definitely meaningful to me. Having a chance to discuss the types of activities and adaptions that creative writing, drama, dance and visual arts that can be applied in the classroom, as well as discussing their values were especially significant. Having a background in English I am looking forward to having the opportunity to teach different Novel studies and some of the examples that my partners were able to come up with definitely raised my excitement and enthusiasm for my upcoming 405 semester. However, the most important message I took out form this activity is that these activities that target skills like “creative writing” do not need to be mundane activities such as mere journal writing , the amount of diverse activities that were discussed not only targets the area of “Creative Writing,” but really work towards raising the enthusiasm of the students, making the work more relevant to them.
ReplyDeleteI`m getting pretty excited our upcoming lesson presentations. While working in our group for our lesson plan, I was able to see how a few simple ideas really took shape in the matter of moments. In a short time, our group had come up with a couple of creative ideas that had their own values and adaptions, similar to the activity just discussed above. While I feel our group has taken “a safe road” without losing any creativity, I am really exciting to see what ideas will be presented by my peers. The creativity I heard while discussing the language arts variations definitely caught my interested and am looking forward to seeing everyone’s presentations near the end of July.
During group discussion, we all agreed the most challenging part of integrating Fine Arts with Language Arts is devising an accurate method of assessment. Even though there are students such as myself who get extremely excited to participate in activities such as Reader's Theater, there are many students who do not feel the same. I think it is hard to assess student's learning/effort in Fine Arts especially when he/she has no interest in participating. It makes me wonder how do teachers fairly assess Fine Art activities without being too critical?
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with the text when it says it is important to provide little direction to students so they can explore and experiment ways to express themselves. A quote that stuck with me read, "Teachers need to help [students] see the goal is not perfect art, but meaning-making" (pg. 27). This quote reminds me of an awkward/frustrating situation that arose during my short practicum. The grade 1 students were working on a wax-resistant sea life picture and the teacher corrected the students on what colors their sea life were "supposed" to be. I strongly disagreed with this because the point of the art was not to accurately portray sea life, but to understand the wax-resistant technique that was being used. Nevertheless, art should never be stressful; it should be a relaxing way for students to explore and express their individuality.
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ReplyDeleteIn our search for ways to incorporate the fine arts into language arts, we came up with many “big” ideas like integrated units, projects, or whole lessons. I think there are many little ways we can incorporate the fine arts as well, addressing the multiple intelligences (pg. 412). I’ve heard of acting out adjectives or verbs to extend students’ vocabulary for writing, for example, variations for “walk” such as “saunter”, “swagger”, “slouch” etc. I observed a Grade One teacher singing/chanting out the letters of spelling words the students were copying out. I found out that students’ drawings can be a way to assess comprehension when a couple of my students in China drew a picture accompanying the phrase “When I grow up I want to be a doctor so I can give (classmate’s name) a shot”. There was a person on the far left with what looked like a machine gun and a dashed line with a bullet directed to a person on the far right side of the page – Oops! .
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of integrated units and activities, but I realize this approach is more cognitively challenging for students (in my opinion), especially if the rationales are not explained well. We are expecting students to meet various learning goals simultaneously, which might not be that easy for them. I know that for myself, a learning activity integrated with something active like dancing would be lost on me, as it would take most of my attention just to keep up with the physical activity and follow the steps. Similarly, students working on an integrated project may struggle to prioritize the multiple focuses of the project (for example, they don’t feel they have the skill to visually express their understanding of the theme of a novel), though this struggle is probably good for “real life” and later experiences. At the same time, I have observed the value of integration in the instance of a reader’s theatre where the struggling readers turned out to be some of the best actors, and really enjoyed the process as equals with the rest of the class.
(Sorry for the late posting - I wrote this last week and obviously forgot to post)
Sorry this is late, but I went away prior to June 30 and was unable to post before leaving because this thread was not yet started.
ReplyDeleteFine arts and Literacy
Getting into groups and brainstorming was helpful in discussion particular fine arts. Through discussion in small groups I gained great knowledge about different activities that can be done. Being able to have each person from the collective group share with a person from the other groups was even more beneficial. It allowed us to find connections in using fine arts and literacy. There were a large number of activities that were discussed, which are very applicable to classroom lessons. This helped me to build on my little list of classroom activities. I will use this activity for sharing knowledge in many of my other subjects and lessons as it is based on collaborative learning, which I feel is so imperative to learning.
Reader’s theatre
I was very hesitant to begin this activity as I have never done a reader’s theatre in the past. For some reason this activity provoked anxiety in me, but I do not know where that anxiety stemmed from. I began to get concerned about how this activity would play out. Would people be less shy then I was and perform the reading at a higher calibers then I would. When beginning I noticed that some people were very into the process and modified their voice to suit the characters. This made me even more nervous, but also excited. After reading my first line and the story started to flow I became more comfortable. Near the end I noticed that I even started to modify my voice to a certain degree. I think that teachers need to ensure students feel safe in the classroom and be aware that some children may have anxieties. A possible solution for decreasing anxiety is to do reader’s theatre activities in small groups prior to doing them as a whole class. I do think this is a valuable activity as long as teachers prepare students for the experience.
Class 8:
ReplyDeleteReader’s Theatre:
Is cross-curricular-
During one of my Designs for Elementary School Reading classes a group did a strategy demonstration using Reader’s Theatre in which different areas of the school curriculum were addressed. One group read a script about a group of students who were learning how to multiply in math, one group read about evaporation in science, one group read about a special type of dramatic performance which evolved in Japan (social studies), and one group read about the time of the dinosaurs (science). What was neat about each of these performances were that the scripts were engaging. They included funny components and some of them were targeted for younger grades and used a narrative story style to explain complex concepts. The scripts gave students a chance to practice reading fluently, be very expressive, as well as to learn and teach other students concepts which could seem dull if not taught in an exciting way. Based on what I have observed, Reader’s Theatre seems to have many important uses for the classroom.
Models comprehension skills-
In reading about Reader’s Theatre in our textbook the author mentions that the narrator speaks about information that is important for readers and listeners to attend to when trying to comprehend the story or information. This seems like it would be a good way for students to learn how to pick out the information they need in order to understand a piece of text. As the narrator is doing their part of the Reader’s Theatre they will be modelling this important skill to other students and to themselves as they ask students to notice certain things about the events of the play and elaborate on information which may not be explicitly stated by characters.