Visual and Performing Arts Curriculum Exemplar: Dance

Aligned to the 2009 New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards

ENGAGING STUDENTS • FOSTERING ACHIEVEMENT • CULTIVATING 21ST CENTURY GLOBAL SKILLS

Unit Overview
Content Area:Visual and Performing Arts: Dance
Unit Title:Moving Across Borders: Immigration in America
Target Course/Grade Level: 9-12
Unit Summary
This nine-week unit begins by inviting students to explore the impact of immigration in America, to share immigration experiences, and to consider how immigration and cultural assimilation impact individuals and families. In a process driven by improvisation and multimedia expression/inspiration, students use movement, poetry, narratives, drawings, and photography to respond to and express their views about dilemmas facing immigrants. In turn, they use their own creative works and excerpts from professional dance performances to inspire the ongoing development and refinement of original choreographic structures on the theme of immigration. Starting with Lesson 2, they open a dialogue with students from another region of the country to share what they learn, their personal immigration stories, and their artistic responses to immigration. In the culminating activity of the unit, student synthesizeall they have learned—as well as selected artistic responses of their exchange partners—in an original multimedia dance composition, which they perform live, thenshare through video with their exchange partners.
Primary interdisciplinary connections: Social studies, language arts, visual art
21st-Century Themes: Global Awareness, Civic Literacy
Unit Rationale
Moving Across Borderscan be used to structure a one-marking-period dance minicourse. This process-driven unit uses improvisation to enable students to develop movement phrases that they ultimately link together to create a coherent choreographed performance. It also engages students in using Web 2.0 tools (i.e., the latest generation of Internet communication technologies) to explore immigration and to consider the perspectives of others beyond their own communities; students use these tools to research, communicate, and respond artistically to an issue that is very relevant to their lives today.Moving Across Borders may be especially well received in school districts that enroll large numbers of immigrant students or students whose extended families still live in their country of origin. However, even in areas that do not have large immigrant communities, students will likely find the unit relevant, because immigration likely one time played a role in their family or community histories. Through Moving Across Borders, the arts help students cross geographic boundaries posed by immigration and offer them a means of commenting on their experiences.
Learning Targets
Standards: Visual and Performing Arts
  • 1.1 The Creative Process: All students will demonstrate an understanding of the elements and principles that govern the creation of works of art in dance, music, theatre, and visual art.
  • Strand A. Dance
  • 1.3 Performing: All students will synthesize skills, media, methods, and technologies that are appropriate to creating,performing, and/or presenting works of art in dance, music, theatre, and visual art.
  • Strand A. Dance
  • 1.4 Aesthetic Responses & Critique Methodologies: All students will demonstrate and apply an understanding of arts philosophies, judgment, and analysis to works of art in dance, music, theatre, and visual art.
  • Strand A: Aesthetic Responses
  • Strand B: Critique Methodologies

Related Content Statements for Standard 1.1, Strand A
  • Interpretation of dance is heavily reliant on its context.
Related Content Statements for Standard 1.3, Strand A
  • Creating highly integrated improvisational movement sequences develops personal style for solo and ensemble work. Characteristics of style vary broadly across dance genres.
  • Dance production is collaborative and requires choreographic, technological, design, and performance skill.
Related Content Statements for Standard 1.4, Strand A
  • Contextual clues within artworks often reveal artistic intent, enabling the viewer to hypothesize the artist’s concept.
  • Criteria for assessing the historical significance, craftsmanship, cultural context, and originality of art are often expressed in qualitative, discipline-specific arts terminology.
Related Content Statements for Standard 1.4, Strand B
  • Art and art-making reflect and affect the role of technology in a global society.

CPI # / Cumulative Progress Indicator (CPI)
1.1.12.A.3 / Analyze issues of gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, politics, age, and physical conditioning in relation to dance performances.
1.3.12.A.1 / Integrate and recombine movement vocabulary drawn from a variety of dance genres, usingimprovisation as a choreographic tool to create solo and ensemble compositions.
1.3.12.A.4 / Collaborate in the design and production of dances that use choreographic structures and incorporate various media and/or technologies.
1.4.12.A.2 / Speculate on the artist’s intent, using discipline-specific arts terminology and citing embedded clues to substantiate the hypothesis.
1.4.12.A.4 / Evaluate how exposure to various cultures influences individual, emotional, intellectual, and kinesthetic responses to artwork.
1.4.12.B.3 / Determine the role of art and art-making in a global society by analyzing the influence of technology on the visual, performing, and multimedia arts for consumers, creators, and performers around the world.
Unit Essential Questions
  • To what extent does immigration help define the American identity?
  • How is dance used to communicate a message?
  • How can dance be used to raise social consciousness?
/ Unit Enduring Understandings
  • The arts offer a means of commentary on a variety of social issues.
  • Dance/movement phrases communicate specific themes and ideas.

Unit Learning Targets
Students will …
  • Explore choreographic structures through improvisation.
  • Investigate issues surrounding immigration from multiple perspectives.
  • Explore personal views, histories, and experiences with immigration.
  • Reflect on American values and identity.
  • Explore relationships among poetry, rhythm, and movement.
  • Use learning from their research as a basis for a variety of creative responses.
  • Generate original movement using improvisational skills, their own creative responses, and the creative responses of their exchange partners as inspiration.
  • Perform movement phrases based on the creative responses of their exchange partners through a live videoconference.
  • View and analyze excerpts from professional dance performances on the theme of immigration.
  • Use their analyses of professional dance performances to generate new movements for their own choreography.
  • Select a few concepts/themes/ideas as potential starting points for an original choreographic composition.
  • Use improvisational skills to generate and refine original movement motifs related to their concepts/themes/ideas.
  • Perform selected movement motifs through live videoconferences.
  • Reflect on the work of the preceding lessons, as well as on the artistic contributions of their exchange partners, and develop an outline of their final composition.
  • Develop, clarify, stage, and rehearse their final compositions.
  • Perform “in progress” choreographies for their exchange partners, eliciting and offering constructive feedback.
  • Perform their final compositions before a live audience.
  • Share a videotape of the class performance with the exchange class.
  • Self-evaluate their performances.
  • Evaluate the performance of a classmate.
  • Analyze the performances of two exchange partners.
  • Provide feedback on the performances of their exchange partners.
  • Reflect on the unit.
  • Talk to and perform for specific classes or schools.
  • Use movement to experiment and internalize with what they learn through self-evaluation and reflection.

Evidence of Learning
Summative Assessment
After studying immigration, participating in a series of peer-to-peer exchanges in school and online, sharing artistic responses through live interactive video exchanges with students from another region of the country, and exploring what they learn through improvisational dance, students collaborate on the creation and performance of a multimedia dance composition on the theme of immigration. The final multimedia performance incorporates the work of their distance-learning peers and is staged and performed for both live and virtual audiences.
Equipment needed:
Teacher computer/LCD projector set-up, student computer/Internet access, Web conferencing set-up, video cameras, still cameras, student journals
Teacher Resources:
See Summative Assessment for student instructions.
See Dance Rubric for performance expectations.
Formative Assessments
  • Class discussions
  • Student definitions of terms
  • Research on immigration
  • Use of facts and statistics in discussion
  • Collaborative behavior
  • Use of research in role-plays
  • Presentation of role-plays
  • Guided journal entries
  • Exit tickets
  • Technique development
  • Interpretations of poems
/
  • Improvised movement phrases
  • Poems, narratives, and sketches
  • Ongoing blog entries
  • Responses to exchange partners’ blog entries
  • Ongoing videoconference performances
  • Refinement of choreographic structures
  • Analyses of Performances
  • Development of core characteristics, themes, or ideas
/
  • Notation of developing choreographic structures
  • Outlines of final compositions
  • Use of feedback
  • Development and clarification of final compositions
  • Final performances
  • Self-evaluations
  • Peer evaluations and feedback
  • End-of-Unit reflections
  • Final studio sessions

Lesson Plans
Lesson / Timeframe*
Lesson 1
Investigation of Immigration Issues / 10 days
Lesson 2
Creative Responses to Immigration / 10 days
Lesson 3
Creating and Merging Movement / 10 days
Lesson 4
FinalizingOur Performances / 10 days
Lesson 5
Self-Evaluation and Reflection / 5 days
* A “day” is based on a 90-minute class period divided into two sections:
(1) A 60-minute technique session followed by (2) a 30-minute classroom session.
Teacher Notes:
  • Lesson 1 is structured as a series of 30-minute segments within a 90-minute dance class period. The assumption that a technique class will precede each lesson. During Lesson 1, the technique portion of each class can be used to begin building students’ dance vocabulary in anticipation of their final choreography. In Lesson 2, the technique session becomes more integrated with the theme of Moving Across Borders.
  • Students maintain a project journal throughout the unit, in which they reflect, brainstorm, and experiment with their own ideas, as well as respond to guided questions and tasks. The journal can be a notebook, a computer file, or a combination of the two. A Guide to Student Journal Entries is provided for teachers who are unfamiliar with the use of journaling as part of dance instruction.
  • A core component of this unit is student collaboration with peers from another region of the country:
  • The N.J. teacher will need to establish a partnership that enables this collaboration. In choosing a teacher-partner, carefully consider the demographics of both schools. Ideally, students from both schools should in some way be able to draw on their own and/or their communities’ unique immigration experiences or histories. It’s a good idea to select a partner school that will help broaden students’ perspectives (e.g., rural vs. urban, immigration populations from different countries, etc.).
  • One way to locate a partner is to post a request on Epals.com by describing the nature of the collaboration you have in mind; you can also scan existing postings for a possible pairing. Once the partnership is established, the collaborating teachers should each review the unit, then exchange contact information to discuss implementation details.
  • For the unit to be successful, both classes should complete the unit simultaneously. When selecting a partner, consider how time differences and school schedules may impact the ability for students to engage in real-time Internet videoconferencing (e.g., via Skype.com, OoVoo.com orWimba.com). Beginning with Lesson 2, classes should be able to do this once a week for 90 minutes. To get an idea of how this kind of exchange can enhance dance instruction, visit:
  • The collaborating partners will need to establish a blog to facilitate student communication and information sharing (see, for example, you can limit public access to this particular blog by answering NO to the following two questions on the “Customize: Settings” tab: (1) “Add your blog to our listings?” and (2) “Let search engines find your blog?”)
  • Because this unit relies on Internet videoconferencing, the individual teachers may wish to consult with their respective school- or district-level technology experts to ensure everything goes smoothly. Possible interactive technologies include oovoo ( Skype ( iChat ( and others. During Web-conferences, be sure to have another means of communicating with the collaborating teacher (email, chat window, cell phone) in case any technical difficulties arise. Ideally, the setup should allow you to videotape all exchanges as they happen, so that teachers and students alike can review as needed.
  • In addition to the regional level of collaboration, Moving Across Borders provides opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaborations in the home district. Teachers may wish to invite social studies, language arts, and visual art teachers in their schools to collaborate on parts of the unit, or to combine similar work done in these classes in the final multimedia performance.
  • The lessons provided with this unit, while detailed, do not direct every aspect of dance instruction. Rather, the unit assumes that teachers will integrate the direction provided with warm-ups, cool-downs, safety information, and other instruction, as appropriate to the needs of their particular students.
  • The unit culminates in a final public performance. Teachers should reserve the necessary performance space for the same date, well in advance, allowing time to advertise the performance to students’ families and the community.
  • In the final week, teachers may wish to schedule additional performances, such as for a middle or elementary school in the district. Depending on what is known throughout the district about the high school dance program, teachers can modify the performance, such as by arranging informal talks and mini-performances for selected middle-school classes. Other alternatives include senior centers and nursing homes.

Curriculum Development Resources
  • The model for Moving Across Borders was a teaching unit designed and supported through a partnership with the N. J. Department of Education and The Performance Lab. It was piloted by dance teacher Cindy Domino,English teacher Patrick Murphy, and Art Teacher Joe Duffy at the Atlantic City High School, in partnership with English teacher Heather Bond at the Harrison Education Center Minnesota, with funding from the Beaumont Foundation.
  • Lesson 1 makes use, with permission, of materialsand a lesson plan made available to teachers throughPBS’s NewsHour Extra website:
  • The animated short and four dance excerpts were originally made available for public consumption on YouTube.com.
  • Two resources teachers may find useful for learning about the kind of dance instruction modeled in this unit are:
  • Minton, S. C. (1997). Choreography, a basic approach using improvisation. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
  • Scheff, H., McGreevy-Nichols, S. (1995). Building dances: A guide to putting movements together. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Moving Across Borders: Lesson Plan1
Content Area: Visual and Performing Arts: Dance
Lesson Title:Investigating Immigration Issues / Timeframe:10 days
Lesson Components
21st Century Themes
X / Global Awareness / Financial, Economic, Business, and Entrepreneurial Literacy / X / Civic Literacy / Health Literacy
21st Century Skills
X / Creativity and Innovation / X / Critical Thinking and Problem Solving / X / Communication and Collaboration / X / Information Literacy
X / Media Literacy / ICT Literacy / Life and Career Skills
Interdisciplinary Connections: Social studies
Integration of Technology: Guided Internet research
Equipment needed: Teacher computer/projection set-up, student computer/Internet access, student journals
Goals/Objectives / Learning Activities/Instructional Strategies / Formative Assessment Tasks
Students:
  • Explore choreographic structures through improvisation,refine technique, and apply proper body mechanic necessary for personal safety.
  • Investigate issues surrounding immigration from multiple perspectives.
  • Research viewpoints on immigration reform.
  • Explore personal views about immigration.
  • Reflect on American values and identity.
/ Teacher Note
The lesson sequence that follows pertains only to the 30-minute classroom portion of a class period, which likely begins after a 60-minute dance technique session. The technique sessions associated with Lesson 1 should be used to prepare students for the work they will do later in the unit. For example, you can engage them in improvisation sessions in which they “mirror” and “support and trust” each other physically. In this way, they can build their dance vocabularies for the choreography they will do later. As the lesson progresses, you may wish to infuse these exercises with content the students are learning, such as group points of view, or the steps to citizenship.
Lesson Sequence
Day 1
Teacher:
  1. Introduces the idea that “immigration” is a highly politicized topic about which people hold widely different points of view by playing a roughly five-minute animated satire called The Great Immigration Debate of 1621 (from Super News! and Current.com).
  2. Writes the words “immigrant,” “illegal immigrant,” and “undocumented immigrant” on large sheets of poster paper.
  3. Informs students that, for the next 9 weeks, they will explore issues surrounding immigration with the goal of collaboratively choreographing and performing a dance about immigration.
  4. Think-pair-share: Directs students to (a) discuss the terms on the posters with the person sitting next to him/her for a few minutes, (b) discuss the meaning of the terms as a class, and (c) record an accurate working definition for each term on the posters. (Teacher note: While “illegal immigrant” and “undocumented immigrant” mean the same thing, try to get students to see how the different connotations of “illegal” and “undocumented” effect the terms. Why might a person or group choose to use one term over the other?) Example definitions:
•Immigrant: A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another after being granted permission to do so by the government.
•Illegal immigrant/Undocumented immigrant: An alien or non-citizen who enters another country (such as the United States) without government permission or papers, or stays beyond the termination date of a visa.
Students:
  1. Use their prior knowledge to complete the student handout entitled, Immigration Facts and Statistics with a partner.
Day 2
Teacher: