Lana’s Blog

I have written many times and never been able to create a blog that “works”.  Hopefully I have now been taught successfully by my students…namely Sunny!!!

Jade and Seraya just taught me that I need to copy my blog before I post it..in case I get lost in the ether like Braidee. I’m on a huge learning curve.

 There is much confusion about this project. I think that when we are in class doing the work it makes sense to the students, yet when we have our single lesson on a Friday period 5 I am against….Friday afternoons, the impending weekend, lethargy, students perceptions that some other blogs seem to be focussed on feelings rather than work and confusion with the task of “blogging”.  This is not quite what I expected.  I am also not sure what I expected.

Our Process so far……

*  I gave the students the line “planting the seeds…with our thoughts we make the world”.

* The students sat together in samll groups and brainstormeed using a lotus diagram which I collected and will use their ideas as springboards and stimulii in forthcoming lessons.

* I asked the students to close their eyes and imagine the opening image of their ‘performance’ which we shared.

* They then had to imangine the closing image, which they shared.

* We then created short pieces which we performed to eachother after a short period of development which included a beginning image an ending image and building the middle.

* When we saw each piece we discussed what elements we would like to keep that had potential and could be developed further. Of course a list was kept and became part of our resource file.

* Next lesson I played Bach’s “Air on a G String” and the student lay down and listened, went to sleep or imagined lots of stuff.  They were then asked to communicate their ideas to another person through movement and sound only.  Some of the best work happens when words are not used. The students then joined ideas and choreographed pieces which they performed to the music.  Again we shared ideas, useful moments and kept a list of things which can be explored further.

* I gave the class the word “UBUNTU - A person is a person through other persons; I am because we are.”  I discovered this at a Professional Development about community. It complements our seeds growing.

It’s interesting that the kids are now a little bit antsy about what their performance may look like. Some folk are doing Drama Ensembles, Music Performances and have outside committments with work and Fruit Fly. So whatever we do it needs to be doable.  I don’t know what it will look like, but I do know that there is heaps of talent and ideas in this room and that this is supposed to be FUN.

I’m looking forward to the next session. 10 lessons to go.

Lana

 

This entry was posted on Friday, May 5th, 2006 at 12:36 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.