Creative Dance Lesson Plan on Telecommunication
Grade: 2nd Length: 45 minutes Written by: Chelsea Alley
Student Learning Outcome: The students will demonstrate an understanding of the importance of human communication and how communicative technology has evolved over time. Students will also physically and verbally show understanding of the difference in energy qualities and how they can influence movement choices.
Equipment Needed: Hand Drum; CD player; CD with creative dance music; Morse code and ringing phone sound bites
Utah Core – Language Arts
Standard 4: (Financial Literacy) Students will explain how the economy meets human needs through the interaction of producers and consumers.
Standard 4: (Financial Literacy) Students will explain how the economy meets human needs through the interaction of producers and consumers.
Objective 1: Describe how producers and consumers work together in the making and using of goods and services.
d. Identify examples of technology that people use (e.g., automobiles, computers, telephones).
Behavioral Expectations: (1 minute)
Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes
Move each part to warm-up, then do the whole sequence five times as fast as you can!
Head: Think
Shoulders: Don’t bump other people
Knees: Have fun!
Toes: Foot away from the objects/walls, good shoes or barefoot
Eyes: Watch
Ears: Listen
Mouth: No Talking
Nose: Take a deep breath . . . Here we go!
Warm Up: Anne Green Gilbert’s Brain Dance (4 minutes)
Experience/Identify: (5 minutes)
Communication: sharing information, news, ideas, feelings with another person, connections of giving and receiving information between people
Telecommunication: the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication
What is communication? Take ideas and discuss definition. Learn the word telecommunication. The history of telecommunication - the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication - began thousands of years ago with the use of smoke signals and drums in Africa, America and parts of Asia. Relatively recently, people began to discover more clear ways of communicating over long distances. Draw a timeline on the board and get ready to begin. “We will learn about two things today: different kinds of communication, and energy qualities of movement, or how we move with specific energy to be more creative.”
Explore/Investigate: (20 minutes)
Prehistoric: Smoke/Drum Signal – SUSTAINED ENERGY
“Start in a low level, small reach shape. When you hear the drum signal begin, slowly float up as if you are smoke. Keep the movement sustained and constant – how does smoke curl in and out, flow around, all while continuing to move at the same pace? How big is your signal? You can choose to make it near reach or far reach. Does it move up and down levels? If the smoke is coming only from one fire, it will stay rooted in the same place. How many ways can you move creatively in sustained, smoke-like ways while keeping your feet planted on the ground?”
6th Century BC: Mail – SWING
“The next important form of communication came when people figured out how to write something down, send it to someone, and have them read it. We still write letters today and receive mail.” Give each student a blank piece of white paper. Have them place the paper flat on their palm and begin swinging their arm from right high to middle low to left high. Encourage them to keep their papers from falling of their hands. Try it several different ways. “The most excited way to play with these papers is when your arm swings like a pendulum so it gets really fast and swoops up and down while the paper is still on. This movement energy is easy to remember – we call it swing! How else can you use your body like it’s a swing with a lot of momentum to keep the paper from falling?”
1838: Morse code – PERCUSSIVE
“Morse code uses dots and dashes of sound to communicate whole messages in code.” Listen to example of Morse code. “We explored sustained energy, which is constant and smooth, when we did Smoke Signals. Percussive energy is very different from sustained. It is sharp and quick, like the jabs of sound Morse code uses. Try using your whole body to make quick dots and dashes in your energy. Can you move your legs percussively? How about your elbows? Can you move percussively backwards?” Write a series of dots and dashes on the board – try it with bodies.
1876: Telephone – VIBRATORY
“The next step forward in communication was the telephone. Now, people could actually hear each other’s voices even though they were a long ways apart.” Listen to examples of phone rings. “How would you move your body to that sound? Think about how we moved with the smoke and the Morse code. How is the phone ring different?” Demonstrate shaking, vibratory movements. “In dance, this energy quality is called vibratory. Let just your hand vibrate. Just your foot. Now both together. Now add your torso. Whole body vibrating all over the place! Make your phones ring! When I beat my drum three times, collapse to the floor and freeze! Here comes another call . . . Get ready to vibrate!”
1983: Internet – EXPLOSIVE
“When the internet was invented, technology took off at an amazing rate. Look at how many hundreds of years it took the world to develop techniques to communicate. Then the internet was invented and now look at everything we have! We have iPhones, iPods, Skype, email, video chat, facebook, twitter . . . so many ways of communicating! Let’s try exploding using our whole bodies. Find an interesting, small-reach shape. On the beat of the drum, your whole body explodes!” Try several times. “This is also an energy quality in dance. We call it explosive. Now, because all these forms of communication allow us to connect with other people, find someone next to you to make an interesting shape with. You don’t have to touch each other for you to be connected in space. You’re connected because you’re sharing personal space, not staying separate or making a shape in the general space.” Demonstrate and discuss positive and negative space. Try again in groups of three, then four. Then the whole class connects in shapes without touching to form a “world-wide-web” sort of connective shape.
Create/Perform: (10 minutes)
Everyone find a partner. “With your partner, you will create an ABA dance. First, make an interesting shape (it can be curved, bent, straight, or angular) that connects with your partner. The middle of the dance is your choice of energy – choose sustained, vibratory, percussive, or swing, or explosive. Show us interesting, creative movement that uses the energy you’ve chosen. Last, finish with an interesting shape that is a different kind than your first shape.” Allow working time for the groups. Have half the partnerships perform at time. Instruct them to hold their ending shapes until they hear the drum beat, then they will move together and make a spatially connected shape with the entire group. Ask the audience group to watch for what energy qualities they see, and what kind of shapes. Switch groups.
Connect/Analyze: (5 minutes)
Connect/Analyze: (5 minutes)
What was your favorite energy quality? Why? How are they different? Where else do we see those energy qualities in our world? Why is communication important? How can we use it in a good way?
