Strategies
I have developed learning goals and activities which through lesson design lay open the educational field as a wide space with room enough for each student to be encouraged to develop a creative mind. These activities and lesson are adapted from the many that I have been implementing in my classroom. The curriculum created here incorporates strategies which make use of creative dramatics, various discussion models, critical thinking (problem solving), analytical skills and writing activities with engaging topics. These lay open the path for creating meaningful and purposeful encounters with African American history as part of the American history that has been rarely told or not told at all. In this way a child can, through reading, vicarious experience, and hands-on activities come to know and understand how to locate themselves on a landscape that has systematically excluded African Americans from the scene.
Strategy 1 - Creative Dramatics
Creative dramatics is an art form which involves the whole self in experiential learning. It is a strategy that requires creative thinking and creative expression. Through movement, pantomime, sensory awareness, verbalization, characterization and aesthetic development students can explore the meaning of courage, respect, justice and freedom and what each looks like in daily interactions with other living things (Cottrell 1). Since children have been exploring and discovering most of their lives, creative dramatics can function as an extension of a process that is already familiar to the students. Experiences in creative dramatics offer opportunities for students to grow as whole human beings able to think, feel, and express in certain ways. Participating in this art form requires that students interact socially and cooperate in order to succeed. Creative dramatics emphasizes originality and inventiveness, flexibility and spontaneity of movement and speech, as well as emotional and intellectual risk-taking. These ideas are congruent with the Montessori philosophy of education.
Experiences in classroom drama activities can help children deal with body awareness and expression as well as provide a structure for exploring self perceptions and attitudes about others. Drama is also a healthy way for students at the middle school age to direct some of their energy and physical expression as well as act as a way to discipline the body. This is also the age at which students developmentally begin to function as adult thinkers. They begin to think in terms of cause and effect, to hypothesize, and predict outcomes based on evidence at hand. Drama can provide opportunities to practice this kind of thinking as well as new modes of thought. Creative dramatics is a strategy which can draw on a breadth of functions and can be applied across a range of subject matter. Whether the activities are based in reality or fantasy, drama allows students to assimilate and accommodate knowledge in a different way than other methods do. It also allows for more possibilities for teaching in ways that reinforce learning that sticks (Cottrell 1-9).
Creative Dramatic Categories
Imaginative Thinking/Creative Problem Solving
Activity 1
Situation role-playing - This activity is sometimes referred to as socio-drama because it utilizes concepts and skills that deal with real life, particularly those that have to do with interpersonal conflict and making appropriate personal choices. It allows students to try on various perspectives, to engage in empathetic listening, to practice cause and effect thinking, hypothesizing, predicting and problem solving and to practice oral language skills. The role playing may be done in a pair format in which one person acts as a person with a problem and the other acts as a willing listener or an advice giver. Or, the two could be involved with the same problem but from different perspectives. Role playing can also be done in small groups. Some safeguards to employ are carefully verbalized guidelines and sensitivity. The kinds of topics chosen should be general and not specific to anyone in the class and no one student should play the part of the same kind of character. Since this activity deals with some "unpopular" roles that students may not readily want, make sure to acknowledge it and allow the roles to rotate among students. Or, the teacher could take the part. Also topics should clearly have to do with the narrative text. A caveat is to remember that socio-drama is not psycho-drama or play therapy. Then, as the environment becomes more respectful, trusting and less threatening, guidelines can be created by the students under the guidance of the teacher. As well, students should be encouraged to give ideas for topics. Of course, student suggestions should meet guidelines for appropriateness, good taste and be of a general concern (Cottrell 117-118). Students being able to select is an aspect of the Montessori philosophy of education. Allowing students to have a voice in the decision making process gives them some sense of control and consequently a sense of well-being. The acting out of scenarios provides opportunities for students to learn from each other. Both Piaget and Vygotsky claim that peers play an important role in development. Piaget claimed that peers present different ideas and in so doing create a state of unbalance in the child. As a result of the imbalance, mental development occurs when the child has to resolve the imbalance by changing her/his mind or accommodating to incorporate the new idea(s) (Lillard 193). Vygotsky purported that learning occurs in a zone of proximal development (ZPD), meaning that the task(s) the student is to carry out cannot be accomplished alone but rather, through working in concert with a more advanced other (84-89).. This reflects the Montessori principle that collaborative arrangements can be very conducive to learning.
Movement and Pantomime
Activity 2
Communicating nonverbally helps students recognize and increase their ability to communicate employing facial expression and body movement. It also helps them become better speakers by providing opportunity to develop congruency between words and nonverbal messages. In addition, pantomime and movement can help students become more astute readers of the nonverbal expressions of others. This is in alignment with Dr. Montessori's theory that movement can enhance thinking and learning. Here again, topics should be general and not necessarily reflect any one student's situation, and in time the students should be encouraged to suggest appropriate topics. When participating in movement and pantomime activities, students should be encouraged to use precise movements and only those that are needed. They should understand that economy of movement helps clarify meaning just as concise use of words clarifies speech. This is particularly useful at the middle school level because generally, students are experiencing a physical developmental state which can cause cumbersome movement of body parts. The students are also at the stage where in which their senses are at a peak and are difficult to control. Pantomime activities in which body parts and parts of the face are used to convey actions, ideas, and feelings help the student concentrate and call on necessary internal resources that help guide the student in translating ideas and feelings into action through disciplined movement. As well, students should also be aware of a previously agreed upon "pause" or "freeze" signal in place and used by the teacher to quickly and efficiently gain everyone's attention. When used properly and judiciously, this stopping of verbal and physical movement strategy can be used to encourage creativity through taking time to clarify and to highlight important ideas. "Pause" or "freeze" is used in the same ways as punctuation to separate ideas, changes of motivation or mood, as well as for emphasis (Cottrell 95).
Strategy 2 - Writing to Learn
By early adolescence, students have begun to question and challenge beliefs and values that they have held. They are extremely interested in what others think and do and how they can "fit in" with others. They also are able to understand that each person is made up of a number of facets and that this is true of themselves, too. This strategy entails students writing about a character as "the aggregate of mental, emotional, and social qualities that distinguish a person"(Cottrell 138).This strategy focuses on both the development and use of writing as a process of learning to write and as a strategy useful in making personal connections to ways of thinking and ways of behaving. In writing, as in creative dramatics, the human condition can be explored through the motivations, thoughts, dialogue, revelations and feelings of the character(s). When students are privy to these elements through first person narrative or omniscient narrator they can more easily understand the cause and effect of actions. The writing assignments are designed to promote the development of voice in strengthening self identity and sense of value in American history.
Activity 3
The writing assignment is designed to help students judge characters by considering their own positive or negative reactions and if their judgments are based on standards used to judge their friends and people they meet or based on past experience. Some other underlying questions to consider in developing writing assignments of this nature are: Will the student identify, sympathize, or empathize with the characters? Are the characters believable, stereotyped, or both? What do we know about the characters and, how do we know it? Is one character speaking for the author or visa versa? Treating characters out of the context of the story as an initial encounter may give greater insights and enable students to understand the character better in the world of the narrative. For example Harriet Tubman, one of the most famous conductors of the Underground Railroad, becomes a representative voice of slaves and functions as a change agent. Looking at Harriet out of context as youth and a new generation of free people then, what are considered some ways of talking and behaving that exemplify the quality courage? respect? freedom? And, what are the reasons for characterizing these words and acts as courageous? respectful? freeing?
Activity 4
In conjunction with or on its own, Activity 3 involves the use of symbolism, metaphor and personification. It requires that the students use sensory awareness and sensory recall. Students will be encouraged to imagine and create properties, environments and events. This activity provides an opportunity for the student to generate in writing, spontaneous speech and emotions to show ideas, feelings and images. For example, what symbols are used to stand for freedom during slavery? How do they work and what do they do to someone's mind-set? What are some symbols of freedom used today? What is the Mason Dixon Line? Locate it on a map and describe its function? How is it both real and imaginary and symbolic? What objects were used to cause fear and what images come to mind? For personification, some of the questions to engage the students in personifying a concept like freedom and a quality like courage (respect, freedom) are: When is freedom born? What does freedom look like? What does freedom dress like? How would you describe the voice of freedom? Who does freedom hang around with as a best friend and why? When does freedom speak loudest and why? What would freedom do with only one year to live? Having responded to all the given questions have the students respond to the questions -How has the voice of freedom changed from Africa to the present? In what ways do you act out your understanding of freedom? When and how? The same activity can be done with metaphor and with the qualities.
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