Sixth Grade Adventures: This Magic Moment

Had one goal this week. There was a certain student, we'll call him Ron, that has not been participating on a regular basis. He's been withdrawn. A few weeks ago he wrote "I am a life hater" when describing himself. Encouragement has not worked.

So...this week two things happened.

First was during the warm-up activity. It's a call and response with some nonsense words. Each time through, the leader changes the volume. Ron did not even get up from his desk, so this time I ignored him. As we went through the warm-up, the students got more and more into it. Then we went through it as quietly as we could. The moment was magic. Everyone in the circle was completely focused and involved, ready for what was next. I could almost hear the angels singing as the clouds parted. It was the first time the class had a sense of unity.

The second happened a few moments later. As I divided the class into groups, on his own volition, Ron got up from his desk, walked over to join a group, and got to work. Ha!

Sixth Grade Adventures: Guilt by Association

Showed up for my second week of teaching my lovely sixth graders. As they walked by me into class, I heard excited whispers of “Drama!” (music to my ears) interspersed with “Testing!” (…screech)

Do students remember coincident events? You better believe it. I did a little happy dance inside to see them so excited to work with me again. I had to laugh when I remembered that while I worked with them before, some were pulled out of the room for reading assessments.

Goal for the lesson- The students will be able to use their bodies in artistic ways to represent objects and ideas.

AKA- Intro to image work.

The cafeteria was ocupado during the first class, so we tried to work outside. Okay, you can stop laughing now. They kept running out of the space I delineated to work in. Once we settled into a circle, I introduced them to a little warm-up called “Use it or be it.” I would call out an object. They then had the option to either use the object or be the object. Toothbrush. Soccer ball. Washing machine (my personal favorite of the day).

Next we moved into a game sometimes called Donkey or Bibbity-bibbity-bop. This the students started to get a little more into. In groups of three, they created images of palm trees, elephants, bunny, and even a toaster. It provided an opportunity to introduce the students to image work. First, we talked about tableau where they created a picture of an actual scene. Learning their interests the previous week really helped. So we created a tableau of soccer, then one of football. First we took advantage of the opportunity to practice inferencing. First we described what we could observe. Leg pointing forward. Foot off the ground. Upper body turned. From there, we could infer that the student was playing soccer. We worked together to make adjustments to the pictures. For football, two students created a picture of one student tackling another. Then we talked how else it could be interpreted. When I asked what might make it clearer that it was football and not wrestling, for example, a student held his arm up like he was throwing a football and then took the place of the student being tackled. Then it was clearly football, and they had discovered on their own how to tell a clearer story. With the moments we had left, I introduced them to images, or representing ideas instead of a picture of an event or moment in time. We ended on images of friendship and hope.

In the second class, we stuck to the stage in the cafeteria. So much easier to keep the students under control. One student decided he didn’t want to do anything. First he lay on the floor. Then he sat outside the circle. Eventually I let him and ignored his behavior. On the other end of the spectrum, I think I’ve got one on my side. Maybe two. Earlier, one of the students showed me some of his artwork after I complimented him on something he was drawing. It was awesome to see him beam at how proud he was of his work. Another student on the other had is always anxious for attention. When I taught Bibbity-bibbity-bop, he quickly volunteered to start in the middle before I even asked. I got one. Now I need to use his enthusiasm to spread throughout the rest of the class.

Hope for this next week- Setting up the work as a reward. They are so lucky they get the chance to participate in drama. Their school doesn’t even have a teacher qualified to teach it. I’ve had multiple conversations with their classroom teacher about it, and thinking we might have to cut back to twice a month inspired an idea. First, students who complete their homework, volunteer to read in class, etc, will have the opportunity to help lead warm-up activities. Second, every other week they have library time, so time is short. Initially, the teacher said we might have to cancel drama on those days. Instead, it will be shorter, and only those who are completing their other assignments and behaving well and participating in class will get to go. Those lessons need to be extra awesome. No pressure. Any theatre teachers out there have suggestions for just such a situation?

Sixth Grade Adventures: Knowing when to cut your losses

That's right. For my first week teaching drama to my lovely sixth graders, the teacher gave me two hours with each class so she could finish doing the reading assessments with students individually that I started last week.

With two classes, and one with all the students with special needs together, adjustments always need to be made. I planned five or six activities to meet similar curricular goals. The main hope-- to get these students to work together without killing each other. I mean "Students work productively with others in teams. Students will...participate productively in discussions, plan agendas with clear goals and deadlines, set time limits for speakers, take notes, and vote on key issues." (6.28)

So the original plan had the following possible activities:

Heartbeat Ball

Data Processing/Group Shapes

Mirror

Human Knot

Islands

Poster Dialogue

Compliment Web

And then there was the reality. The first class could not even grasp passing a ball around a circle at a consistent pace. So adding additional objects around the circle, which got caught on the rug fell apart. The roll of tape that they were supposed to pass got stuck and that distracted everyone. At least we had an opportunity to talk about distractions when we are trying to focus in class. I scrapped the activity for the second class and did a simpler group warmup.

Data processing. Talk about an eye opener. The goal is to challenge students to organize information without talking. "Get in a line from tallest to shortest." "Create a line in order based on the month you were born in." Some students' solution? Push others across the room. Not very productive when you are trying to avoid shoving matches that caused a student to turn a desk upside-down the week before. We're going to get there together somehow. :)

Mirror. Seems like a simple enough idea. Face each other while one student follow's their partner's movements like the second student is the first student's mirror image. Notice a through-line yet on these activities? ;) The first class was able to get started after their initial "Ew my partner is so and so and I don't want to look at them, or face them, or acknowledge their existence." During the latter class, that point didn't really come. So I asked for volunteers to help model the activity where I was the mirror image. Two or three students did pretty well and enjoyed it. However, when I sent everyone back to try again, I saw that they were still just sitting around. So I scrapped it and transitioned into the next activity. No sense in beating a dead horse. At this early stage, my goal was just to get them to work together, and that was not being met, so I moved on. They need to learn to work together to be successful in drama, in school, and in life. Drama is an entirely new experience for these students, and scaffolding is a careful process. I began to see in these activities what the students' abilities were so that I can better plan in the future to build on those, while helping them discover new talents.

Human knot. I know that you should never say never. Or always. Or constantly. But I'm going to break that rule. Never, ever do human know with sixth graders. Between being at an age where they are discovering their bodies, and the frequent pushing, and the not wanting to touch someone, or not wanting to be touched..............

Poster dialogue showed me so much about the students' interests, needs, and relationships with each other. Four large poster papers throughout the room each had a question:

What is drama?

I wish more people knew that...

If I could be anyone or anything, I would be...

If I could teach my teacher anything, it would be...

I invited the students to use a marker and write a response on each one, and if they finished quickly, to go around and place a check mark next to any answers they agreed with. The most common response? The students wanted to teach their teachers Spanish. I'm going to try to find ways to incorporate that into my lessons.

The most heartbreaking and challenging moment was when I asked the students to write a little more about themselves, to create a poem of sorts. The first line was "I am [their name]."

Each line after that started with "I am" and they would then add phrases or sentences that described who they were. A student. A brother. A dreamer. A dancer. As I walked around the room, I saw one student had written only a line or two. "I am a life hater." How do you respond to that? I asked him what he liked. Nothing. I asked if he was a brother. Ah, there was something. He was the youngest. Then I would give him two options and ask what he liked better. Neither. When he added a few more, it was a repeat of the original line. What have you done in similar situations?

We closed with an opportunity for everyone to share one thing they learned during our time together and or their favorite part of the lesson. I was surprised to hear that some parts that I thought did not go well were the parts they remembered and liked. Go figure.

Know when to cut your losses--when it comes to your lesson. If the students aren't getting it, they're not getting it. Adjust. Scrap it. Try something else. Ask a different question. But students themselves? Is it ever appropriate to cut your losses if you feel there are students you just can't reach? It's with mixed emotions I listen to the teachers talk about students with behavior problems. School barely started, but they are already running out of ideas on how to help him. How do you respond when you hear teachers hoping one of their students leaves?

Sixth Grade Adventures: Observation

You can never observe enough. In two weeks, I've observed each of the two sixth grade classes for about six hours. During some of that time, I pulled each student out one by one to help with reading assessments to help their teacher place them into reading groups. It was invaluable to have the opportunity to interact with each student individually, and to see and hear for myself the challenges these students face. For many, English is their second language, and they've been in bilingual classrooms for the last five years. Some have a second-grade reading level. Others understand and apply key concepts in spite of the language barrier. They may not be able to pronounce the word in front of them correctly, but they know what a root word is and how to identify prefixes and suffixes.

The biggest challenge I've seen that is holding these students back, however, is not language. They are smarter than they pretend to be. Better at reading, better at writing. Their biggest challenge is that they won't work together. Last week a student turned over a desk after an accidental bump turned into a shoving match. Other students want to move to another desk because they just "can't sit next to so and so." They're on the cusp of becoming teenagers, so the behavior is not a huge surprise. But they are so distracted by their own drama that they will have a difficult time learning anything. Their teacher and I came to each other with the same idea. As I begin working with them, the primary objective is to teach these students to work together by giving them the opportunity to practice working together in a variety of circumstances. It's one of the great things about using drama. Before delving into the rehearsal process in creating theatre, we build an ensemble. On Tuesday, these sixth graders will begin the journey of becoming one.

Sixth Grade Adventures: Take One

The first week of school.  How grateful I am to a good friend and amazing teacher for allowing me to enter her classroom and start at the beginning.  The plan is simple.  The execution is overwhelming.  The opportunity is unique.  For an entire semester, I will be going in to two sixth grade classrooms once a week and teach Reading, Writing, and Social Studies using drama based curriculum...that I get to develop.  It is not a requirement for obtaining certification.  I was planning on doing it without any pay or course credit.  Instead it will be part of in Independent Scholarship Project.  We want to be great teachers, so why not take advantage of the best opportunities to develop our talents and gifts?

Up until now, the most work I have done using drama in a public school classroom was four lessons within a month time frame.  This time I hope to get a glimpse of what can happen with a group of students when drama based education becomes a regular part of their lives.  The student population is around 95% Hispanic, the remainder being African-American.  These students were originally destined to start middle school this year, until their school failed the TAKS test and closed.  Instead, they were told they will be staying at the elementary school for yet another year.

One of the most inspiring words I've heard in a long time came from this wonderful teacher.  After 3 days of class, she said that she was not planning on using the literature textbook she was given because it was too difficult for her students.  Instead of forcing it on them, she is coming to understand where they are in their educational journey and working towards giving these students a chance to succeed.