Lesson Plan for Summer Externship

8/24/16

Submitted by Linda Lewis

Dance Director, Santa Susana Magnet High School, SVUSD

  1. Objective

Background: Most dancers have to work several jobs in the industry while they are either dancing with a professional company, or on the commercial side, auditioning for “gigs”. Most dancers would rather work within their industry than have to waitress, etc. By learning some of the basics of dance retail, dance shoe fitting, etc, and coming to an interview with some of this information and these skills already in place, dancers position themselves to be more readily hired by dancewear shops.

Learning Objective: The dancer will be able to know and to understand the concepts of advertising, inventory (who is your customer?, color trends – fall/spring, when to solicit studio owners for class colors and sizes of classes, when to place orders - order for fall in spring/ spring in fall), scheduling of employees (FT/PT, which days, which performance seasons, etc), and overall budgeting of financial resources.

  1. CTE Standards to be Covered

Anchor Standards 3.4, 3.5, 3.7 3.8, 4.1, 5.1-5.4, 7.1, 7.2, 7.6, 11.1

  1. Student Learning Outcomes
  • Advertising: The dancer will be able to know and understand the importance of social media, will be able to apply innovative and creative strategies to social media platforms (When you buy your first pair of pointe shoes get your picture taken and posted on our Instagram page!), getting coupons from social media rather than print increases traffic to social media, etc. The dancer will understand importance of an aesthetically pleasing window display and will understand color, line, texture, contrast (many of the elements of choreography). The dancer will be able to brainstorm other creative publicity/advertising ideas like coupon cards, birthday discounts, etc.
  • Inventory: The dancer will gain an understanding of how to get to know their customers (Studios? Professional companies? YMCA/after school programs? Etc), will understand color trends and when to place seasonal orders (order fall in spring/spring colors in fall), and how and when to solicit studio owners for class colors/sizes of classes).
  • Employee scheduling: The dancer will be able to understand how to staff the shop, how many FT/PT employees are needed, which performance seasons are busiest/slowest, etc.
  • Overall financial budgeting: The dancer will be able to understand how to allocate funds for a $50,000 budget for shoes (jazz, tap, ballet, character, and pointe, contemporary, teaching shoes), clothing (leotards, warmups, jazz pants, shorts, tights, hip hop attire), undergarments, and accessories (pointe shoe ribbons, stitch kits, dance bags, hair accessories, etc.
  1. Unit Name

The Business of Dance

  1. Timing of Activities
  1. Give information plus assignments on one block day
  • Assignment 1: Small group – brainstorm and design either a window display (drawn in color, or done in a shoe box as a diorama), an idea for social media, or an idea for creative advertising/publicity.
  • Assignment 2: Individual – design a budget and a logo for your “store”. You have $50,000 to work with. How will you allocate funds for shoes, clothing, and accessories based on your target demographic?
  1. Students present their group projects on second block day
  1. Pre-class Activities

None

  1. Class Discussion Questions
  • What type of social media advertising have you seen that has really stood out to you?
  • Why? What type of an impression did it make on you? Why do you think you still remember it?
  • What makes a display window memorable? Pleasing to the eye? Have you seen windows that look amazing? Which ones? That look boring/outdated/made you not want to shop there? Why? Have you seen windows that influenced your shopping decisions? Why/how?
  • What creative publicity ideas have you seen, received in the mail/email, etc? Did you like/dislike them? Why? Do you think you could do better?
  • After discussion of inventory……come up with one idea that you think would help in ordering inventory. Is it relevant/cost effective?
  • What do you think the busiest dancewear season(s) is? Slowest?
  • What is the “best” way to allocate funds for your budget? What are considerations?
  1. Assessing Student Learning
  • Group project – assessed on a 12 point rubric for creativity, innovation, backing up decisions based on target demographic. (4 pts each)
  • Budget – assessed on a 20 point rubric for writing, addressing each of the elements, backing each of their decisions up with supporting facts/arguments, stating their target demographic, researching the inventory.
  1. Required Resources/Instruction Materials

None required, but dancers will want to utilize the web to research dancewear styles and manufacturers, prices, etc.

  1. Video Links

none

  1. Link to Industry/Job Information
  • Salary - $9-12/hour based on experience
  • Hiring – usually only dancers hired, those with some sort of experience preferred
  • Dancers who have had this lesson can indicate that they have some understanding of retail/inventory, etc which will increase their employability for this type of job
  • Openings are greater in September (back to school, studios opening), November (Nutcracker prep), and April/May (recitals).
  • Career pathways - possibility to move to manager or assistant manager of one of two stores.
  1. When I Plan to Utilize this Lesson

I will be utilizing this lesson during the second semester of my Modern/Composition class. This class is my more advanced class which takes on more of a leadership role within the department, are more independent thinkers and self-starters. This will be a really fun, out-of-the-box lesson for them!