Action Research:Creative Movement and Vocabulary Acquisition

Background:

The issue that I chose to address for my Action Research Plan is Vocabulary Acquisition.  As a part of our novel study of Among the Hidden, my 6th graders are expected to learn a set of vocabulary words from the text.  For each four-chapter reading assignment, they are assigned 6-8 challenging-yet-useful words to study.  The ultimate goal is that the students absorb these words into their own vocabularies so that they comprehend them when reading future texts and put them to use when writing narratives, expository/persuasive essays, or poetry.

Problem:

The problem I encountered was that my students were simply memorizing the set of words the definitions -- they were not understanding how each of these terms is actually used in English.  They were misusing many of them in their original sentences, and were unable to identify the meaning of the word in a multiple choice question if the definition were provided in slightly different words.

Definition studied by class	Student use in an original sentence
"ominous" (adjective): menacing or threatening	My brother ominoused me that if I didn’t clean his mess he would punish me . (Incorrectly used as a verb)
"preponderance" (noun): a huge amount of something, or frequency of something (there is a lot of it or it happens often)	I have a preponderance amount of homework so I stay up late . (Incorrectly used as an adjective)
Definition studied by class	Wording of definition on quiz, many students answered incorrectly
"resolutely" (adv) to do something in a way that shows determination; firmly; with your mind made up	with firm determination
"flippantly" (adverb): done in a light, casual way; done without showing respect	with disrespectful levity or casualness

Idea:

Having participated in Barry Orek's Arts Integration training and having observed my colleague Pat Ludwig execute a lesson called "Dances from a Hat" with her 8th grade Language Arts class, I had an idea.

I decided to try doing some movement-based vocabulary lessons to see if adding a kinesthetic element would help my students comprehend and acquire the vocab words.

Action:

First, the students would need to do a warm-up to get them used to the idea of moving their bodies for a Language Arts class. So we did a warm-up called "Away and Back" in which the students began in a spot, moved away from it for 8 counts, froze for 8 counts, and then returned to their original spot in 8 counts. I gradually made the activity more complicated by having them think about how their Body, Energy, use of Space and use of Time (the B.E.S.T. qualities of dance/movement) communicated different messages.

Then I started to assign a quality to each "Away and Back" movement. Examples:

• Show victory as you walk away and back
• Move away and back with excitement
• Move away and back as if you are water

The final stage was to have them move "Away and Back" with the vocab terms in mind. Examples:

• Move as if you are a totalitarian leader
• Move like a guerrilla soldier
• Make your movement ramshackle
• Use your body to show indifference
• Intently move for a count of 8
• Walk audibly on this turn

We reviewed the meaning of the vocab word before or after the movement, and sometimes repeated a word's movement after I gave them constructive feedback about their "performance."

Here are some video clips of the activity. Please excuse the audio quality.

Findings:

My conclusion based on the students' subsequent vocab quizzes is that this was a worthwhile activity, but that one movement exercise is not enough. My instincts tell me that the more I do this, and the more familiar the students come with participating in movement lessons in Language Arts, the more effective such activities will be.

Plan:

We are beginning a new novel study soon on The Adventures of Ulysses. I plan to make movement exercises routine as we study vocabulary from the text, and hope to see students' comprehension and acquisition of new words continue to improve.

Movement in Poetry "Dances From a Hat" 8th grade Language Arts

We have been studying Poetry and "Dances From a Hat" is great way to generate lots of vivid vocabulary.  Students ultimately used the list of words to build interesting poems.

I learned the technique from Barry Oreck's Arts Integration Workshop held here at ECA in September.  I was also fortunate to have several other teachers help during this process.Carolina F, Kat SR, and Michael A helped with supervision, planning, and the much needed debriefing at the end of the process.

Similar to what Barry did in our workshop, I first did some warm-up activities with students including 'Away and Back' and 'Move Freeze' .   (For more on activities check out this link:  Dance Activities)  I did these warm-ups over the course of several periods. The warm-ups are crucial to the success of the activity.

The phrases I used in my hat were: falling raindrop,gathering fog, burning fire, and melting ice cream.

DANCES FROM A HAT (Adapted from Mary Joyce)

Get into groups of 3 to 5 people. One person from each group draws a card with a word or phrase on it. The group looks at the card but does not show it to the other groups. Explain that the group will become one of these things. People may play different roles but they are all parts of the same thing – not different characters, people, or things in the surrounding environment. The structure for the dance is shape – movement – shape. The group starts in a still opening shape, moves like this thing and ends in a still closing shape. There are no sound effects or props in the first stage of explorations. Suggest that the group first discuss the qualities and characteristics – decide on the size, direction, energy, force, speed, where it starts and ends. Suggest that group members take turns stepping out to watch during the process. Give at least 10 minutes to prepare. When the dance is performed the audience is directed to describe what they see – not guess what the image is. After descriptions have been collected you may ask if any images come to mind.

See below for a video clip from one the dances. 

When we were done viewing each dance, we brainstormed lists of words which could describe what had been seen.  This requires a good bit of encouragement.  When all the dances and brainstorming were complete we wrote poems using the words.  The poems didn't necessarily have to be about the dances themselves, but many were inspired by their own dance.

Some of the students used these poems as part of their own poetry anthology.  Below is one of the poems (the poet added to and edited the poem several times before this final draft):

           Storm

by Ethel R

The sky turns into a sorrowful grey.

Pillows from the sky cry, and smooth drizzling begins.

Crackling drops of cold rainfall dive heavily like stone.

Sudden lightning electrifies the city.

bursts of thunder shout out to the wind

smooth drizzling starts to swiftly die.

Looks like heaven is heartbroken.

Below is a video of part of one of the dances-"Burning Fire" 

  

3C: Integrating Art and Spelling

3C: Integrating Art and Spelling  Animoto Video

• Students chose a word from their list of spelling words.
• Then, we discussed the different elements they had learned in Art class. 
• After, we looked and reviewed the rubric Ms. Krijt uses in class so students could have complete understanding of what was expected, since they were mainly going to be assessed  in CREATIVITY and PLANNING AND EXPLANATION.
• The final task was to have the students  make a poster using at least 3 elements to describe the meaning of the word  they had chosen.

Words and Movement

This is a great video clip to illustrate how words and movement can go together. A very emotional piece where David Rakoff explains how getting cancer changed his willingness to try new (or old things) things.  Maybe wait till the end to tell them he died of his illness just about a year ago. Maybe more effective on High schoolers:

Advanced Art Lab Mural

While not entirely an arts integration project, this mural involved a lot of cross-disciplinary learning. The 8th grade focused a lot on metaphor, figurative language, and symbolism in many of their classes this year. Twelve students in the Advanced Art Lab full-year elective course took these ideas all the way to the completion of a large-scale mural based on the journey through middle school. They used metaphor and symbolism in the images and the narrative of the mural itself, as well as in their narration. Here is a video we put together, which explains the mural's meaning, and shows a cool, time-lapse sequence of the work they did throughout the year. The video was used in a dedication assembly we had this week. Enjoy!

Ira Glass on the Art and Craft of the Story

Ira Glass, host of NPR's This American Life radio program shares his insights on the art and craft of telling a good story. To me, there is nothing greater than hearing someone who has mastered their craft talk about their process. These kinds of deep insights into the creative process are what illuminate the way for ourselves and our students to walk through the unfolding process of creating in any medium or art form.

Illustrating Poetry: Being Figurative

Language Arts 8

8th grade students were required to write a series of poems as part of their poetry unity. Their teacher, Pat Ludwig, wanted them to produce an illustrated book of their poems. We saw this as an opportunity to extend their thinking about what purpose an illustration serves. They had been working with metaphor, irony, and figurative language in class, and we wanted them to transfer those skills from the realm of language to that of imagery. This is what meaningful arts integration is all about: not merely showering kids with art projects, but using the arts as a vehicle to help them think and communicate in different ways; to understand that each of the arts can come at the same concepts from different angles.

In the slideshows below, you can see the steps we led the students through to reach an understanding of how they could be figurative in their approach to illustrating their poems, followed by examples from their final poetry books. The books were produced using Blurb, and the students were given the option of finding images in royalty-free image databases, or creating their own original artworks. Please note that you may pause the slideshows, or click on them to view a full-sized version.

The Outsiders Graffiti Wall

Language Arts 7

Students created a graffiti wall in the classroom of Language Arts Teacher Bill Kartechner, centered around their study of The Outsiders. The classes viewed clips from Style Wars, a documentary film that follows a group of graffiti artists in 1980's New York. There are uncanny parallels between the characters in The Outsiders and the artists portrayed in the film, which lead to rich discussions on group culture, loyalty, identity, slang, and conflict.

Students were shown examples of graffiti. They identified the characteristics of graffiti-style letterforms, and practiced creating their own. Further discussion on The Outsiders identified the key themes, ideas, images, and symbols from the book. After determining which words and ideas should be emphasized on the wall, students began working individually and in pairs on their final designs.

The project allowed students to make parallels between the world of the Outsiders characters, and that of other groups on the margins of society. It required them to recognize, analyze, and evaluate the importance of themes and ideas in the book, while coming to collaborative agreement on visual considerations, such as size, placement, color, and style.