Creative Dance for Children

Dance and DisabilityIDEA Paper

By: Emma Fowler

Why creative dance for children?

Creative dance is an avenue of movement that allows participants to explore, imagine, and express. It aims to capture the mover’s attention and transform their perception of the world around them. Creative dance is incredibly beneficial for children, however, most people don’t recognize its benefits and therefore most children don’t get the chance to experience it. A statement found from the National Association of Education for Young Children argues that, “Moving is one of the first and most important ways infants and toddlers explore and learn about the world, and this process continues as they grow and develop” (Dow, 2010). Creative dance takes this basic instinct, to move, and guides it in a way that creates an all-around prosperous outcome for children. The exploration in movement that is offered through creative dance has the power to transform a child’s thinking and give them a uniquely diverse educational experience. Creative dance promotes growth in all areas of a child’s life and will produce well-rounded individuals. Within a single creative dance class, a student will be challenged physically, express emotion, use critical thinking skills, and experience positive social interaction. The benefits range from educational integration to plain and simple fun. I believe that creative dance should be available to all children, as it provides an extremely rich experience for those involved!

Source: Dow, C. B. (March 01, 2010). Young Children and Movement: The Power of Creative Dance. Young Children, 65, 2, 30-35.

Why dance for individuals with disabilities?

As a junior at Hope, studying Special Education and Dance Education, it seemed natural to present this idea of “Dance and Disability,” to explore how these two passions of mine can be combined. As someone pursuing special education, I have had many opportunities to interact with individuals with disabilities. Through various field experiences and programs in high school, I have come to recognize a huge potential for movement as a means to benefitting students with special needs.

In this paper, the focus will be placed on individuals with Emotional Impairments, Autism, and Learning Disabilities. The overarching goal with this IDEA was to identify the difficulties faced by these students as a result of their disability and how movement can be used to combat these challenges. Whether it is to calm oneself down, to learn about patterning, or to integrate academics, movement is a powerful tool in engaging people and meeting their needs. My desire is for the following lessons to serve as tools in the classroom, for special education teachers to use in order to reach their students with disabilities in a unique way. Dance sees no labels and is a gift that should be accessible to everyone, regardless of ability.

*KeyArts is a resource used throughout the IDEA paper to define each disability and describe its implications for dance. This website can be accessed at http://keyarts.wikispaces.com/Special+learners+dance

Ready to Learn Braindance!

Rationale for Braindance: The lessons that follow are primarily intended for the classroom setting. Here is a braindance that is suitable and geared for the school setting. This is a “ready to learn” braindance that will get students in the right mindset when they enter the classroom and will facilitate enthusiasm about learning!

1. Breath: “Take a deep breath to calm yourself down! You may have just gotten off the crazy school bus, or been playing with your friends outside, or rushing to get to class, but now we’re all here and it’s time to learn. Deep breath in and out.” (Repeat 5x).

2. Tactile: “Throughout today we will be many people. We will be mathematicians, mad scientists, explorers, and even poets. Let’s put on each of those costumes so that we are ready to learn!” Make sure to have students pat themselves in nice and tight into each costume and brush all of the parts of their bodies as they step into their different costumes.

3. Core-Distal: “Now in order to learn all that is in store for you today, you will need you to have an open mind! This means that you will need to stretch your thinking in all directions, as far as it will go. Can you show me with your body how you will stretch your thinking today?!” (Repeat 5x).

4. Head-Tail: “Sometimes, sadly to say, we may find ourselves with a bad attitude, or starting to complain, or even beginning to lose energy.” Curl over, while maintaining a head-tail connection, to display how our energy and attitude might deplete. “But when this happens, we must be stronger and rise to the occasion! We must hold our chin up and remember that we can do it!” Rise up, returning to an upright position to display how we can pick ourselves up. (Repeat 2-3x).

5. Upper-Lower: “There may be a task that you need to complete quickly. Show me how you move quickly with your arms. Now your legs. Then, there might be other tasks that you can take your time on. Show me how you move your arms slowly. Now your legs. Now show me what it looks like to move your arms fast and your legs slow!” And vice versa.

6. Body Side: “Sometimes we will have to multitask. This means doing more than one thing at a time. Can you show me what it looks like when you multitask? Slowly wave your right side while you quickly shake your left. Now switch!”

7. Cross Lateral: “At times, you may have a question when the teacher is busy helping someone else. When this happens, you will need to find a friend to help. Let’s reach to each side, looking for a friend to help.” Use right arm to reach left and left arm to reach right.

8. Vestibular: “It’ll be a whirlwind of a day, but together we will make it through as a team!” Spin around to show the whirlwind. “But at the end of the day, when we lay down in bed, we will know that we are smarter and better people because of our learning!” Fall to ground, sitting or lying if space permits, and reorient”

IDEA #1: Students with Emotional Impairments

What is an Emotional Impairment?

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act Definition: “a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child’s educational performance: (A) An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors. (B) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers. (C) Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances. (D) A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression. (E) A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.”

Students with Emotional Impairments may display: Immaturity Withdrawn/ lack of social interaction Aggression/ self-injury Learning Difficulties Excessive fear or anxiety Pervasive moodiness

Implications for dance: Encourage students Stay positive Always start and end class on time Directions must be clear and precise Emphasize correct movements and decisions made by students Predictable music and class structure

Image A

Grade: 4th

Standards: DA: Pr4.1.4 – Make static and dynamic shapes with positive and negative space. Perform elevated shapes (jump shapes) with soft landings and movement sequences alone and with others, establishing relationships with other dancers through focus of eyes. DA: Cr1.1.4 - Identify ideas for choreography generated from a variety of stimuli (for example, music/sound, text, objects, images, notation, observed dance, experiences).

Objectives: The student will explore different spatial proximities to develop healthy physical

interactions with peers. The student will ignore accents in music to practice resisting impulses. The student will use concepts of energy to portray emotions.

Lesson #1: Space

Rationale for this lesson:

This lesson will focus on relationships in space and the proximity between two people. Students with Emotional Impairments tend to either avoid physical interaction all together, or sometimes abuse it by inflicting harm on themselves or others. This lesson will allow students to practice being close to others in a respectful and appropriate manner. The tasks will begin in a very human manner and will progress to more dance-like concepts, while still keeping the focus on positive relationships in negative space.

Explore

Students will take a walk through the space. As they walk around, the teacher will prompt them to notice certain things around them. The teacher may encourage them to make eye contact with those they pass, to wander to new parts of the room, or to change directions more quickly. If the students are demonstrating maturity and responsibility, the teacher can slowly start moving around the room tapping students on the shoulder. When the students are tapped, they will be asked to stop walking and just stand in the space. They will suddenly become roadblocks that those still walking will need to avoid.

This exercise will be a comfortable introduction into the concepts of space and spatial relationships. It is helpful to begin with this simple walking exercise because it has a more pedestrian feel that will help more students to be willing to explore, rather than jumping headfirst into dance movement.

Develop

Students will investigate the idea of negative space. While the initial exploration activity was focused on a broader space, this activity will be focused in on more specific space, specifically the space that lies just around the body. In many instances, when E.I. students are in another person’s personal space, it is due to aggressive or inappropriate behavior. Now these students will be asked to enter into this personal space without touching the person. The students will find a partner that they are comfortable working with. One partner will stand in an “X” and the other partner will be able to move through the negative space that exists between their partner’s limbs. Each student will get a chance to be the X and to be the mover. Students will likely begin by simply moving with their arms and hands, but the teacher can prompt them to use their elbows, knees, feet, heads, backs, etc. to explore too.

*Students should be paired with someone of the same gender.

This activity will benefit students with Emotional Impairments as they learn how to be spatially close to others, in a healthy and harmless way. For students who avoid physical contact, this will stretch them to gain trust and for those who abuse physical contact, this will help show them that close proximity can be achieved without harm.

Create

The students will remain with their negative space partner and use the skills that they developed in the previous exercise to create a shape-action-shape phrase. The requirement will be that their two shapes are making use of negative space, but they may not touch one another. Their action must simply get them from their first to their second shape, in a choreographed manner.

If students appear to be ready for a challenge, the requirements may be more complicated. For example, the action could be required to move them through space, or their shape must have one partner above the other.

This final activity will allow the students to apply what they have learned in terms of spatial relationships and negative space to collaborate on a short movement piece that they can present to their peers.

Lesson #2: Time

Rationale for the lesson:

Many students with emotional impairments often respond to stimuli in an inappropriate way, by acting on impulse without thinking their actions through. This lesson will use the concepts of rhythm and accents to give students an opportunity to consider actions and consequences and to practice responding to stimuli in a healthy manner.

Explore

The teacher will play a variety of songs and read a variety of poems. This will serve as the stimuli for the students to move to. In response, the students can explore shapes, tempos, accents, pulses, and more. They may choose to respond to the words in the poem/music, or simply the beat of a singular instrument in the song. Really, it is up to them!

This will introduce the concept of responding to stimuli. The poems and songs are the stimuli in this case and the movement produced by the students are the response. During this improvised session the students will be asked to act on impulse, in a healthy and safe manner. This is an important concept for students to grasp as they move into the “develop” and “create” sections to the lesson.

Examples of poems and songs to work with: Poems: I felt a funeral, in my brain – Emily Dickinson, Clouds – Christina Rossetti, and

Eletelephony – Laura Elizabeth Richards Songs: Brave – Sarah Bareillis, Somewhere Over the Rainbow - Israel "IZ"

Kamakawiwo'ole, He’s a Pirate – Klaus Badelt

Develop

To begin, the teacher will use a percussion instrument to play a rhythm that has a very distinct accent. The students will be instructed to clap along. Naturally, they will all (hopefully) begin to clap on the accent, at the natural down beat of the rhythm. This is when the teacher can explain that the students just experienced a scenario where they responded to an external stimulus, in an appropriate manner! The teacher will take a quick moment to compliment them on following directions and encourage them to make these positive responses to stimuli outside in the real world.

Then, the teacher will once again play a rhythm with a very distinct accent, but this time, will instruct the students that they can clap on any beat BUT the accent. Students will likely struggle with this and be confused as to why they aren’t allowed to clap when they naturally would. The teacher will explain that the students were having to resist an urge and subdue their impulse. This is also a skill that these students need to develop in life in order to give themselves time to think the situation through and consider their response thoughtfully.

Although this may seem to be a lot to fit into one activity, it will be beneficial when the two activities are paired with one another. One activity simulates what it is like when a stimulus is responded to appropriately and the other simulates the difficulty, but necessity, in ignoring unconsidered impulses. These are two important skills for students with Emotional Impairments to develop and these activities provide stress free practice of this. Create

Students will be given a scenario. The scenario will include an incident that might cause feelings of anger. For example, “your mom finds out that you haven’t been completing your homework. She begins to yell at you and tells you that you can’t go to your friend’s birthday party this weekend.” The students will then write down what their impulse would be, how they can suppress that impulse in order to make a better decision and how they would respond appropriately. Depending on students’ abilities, they can either write their responses or verbally share them.

Have students perform their reactions to the scenario in three phases: their impulse, how they suppressed the impulse, and their more appropriate response. Each phase can be represented through one action. Encourage students to use quick and sharp movements for anger and slow and smooth movements for suppressing these feelings. Each student will create three actions.

Lesson #3: Energy

Rationale for the lesson:

This lesson is intended to equip students to express and interpret emotions. Students with emotional impairments tend to have difficulty properly and appropriately expressing how they feel, as well as reading and responding to the expressions of others. This lesson will give students practice with this difficult task.

Explore

The teacher will show students pictures of people expressing a variety of emotions. For example: sad, excited, frustrated, scared, happy, etc. The image will be held up for the class to see and the students will be instructed to move their body how they believe that emotion feels. This will be done in a safe space and students will be encouraged to face away from one another in order to not be self-conscious. If the teacher notices that students are hesitant or off-task, they will present a few of the B.A.S.T.E. energy qualities in order to prompt the students. It may be helpful for students to connect emotions to different types of energies. For example, anger may be represented with bound and tight movement, happy may be free and light, and sad may be heavy and weighted, etc. By making these connections, students will have a motivation behind their movement and will understand how our bodies respond to different emotions.

This will be a positive experience for E.I. students as it will help them to be more in touch with their emotions. This will be especially beneficial for the students who tend to internalize their negative feelings. This will provide a safe opportunity to explore these emotions and to better understand how they look and feel.

Develop

Students will then be given time to journal about the explore exercise. They will be prompted to write about the emotions that they enjoyed portraying with their bodies and which ones felt uncomfortable. Then they will write about how they are feeling that day. Prompt them with the following questions:

How do you feel today? If you were to pick one object to represent how you feel, what would it be? How would this object, that represents you, move?

For example, a student may say that they feel irritated. Their object may be a frayed string and their movements could be twitch, straighten, and shake. Or, they may feel calm, in which case their object may be a rocking chair and their actions could be sway, lift, and lower. Allow students to translate this object and action words into movement. What is a shape that can represent a frayed string? What does it look like when it twitches, straightens, and shakes?

This journal activity will be a chance for students to be introspective and truly consider how they feel. This is also good practice for the students to practice explaining their emotional state, without the pressure of a listener. This can be a healthy way for them to open up and view their feelings in a new light.

Create

The teacher will use the idea of cause and effect to help students consider their emotional responses. The students will stand in a circle so that they can all see one another. The teacher will share a scenario, and pause to let the students think about their emotional response. For example, if the scenario was that your brother threatens to tattle tell on you, how does this make you feel? The students will close their eyes and think of two things: how they would feel and 1 movement to represent that emotion. Create a signal for students to do to show that they are ready. Once every student signals that their movement is set, ripple around the circle, allowing each student to say their feeling and perform their movement. This will create a small ripple dance around the circle and will likely pick up the pace the more you do it.

This can be a helpful way for the E.I. students, who struggle with handling their emotions, to see how others respond emotionally and learn how to express their own feeling. Emotional reactions can be positive when controlled and these exercises will help these students practice the right amount of restraint.

IDEA #2: Students with Autism

What is Autism?

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act Definition: “a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.”

Students with Autism may display: Lack of eye contact Lack of interest in peer interaction Repetitive language and motor movement Fixation on objects or topics Lack of spontaneity and the ability to “play” Difficulty with verbal communication

Implications for dance: Explanations must be short and concise Class should move along without many breaks Students may need extra encouragement Individual movement will be more comfortable than group work Use repetitive movement Have visual cues Teach movement before introduction of music (try to reduce stimuli) Props are good!

Image B

Grade Level: 4th

Standards:DA: Cr1.1.4 - Identify ideas for choreography generated from a variety of stimuli (for example, music/sound, text, objects, images, notation, observed dance, experiences).

DA: Pr5.1.4 - Coordinate phrases and timing with other dancers by cueing off each other and responding to stimuli cues (for example, music, text, or lighting). Reflect on feedback from others to inform personal dance performance goals. Objectives:

The student will respond to stimuli through movement. The student will repeat and create patterns. The student will interpret and produce nonverbal communication through movement.

Lesson #1: Space

Rationale for this Lesson:

Students with Autism tend to be very sensitive to stimuli, specifically that which is harsh or unpleasant. This lesson will use water, something that is generally pleasing to the senses, to inspire creative movement. Meanwhile, students will also be challenged to think creatively and abstractly. These concepts tend to be difficult for students with Autism and may be a reason for the student to have a paraprofessional.

Explore

The lesson will begin with a hands on portion where the students will be given a chance to manipulate water. There will be many forms of water for them to touch, including: ice cubes, a trickling sink, a bowl of cool water, a pipet to squirt water from, and a cup of steaming hot water. (Someone will need to monitor the boiling water so that students don’t get burned). The students will be able to run their fingers through the water and manipulate it however they wish, provided it is appropriate. This tactile interaction will stimulate their senses and provide students with a concrete experience to create movement from. Each water form can be at a station and the students can rotate around the stations.

Students with Autism will hopefully find this to be a pleasing experience and will find the silky water to be a pleasant stimulation. This part of the lesson is also intended to give the students a concrete image of water to draw from when they get into the develop and create portions of the lesson that will involve movement inspired by water.

Develop

Then the students will move on to describe each water station. They will have a worksheet that prompts them to use their different senses to observe the water stations. The worksheet will prompt the students to see, smell, hear, and touch the water in its different forms. An example of this for the ice cube station could be:

See – white, clear, see through, melting droplets, square Smell – smells like the freezer

Hear - crackling Touch – cold, hard, smooth, slippery, ouch!

This will be a helpful activity for students with Autism because it will challenge them to

take an observation and put words to it. Sometimes verbal communication can be difficult for these students, but with the help of a paraprofessional or teacher, this will be a plausible task that will develop their verbal skills.

Create

Now students will be asked to create three movements. They will choose their favorite station and their three favorite observation words from that station. Based on these words, they will create actions. For example, if they choose the steaming water with the descriptors of bubble, mist, and float, they may wiggle their arms, then sway their bodies, then rise onto their toes. The movements can be simple and interpretive. Then, when it is their turn to present, they will show each of their movements and their classmates will guess their form of water.

This will be a great opportunity for the students, as presenters, observers and creators. The creation piece will challenge their abstract thinking, the performance piece will challenge timidity, and the observation piece will challenge the students to interpret something. These will all be challenging tasks for the students, therefore support will be key. However, growth only happens when we are stretched, so despite how scary this may be for students with Autism, it is important.

Lesson #2: Time

Rationale for this lesson:

This lesson will focus on repetition and patterns. ASD students are drawn to patterns and frequently display repetitive movement. This lesson will play into pattern and repetition and will hopefully serve as a comfort to students.

Explore

Students will be given time to play with patterns and beats through clapping and stomping. If it seems appropriate for the group of students, introduce small shakers or other percussion instruments. Have students beat them in whatever way is comfortable and soothing. You may also play light background music that does not have a strong tempo.

Many students may rock or hum along with the noise they create (this means they like it)! Some students, on the other hand, may be sensitive to the noise or tactile experience. Have noise-cancelling headphones and gloves available to students who find this to be overstimulating or irritating.

If you observe a student with Autism, you will likely notice that they have a noticeable beat or tempo inside of them. You can tell by the way that they may be rocking, swaying, flapping their arms, humming, or even grinding their teeth. This activity will simply give these students a way to communicate that beat and share it with those around them in an auditory way. While some students may want headphones or gloves, others will find this to be soothing and an encouragement to their internal tempo that helps them to deal with the over-stimulation from the world around them.

Develop

The class will play a game of follow the leader to develop a sense of repetition. The teacher can play a short beat and students will be asked to repeat it back. The same phrase can be repeated until everyone is comfortable with it. This will be introduced as repetition and can be spiced up by moving around the room, if the percussion instruments allow. The teacher can even lead a follow the leader train and the class can move around the room in a line, repeating beats and musical patterns.

Another idea is to use the students’ names to create patterns. The teacher could either use the syllables in the name or each letter. For example, if a student’s name is Joseph, the teacher could say joe-seph and the students can repeat it back, or the teacher could spell out j-o-e-s-e-p-h, using some sort of rhythm, and have the students repeat. The teacher can decide based on students’ abilities, but either way, this should be a highly rhythmic and musical experience.

This will be a positive experience for students with Autism because it will still use the comfort of repetition, but will provide more of a challenging and academic experience.

Create

Now the students will participate in a movement pattern game. To begin, the class will choose 4 different basic shapes and assign a basic movement to each shape. For example:

Square: hop Circle: sit Triangle: kick Oval: twist

Then they will each draw 4 shapes out of a hat and perform the movements accordingly. So, if a student draws square, triangle, circle, circle then they will hop, kick, sit, sit. There will be enough shape cards in the hat for each student to be able to draw their own 4 cards. Each student will practice their movement/shape pattern many times. Then it will be time for the class to perform their shape dance! The students will spread out and the teacher will begin to

play a 4 count rhythm using one of the percussion instruments. All of the students will be moving, but doing their own movement pattern.

This will require flexibility, but it is a worthwhile investment! It will be helpful for students with Autism because it will give them the chance to participate in a group activity, while still having a very explicit and specifically individual task. The students will find comfort in the repetitive nature of the activity and will benefit from the cards as visual supports of the pattern.

Lesson #3: Energy

Rationale for this lesson:

Many students with Autism find difficulty in interpreting others’ body language and perceiving nonverbal communication. This lesson will prompt students to not only observe others around them, but to truly question and infer the back story to a person’s present state.

Explore

Consider beginning this lesson with something less complex than people, as people can be difficult to understand. A great set of objects to begin with are colorful scarves. Hold up a colored scarf for the students to see and ask them to consider how that color would move. Ask questions like: “how would this color feel?” “what does it remind you of?” “How do you feel about this color?” etc. Allow students to briefly brainstorm and then give them some time to explore this movement. Provide an example of the thought process required for students to work from.

Example for green scarf: “Green makes me feel alive! This is because green reminds me of plants that I see all around me and things that grow. It also reminds me of going to the apple orchard with my family and picking Granny Smith apples off the trees. I like the color green because it makes me think of fresh cut grass and the smell of summer. If I were to move like green, I would start small and expand like growing plants and reach like I were grabbing an apple. I would also be energetic because green makes me feel alive!”

This activity will allow students to begin practicing the process of interpreting nonverbal

communication, with a simpler point of reference than a person. Students with Autism will benefit from the use of colors, something they are familiar with.

Develop

In order to develop student’s skills in nonverbal communication, it is important to translate this practice to the interpretation to people, rather than just objects. For this portion of the lesson, present students with images of people displaying a variety of emotions and shapes. Examples include pictures of someone leaping into the air, someone sitting with their head in their hands, two people hugging, someone eating alone, someone looking in a mirror, etc. Allow students to work in pairs and give each pair an image to work with. Encourage the students to look beyond the obvious in the picture and to try to infer what is inspiring the people to act as they are. Have pairs jot down notes about what they see and their guess as to what the motivation is behind the image.

During this portion of the lesson, students will develop the skill of understanding nonverbal communication. Each image will present its own story and the pairs will need to use inferencing skills to try and understand the story. When grouping the students, consider pairing a higher functioning student with a lower functioning student in order for the higher ASD student to help their partner, as well as practice leadership skills. A paraprofessional may also be necessary if students struggle to grasp this concept.

Create

Allow the develop portion of this lesson to lead into the creation of movement. Have students remain in their pairs and use their notes to inspire movement. Have students consider what may have occurred just before this photo was taken. Instruct students to work with their partner to create this scene through movement. The catch is that students will not be able to talk in their scene. The entirety of their scene should be presented nonverbally, just as the image that they are basing their movement off of is nonverbal.

This portion of the lesson will take things a step further because students will need to not only interpret nonverbal communication but they will need to produce nonverbal communication. This will be helpful practice for students with Autism because in reality, they not only need to be able to read others’ body language, but to properly portray their own feelings through their body’s energy and shapes.

IDEA #3: Students with Learning Disabilities

What is a Learning Disability?

Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act Definition: “a disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or to do mathematical calculations, including conditions such as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia and developmental aphasia. The term does not include learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage.

Layman’s Definition: Average or above average IQ (85 or higher) Discrepancy exists between person’s capacity and ability to learn Mainly manifests in school (in one or more areas) Neurological “glitch” – something just doesn’t click “Invisible” disability – you may see them on the street and not know they have a

disability

Students with Learning Disabilities may display: Lack of motivation Frustration Impulsivity, hyperactivity and inattention ADHD as well – L.D. students are more likely to have ADHD too

Implications for dance: Keep students in front of class to limit distractions Create a structured environment from the beginning of class Use diagrams and other visuals Give instructions step by step and in a clear manner Include individual movement rather than just group work Teach movement before incorporating music

Image cGrade Level: 4thStandards:CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.4.2.D - Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.

DA: Cr1.1.4 - Identify ideas for choreography generated from a variety of stimuli (for example, music/sound, text, objects, images, notation, observed dance, experiences).DA: Pr4.1.4 – Analyze movements and phrases for use of energy and dynamic changes and use adverbs and adjectives to describe them. Based on the analysis, refine the phrases by incorporating a range of movement characteristics. Objectives:

The student will portray nouns, verbs, and adjectives through movement. The student will translate syllables into rhythms and beats. The student will form letters with their bodies to solidify letter and word recognition.

Lesson #1: Space

Rationale for this lesson

Students with Learning Disabilities struggle with a variety of academic demands, one of them being language. This lesson is one example of how movement can be used to address a specific academic area that students struggle with. The focus of this lesson is on parts of speech, specifically nouns, verbs and adjectives. Students will use movement exploration, development, and creation to deal with and hopefully better understand the concept of parts of speech.

Explore

To explore and practice language, use animals, or anything that students are familiar with, to lead into the exploration portion. Other possibilities include:

Food Movies Famous people Etc.

Use each part of speech (noun, verb, and adjective) to create a full description of the animal of your (or your class’s) choosing. As you say the different nouns, verbs, and adjectives, have students move. For example, if the chosen animal is a parrot, begin with the noun. As you say the noun, have students strike a shape to represent this noun. Then move into verbs. Some verbs for a parrot would be float, perch, balance, swoop, and bob. Encourage students to move with characteristics of these verbs as they are called out. Finally, share some adjectives to describe the original noun. Some adjectives for a parrot would be colorful, loud, unpredictable, and feathery. As you list the adjectives, challenge students to also create shapes or movements to express these descriptors. If students seem up for a challenge, consider assigning these adjectives to specific body parts to spice things up. For example, rather than saying colorful, say colorful head or instead of simply saying loud, say loud arm. Then, if students appear comfortable, allow them to choose the noun and then fill in the verbs and adjectives to follow.

This activity may provide students the freedom and enjoyment of using their imagination to capture concepts and help to solidify that a noun is a person/place/thing, a verb is an action, and an adjective is a description.

Develop

Students will now take what they have learned in the ‘explore’ portion and apply it. In pairs, students will be responsible for creating a “choreo-graph.” A “choreo-graph” is a grid that helps students to arrange ideas onto a sheet of paper that can easily inspire movement. An example of a “choreo-graph” is shown below.

Environment Nouns Verbs AdjectivesOcean Coral, scuba diver,

boat, shark, jelly fish, water

Wave, swish, swirl, float, sink, sway, rush

Wet, cold, slippery, sharp, deep, vast, blue

Desert Cactus, sand, mirage, buzzard, roadrunner, dunes

Skitter, blow, swelter, bake, stay

Dry, hot, brown, tan, open, smooth, rough

Tundra Snow, ice, fox, caribou, shrubs

Freeze, sift, shiver, blow, drip

White, frozen, slippery, quiet, cold

Jungle Tree, moss, vines, monkeys, dew, stream, canopy, parrot

Swing, hang, breathe, slither, scamper, hunt, prowl, grow

Green, luscious, moist, warm, brown, tall

Below is a real life example of what a “choreo-graph,” that has been collaborated on, may look like.

Just like the example above, students will be asked to use environments as the topic for their choreograph. Other topic ideas include:

Movies Books Music Sports Etc.

The far left column will list 4 different environments. Then, the 3 columns to the right will be titled as the parts of speech. For the noun column, students will list the variety of plants, animals, cities, people, etc. that exist in that type of environment. For example, an ocean might have nouns such as coral, scuba diver, boat, shark, jelly fish, water, etc. For the verb column, students will list action words that fit with the given environment. For example, verbs for the ocean include wave, swish, swirl, float, sink, sway, etc. Finally, for the adjective column, students will come up with descriptors for that environment. For example, some verbs might be wet, cold, slippery, sharp, etc. This can be done for each environment on the “choreo-graph.”

These ideas above are an important part of the lesson for L.D. students because writing out the parts of speech and identifying concepts on paper tend to be difficult for students to grasp. Movement may encourage their understanding.

Create

To bring the lesson to a close, the students will have the opportunity to choose their favorite noun, verb, and adjective from the “choreo-graph.” They will be asked to create a short movement phrase, individually, to represent the 3 part of speech words they chose. Their movement phrase will need to take the form of shape-action-shape. Their noun will be the first shape, their verb will be the action, and their adjective will be the final shape. They will create their movement independently and then they will come back to perform it for their partner. Their partner will then attempt to guess their noun, verb, and adjective, based off of the “choreo-graph” that they developed together and the movement that their partner created.

A creative application will wrap up the lesson nicely, bringing the concepts of parts of speech back to movement. A short assessment could be given here, or the partner guessing activity could be written down and used as a formative assessment.

Lesson #2: Time

Rationale for this lesson:

Another area of speech and language that students with Learning Disabilities struggle with is syllables and recognizing patterns in words. This lesson will aim to use rhythm and beats to lead into practice with syllables.

Another area of difficulty for students with Learning Disabilities is memory. This lesson will also help students practice memory skills as they participate in call and response activities.

Explore

Have a variety of small percussion instruments available to students. Allow time to explore patterns and rhythms of their own with these instruments. Also encourage stomping, clapping, and possibly even body percussion for a tactile experience! This portion of the lesson does not include academic integration, but is simply here to introduce students to the instruments and tools that they will be using for the rest of the lesson.

Develop

Introduce a variety of Ziploc bagged items. Make sure to include items that have a variety of different syllables when they are pronounced. Examples:

1-syllable wordso Riceo Oatso Gum

2-syllable wordso Cheezitso Popcorno Raisins

3-syllable wordso Cerealo etc.

Begin as a call and response activity where the teacher arranges the bags in a desired order and then rhythmically recites the words to emphasize their syllables. For example, cereal, oatmeal, raisins, oats would be recited as, ce-re-al, oat-meal, rai-sins, oats. Display the bags on the floor where the students can all see and have the students use an instrument to beat the noise as they respond. If time allows, have students work in small groups to order the bags as they wish and practice reciting the words, with an emphasis on the syllables.

This activity will give the students a fun way to interact with syllables, while clearly understanding how a word can be broken up into its syllables. This activity incorporates items from the real world which will help solidify this concept in students’ minds.

Create

Have students work in pairs. As a partnership, students will create a pattern using 4 “syllable”-bags of their choosing. Together they will need to work out the appropriate rhythm to recite the words and pick a tempo to use. Then, they will need to collaborate to create an action for each word. This action must be performed on each syllable of that word. For example, if they choose to hop for oatmeal, then they must hop twice, one for each syllable. Once they have assigned movement to each word, one student will perform the movement while the other beats the rhythm and recites the words.

Here is a full example of what all of this may look like: If the four foods drawn are cereal, gum, oats, popcorn, the students will say ce-re-al, gum, oats, pop-corn. Then the students will assign a movement to each word. This could be a skip for cereal, contract for gum, point for oats, and slide for popcorn. Once this is pieced together, the chosen student would skip (x3), contract (x1), point (x1), and slide (x2) as their partner beats the rhythm and emphasizes the syllables.

Enabling students to practice syllables while moving, creating rhythms and getting a hands on experience with real world objects will help solidify this concept in their schemas. This unique way of approaching the concept of syllables will help students with Learning Disabilities because the traditional pen and paper method of learning does not work for many L.D. students.

Lesson #3: Energy

Rationale for this lesson:

In addition to parts of speech and syllables, discussed in the previous two lessons, letter formation and latter recognition are another area that students with Learning Disabilities may struggle in. Specifically, students with Dyslexia find challenge with identifying letters and being able to reproduce them. This lesson will involve students’ bodies in the creation of letters which will allow students to approach the recognition of letters in a way other than with their pencil.

Explore

To begin, the teacher will play an ABC’s song. Students will have scarves to free dance. They will be encouraged to sing along and practice reciting the alphabet. The class will very slowly sing the alphabet and use their scarves to draw the letters in the air. As they draw their imaginary letters with their scarves, the teacher will write the letters on the board for them to reference if they are unsure of what the letter looks like.

This will be beneficial for L.D. students to practice visualizing each letter and picturing it standing alone. Also, this approach to forming letters may help students who mix letters up, because there will be no other letters to distract them. It will also help students in terms of confidence, as nobody will be able to see their letter or correct them if they draw it incorrectly.

Develop

Students will be given the task of working in small groups to create the letter shapes with their bodies. Each group will be given a section of the alphabet and they must collaborate to create each letter. It is up to them as to whether they form the letter individually or combine their bodies to make a group effort. Their approach to the formation of each letter will vary and be unique.

Once each group has figured out how to form each letter that they were assigned, they will share their results with the rest of the class. An option for presenting their shapes may be to share them out of order so the rest of the class must guess their letter. This will help students practice letter recognition!

Another approach that can be taken is to have students make a letter 3 different ways. For example, students can be prompted to create an “A” at 3 different levels, or from 3 different perspectives, or in 3 different directions, etc.

This task is especially helpful for students with Learning Disabilities because it gives them a tactile experience with the letters and and helps them to gain familiarity of the curves and lines involved in each shape. The goal is for this body awareness in shape development to transfer over to pencil and paper letter formation.

Create

Finally, the small groups will be challenged to use the letters in their assigned range to create a word. (When assigning letters to each group, make sure that there is a good variety of consonants and vowels in each group’s set). They will select their word and then attempt to form each letter of the word, using the body formations that they developed in the “develop” section.

This will help students to take their letter recognition and formation skills one step further as the letters are now strung together into a word. This will be especially helpful to those students who struggle to see spaces between words and letter.

Sources

Characteristics of disabilities and implications for dance:

http://keyarts.wikispaces.com/Special+learners+dance

Images:

Image A: http://emquinlansped.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/7/6/11767581/978315791.jpg?418

Image B: http://img.medscape.com/news/2015/ts_150129_autism_child_800x600.jpg

Image C:https://spectrumnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/20151201WhatIsAutism-844-2.jpg

Disability definitions from IDEA:

United States. (2004). Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004: Conference report (to accompany H.R. 1350). Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O..

Poems:

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/eletelephony