Weeks 3 & 4

During the second week I taught a lesson about Mesopotamian social classes and related them to levels in movement. The class had just learned about social classes in their reading, so they had a lot of information to add to our discussions, which I loved! I taught them a short sequence that used gestures and repetition to help them remember facts about Hammurabi's code, then I had them modify the movement to fit into different levels based on their assigned social class. The creative process was a little rough. I think I had the groups too big, so there were too many voices and making decisions was hard. I tried to walk around to each group and make sure they were being productive, and most of the time they were, but they definitely weren't working efficiently. A few of the groups produced really interesting shapes and sequences. One group in particular took a number from the phrase and wrote it out with their bodies. I loved seeing their creative thinking! Overall it was a good lesson and I learned a lot from it.

For the third week, I taught a lesson about the development of cuneiform. I focused on how pictographs were literal and cuneiform was abstract. I had the students play with literal versus abstract movement, and I think they had fun, but I think I did a poor job of real integrating the curriculum from both dance and social studies. I don't think I had enough substance from either side for it to be a really great lesson. The lesson was mostly just games, which was fun because the kids were active and engaged in creative thinking, but I wish I would have challenged them cognitively a bit more. One thing I did feel successful in was instructing their group creation activity. I decided to have smaller groups (after last weeks large group struggle) and I gave very clear instructions. They were able to the assignment very quickly and came up with some pretty impressive movement. As a whole, this lesson was not my best work, but I think executed it well and the class enjoyed it.