Creating a permanent place for the arts in public education requires some adjustment between the two in order to create a fit — a whittling process that usually affects the art more than the public institution within which it’s finding a home. Given the current trends in educational reform, with emphasis on standardized testing, accountability, and data-driven funding, any maneuvers to maintain the arts in education bring up some good questions:

What are students actually learning? How do we know they’re learning it? How does arts instruction support other or lifelong learning? What kinds of data can we develop to prove learning and transfer?

The process of answering these questions – of assessing student learning – is one of the steps toward shaping the round peg of arts education into the square holes of public education. However, it’s essential to answer them without sacrificing the core qualities that humans gain from their artistic endeavors: expression of self, creativity, passion, and vision.

Which is to say it’s April, and I’m thinking hard about teaching and learning in a comprehensive, sequential dance program – because it’s assessment time in dance class! I need to gather data on what my students know and can do, without them feeling the discomfort of having their creativity squeezed and shaped to fit a particular mold.

This week, for spring vacation, I scored students’ performance assessments. Our dance program includes all students from kindergarten through fifth grade, at a rate of about one hour per week. Instruction consists of lots of creative movement, improvisation using the basic vocabulary of movement (categories of space, time, energy, body), choreography, and cultural dances from around the world. The performance assessment that students complete in fifth grade asks them to choreograph a solo dance based on either a poem or a piece of visual art, perform it for videotaping, and write briefly about their movement choices. The assessments are scored in three categories of Creating (choreographing a beginning, three different movement phrases, and an ending), Performing (performing their dance without interruption, with clear energy and space choices, and maintaining their focus), and Responding (explaining movement choices for three ideas or images from the poem or art).

The kids generate ideas collaboratively

Results from these assessments provide plenty of data concerning the first two questions above: “What are students actually learning?” and “How do we know they’re learning it?” I know it because a performance assessment asks them to do it: translate ideas into choreographed movement, perform their dance with confidence, and explain their ideas. And I know they’re learning because the results are generally good. But the results also provide plenty of fuel for reflection.

In one 5th grade class:
~25% of students (7 out of 27) met all criteria perfectly (including four boys and three girls; one African-American student, one African student, four students from SE Asian heritage, and one Caucasian). It’s a relief when I see students of various backgrounds succeeding!
~81% of students (22 out of 27) achieved levels of either competent or proficient.

So… many kids are learning in this class, but what about the 19% (5 students out of 27) that scored as emerging rather than competent dancers (an average of under 3 points on a 4-point scale)? They indicate plenty of room for instructional improvement. Looking at them individually, I notice two (a boy and a girl) who began dancing just this year, one boy whose religion disapproves of dance, and two other boys who should have done better – but didn’t. These last two boys are particularly troubling, providing plenty of food for thought in the months to come, as I reflect on ways to improve what they learn.

And what about trends visible as weaknesses throughout the class?
~9 students were either missing a third movement phrase in their choreography or their third phrase was too short. Note to self: keep teaching them how to build movement phrases with more than one movement!

~10 students didn’t understand about making their beginnings and endings express the ideas in their dance; instead they created beginnings that said “I’m ready!” and endings that said “OK, I’m done now!” Note to self: start working on stronger beginnings and endings in third grade, at the point when I’m really emphasizing the beginning-middle-ending sequence.

~3 couldn’t explain their movement choices. Note to self: check over the response sheets quickly and collect verbal responses if there’s an English-language-learning or writing problem.

~5 students performed with limp energy and minimal use of space. Note to self: get started early in the year on self- and peer-assessments, so they understand how their movements are coming across.

Reflection will continue, even though assessments are finished for this year. And there are questions that these assessments don’t answer, including the effect of arts instruction on other learning. For this, we’ll need new and different measures. But for now, while thinking about ways to do better next year, these students and I return to the exciting work of making art and another excellent question:

Can 380 students collaborate to put on an end-of-year performance for families and friends?!

Yes, most likely. Starting Monday. And happily, building a performance is not at all about making disparate parts fit – it’s at the core of dance, with excitement building daily!

Leap!

While working within the public school system, I’ve advocated for the place of dance education by participating fully in the process of reshaping dance as a content area (e.g., creating grade level standards and expectations, writing assessments, aligning curriculum, integrating other academic subjects). I attend all building leadership meetings and budget planning meetings; I facilitate a professional learning community and district curriculum alignment team. While all these measures seem necessary in order to carve a place for dance in public schools, there remains the struggle to nurture what I know and love about my art form, in order to share it with children who deserve a chance to dance.

This conflict – between maintaining the life force of dance and molding dance as an understandable content area – jumped into my thoughts upon reading a recent article in ALT/Space: “Alone We Can Do So Little” by Victoria Row-Traster. Never mind that her main point (a wonderful discussion about how a team of teachers can enliven the teaching/learning interaction) is moot within the public school setting, where budget constraints always limit the teacher/student ratio. What caught me was her portrayal of the real goal of teaching art – the spark. I’ve modified her words here in order to apply them to myself:

“During planning, [I] think about the intended “spark”…. [I] ask [myself] how… do [I] plan on capturing each student’s imagination in order for them to be fully immersed in the work? This challenge is amplified when you include the expectations of the classroom teacher… And often, this is all in 45 minutes! In other words — how do we “hook” the kids?”

For me, this conflict plays itself out on a daily basis. I try to plan units that include formative and summative assessments, units that also meet the state’s grade level expectations, including daily teaching points that encourage students not just to dance but to think and verbalize what they know about dance. At the same time, I try to get the kids moving, give them a chance to be swept along by the flow of creating, and dancing together – experiencing the spark that has kept me dancing all these years.

Some days it’s a hard go. But sometimes it works. On Wednesday this past week, I needed to try out some newly-written assessments, intended to gather data for writing grades on our newly-written dance report cards. But I also desperately needed, for myself and the kids, to get them dancing again. In a whimsical moment, I decided on my teaching point: “Leaping lizards! It’s leap year!”

We warmed up with a moving pattern they already know and love, I added an extra warm-up to get them ready for jumping, and we took off across the floor: skips, leaps, diagonal leaps, leaps in crossing diagonal lines. After a good bit of exuberance, we settled into a task of choreographing a haiku by the poet Meisetsu:

A river leaping,
tumbling over the rocks roars on…
as the mountain smiles.

I got some assessment data by videotaping the results but, most importantly, there were a lot of smiles from me and from the kids, as the class unfolded! The spark was lit — by humor, whimsy, the exuberance of moving full-out, and we all felt it. It’s great to experience what we’re really after… so onward…

The lesson is based on “Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes.

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me–
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening . . .
A tall, slim tree . . .
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

Warm-up
A word-driven improvisational warm-up
This is an improvisational structure I learned from Thom Cobb during an NDEO National Conference session (was it in Providence, Rhode Island?) – Thank you, Tom! It’s served my students & myself very well over the years!
Teach a sequence of words for students to respond to in succession, discussing elements of movement to focus each response. For example:
“Space” – students make a shape using full extension in whatever direction they choose
“Time” – students either run in place or move in sloooooooow motion
“Energy” – students either punch or float in self space
“4 shapes” – students make shapes from high to low with 4 percussive drum beats
“Balloons” – students rise from low to high with delicate, floating energy
“Locomotor high & low” – students travel in general space for 8 counts
“Forest picture snap” – students take any frozen shape that would be part of a forest scene (rock, bush, tree, animal, whatever!)
“Wind” – only the boys swirl, twist, & turn through general space while girls hold their shape
“Lightning” – only the girls move sharply, with angular shapes & electric moves among the frozen shapes of the boys
“Mud” – everyone moves with slow, strong, smooth moves as if stuck in the mud
“Popcorn” – everyone explodes once
“Sneak back home” – everyone moves back to their starting place with quick sneaky focus
“Melting ice cream” – slowly sinking downward
“Exclamation point!” – explode into a frozen ending shape
Use whatever words evoke the qualities of movement you want…

Exploration
Examining the first stanza of “Dance Variations” by Langston Hughes for words that suggest movement:
1. Read the poem
2. Check for unfamiliar vocabulary & clarify new vocabulary with synonyms
3. Highlight words that suggest movement
4. Students explore various ways to express the words, individually, on cue
5. Choose a favorite three words or phrases & create a phrase (as a whole class or individually, or not at all, depending on the time)

Skill Development
Teach a phrase of choreography built on 3 words or images from the second stanza, modeling with an explanation of how the movements were chosen to express the words. Create a sequence appropriate for your students; how specific you are on details of the choreography will depend on your students.
For example,
Model of a choreography sequence from “Dream Variations”
Music: “Spring Rain” by Michael Powers ~30 seconds
“Quick day” – “For quick day, I use focuses with sharp & sustained energy to express the way African Americans were watchful & careful during the day.”
8 counts: sharp focus 1, focus 2, hold 3, sharp focus 4, slowly scan for danger 5, 6, 7, 8
8 counts: repeat
“Rest” – “To show resting, I take 8 counts to change from a fearful outward focus to a more relaxed shape with an inward focus.”
8 counts: turn with a slow focus & arm gesture
8 counts: rest head on arms to one side
“Night coming tenderly” – “For night coming tenderly, I trace an arc over my head with my arm, thinking about how the sky looks at sunset, and then I sink gently to the floor.”
8 counts: arc with arm over the head for sunset
8 counts: sink gently to the floor
Practice & repeat to cement the sequence of the phrase, with smooth transitions. Rehearse with the words as cues, or not.

Choreography
Now it’s their turn… with a partner, students choose 3 words, images, or phrases from the first stanza, create a movement phrase to express each image or phrase, and practice their phrase. If you have time, they can add the choreographed phrase you taught them as an ending to their own.

Cool-down
Have students watch each other’s choreography. Several pairs can perform at once; if they add the learned choreography, each pair will do that second, and it will probably be performed in a kind of canon, with each pair doing the same final moves at different times.
Ask the audience to watch for & identify words or phrases they see from the poem.
Or else have the dancers identify one of their images & explain how they chose to express it with movement (either verbally or in writing).

*Langston Hughes 1902-1967     Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929-1968     Alvin Ailey 1931-1989

It’s such a pleasure to dance with these girls. They dance as if they love it, and they offer so much to their classmates, as we develop movement skills, learn cultural dances from around the world, and choreograph dances to express ideas and feelings from the classroom. They thrive in this public school classroom, where dance as a fine art qualifies as one of the required content areas for a model education.

But I feel such sadness as I look ahead, because they’re bound to experience tremendous conflict in my classroom. Although they’ll remain their friendly selves outside my class, open & enthusiastic in their greetings, their presence inside the classroom will change: movements restrained, participation reserved, and expressions guarded or even sullen.

Last month, their father contacted me with a request to remove them from dance class. Although my school has families for whom dance is not acceptable, that was not the main issue in this case. In this case, his note cited religious restrictions on cross-gender contact (especially touching) and listening to music. He asked to have them placed somewhere else during dance class.

There are several things he didn’t realize. First, within a public school, there’s no surplus of adults to supervise children who want to be somewhere else. And second, given research suggesting that music and dance support academic achievement in positive ways, you can’t escape music by moving from one location to another in a public school. Every teacher is encouraged to integrate the arts!

We met & talked, Dad, myself, the girls’ teachers, the principal. I can — and d0 — offer alternatives to cross-gender contact. I teach that anyone can be your learning partner, in dance as well as science, reading, or math. But we explore ways of being connected without touch, as you would in science, reading, or math. Picture two partners facing each other, with hands palm-to-palm — not touching but with a 2″ cushion of space between the palms. Students can do space-between elbow swings, space-between leading and following, space-between turns.

But music! How can you take music out of dance class? …when all the children love it?  In deference to families that feel the conflict between their traditions and the society in which they find themselves living, I already limit our musical repertoire: instrumental selections that offer rhythmic variety, clear listening cues, and lyrics chosen to support educational concepts and content. But music & dance are interwoven, through energy, accuracy, synchronicity & just plain fun.

So we’re stuck, I with my experience of what music can offer, and the girls with their developing awareness of how music is viewed at home. I with my vision of how the girls will be affected over the years to come, and the girls, as yet unaware of how life in two cultures will feel.

If you have a clue that will help me teach these beautiful children, please share your ideas!

*Of course, I changed their names for this article, choosing names to fit the personalities I know: Alimah means “dancer or musician,” and Farihah means “joyful, happy, cheerful, and glad.”

But the article “Jump Patterns: Percussive Dance and the Path to Math” (TAJ vol. 9, number 2, April-June 2011) provided much more than food for thought. The article unwraps the dance/math residencies Malke Rosenfeld teaches in public schools. The fact that she shares her methodologies with classroom teachers for use in the classroom lit a spark for me. Even without being a step dancer myself, maybe I could lead my dance students through the jump pattern curriculum!

I’m about to begin Week 5 of 6, finishing the jump patterns with my second set of 4th & 5th graders (six lessons per group), and we’re all enjoying it. Malke’s outline provided lots of material to work with, and I’ve worked the pacing & focus of instruction for each lesson to fit my ELL learners & my circumstance. The movement variables are broken into malleable chunks, and we’ve explored the math-related concepts of precision, congruency, reflection, and turn symmetry, with students choreographing patterns in teams of 2 and 3. In addition to integrating dance & math, there’s a problem-solving (choreography) component that parallels the “workshop/conferencing” structure that my students are familiar with through Writers Workshop, allowing me time to confer with & jump-start individual students. In addition, there’s a spatial arrangement that supports classroom management (personal dance spaces for each team — wow, what a concept!). Add in some dance videos to “mentor” the kids in their choreographic process & journaling questions to provide feedback on what students are learning, and it’s no wonder we’re all engaged!

My first groups of 4th & 5th graders finished the unit before the holiday break, with some of them performing their patterns, both congruently & in mirror symmetry. They nailed the precision steps they’d created, even without the support of their personal dance spaces, and their peer audience was able to talk about what they were seeing with insight and new vocabulary. What a pleasure to watch… I’m so grateful to be able to learn from colleagues!

rehearsing for congruency

Practicing 270-degree turns

And it means so much more if the effect of dance class reverberates for a student outside the classroom.

Tommy is 7 years old, and he’s only just begun to join our activities. A few weeks ago, we were working on body shapes (twisted, straight, angular, curvy…), and I read Alphabet Movers by Teresa Benzwie to his class. Tommy loves the alphabet! He listened when I read the book, he immediately tried all the poses, and by the second time through the book, he was taking the shapes before I even turned the page.

a body shape for every letter...

I excerpted the stick figures from the book, so I could do them in sequence with the kids to music (Pizz.ah! by Eric Chappelle on Music for Creative Dance, v. II).

Letters O-U

This week his teacher sent me a picture of what he had doodled on the white board in their classroom, while she and his mother were having their parent-teacher conference:

Tommy's doodles on the white board

Success!  So cool!

I’m filing it here, so I can use it next year to show them that dancing their own way doesn’t require R-rated music!

Lil Buck and Yo-Yo Ma

Such are possible analogies to highlight how jarring the idea of grades can be to dance specialists focused on inspiration, creativity & collaboration!

My district, Seattle, recently decided to revise the reporting of the arts on the elementary report card. Previously, what’s been available on the report card has been the name of the art form and a ✓, + or -.

Dance: ✓
or Dance: +
or Dance: -

…a highly subjective system that says practically nothing. Does the ✓ refer to behavior or to achievement?!

So revisions have been called for.

I put out a call for ideas & samples from other dance specialists, via the NDEO K-12 Forum, as well as to fellow members of DEAW, in order to gain some perspective, and I got a few responses, all of which seem to have uniform criteria across the elementary grade levels.

In Vancouver School District in Washington State, students in 1st-5th receive two grades for Art, Music, Creative Movement, Physical Education, Social Studies & Science, each on a four-point scale, using letters instead of numbers [thanks to Deb, Dawn & Amanda!]:

1. Understanding concepts & developing skills [C-consistently, O-often, S-sometimes, R-rarely/never]
2. Demonstrating lifelong learning skills [C-consistently, O-often, S-sometimes, R-rarely/never], with 10 lifelong learning skills delineated: strives to produce quality work, shows enthusiasm for learning, shows respect and courtesy, cooperates with others, practices self control, follows school and class rules, uses class time wisely,  and completes assignments on time.

At a magnet school in the Bethel School District, Washington State [thank you, Krissa!], all content areas are on a 1,2,3,4 system, including dance. Criteria are:

1. Participation/behavior in dance
2. Achievement in dance

From Lynn Monson in Arizona [thank you, Lynn!] is a report card including five criteria, with rubrics for each on a 5-point scale:

1. Responsibility for Own Learning
2. Positive Self Esteem
3. Response to Teacher-directed Activities
4. Self-control
5. Social Interaction

My district is aiming for grade-level specific criteria. For example, a kindergartener is graded (on a 4-point scale) on “Names upper case letters” and “Retells a three part story in sequence (beginning, middle, end,” among 12 criteria for Reading. Writing has 11 & math has 13 grade-level specific criteria on the kindergarten report card. Real estate on the report card is a bit scarce, so each arts discipine will have no more than 2 or 3 criteria. The criteria should have:

1. Endurance (knowledge or skill needed beyond this grade level)
2. Leverage (knowledge or skill transferable to other content areas)
3. Readiness (a necessary entry point into the next grade level)
4. Success (knowledge & skill emphasized on benchmark assessments).

Oh yes, and be meaningful to our parents, as translated into their own language.

Clearly, I hadn’t seen a model for grade-level specific criteria when we went into our working sessions. Here’s the result of our 1st run at the task:

K-5 Dance Elementary Report Card Standards

So reporting for “dance” on the report card will be different starting next year. Fortunately, there will be time to get feedback & revise!  And of course, we’ll need rubrics for each area. TBD.

Meanwhile… do you or your district have grade-level specific report card criteria for dance that you’d be willing to share?

Or maybe you have some different analogies for “dance: report card criteria” that will further the process of integrating dance as a content area in the mainstream of education?

Do share!

On the days when I read my horoscope, my engagement with it lasts all of about 10 seconds, as I cast a thought toward whether it applies to my plan for the day.  Then I forget it.

Today, however, it sort of fits — on 2 counts. First, because writing here is something I do in order to make sense of what I do. And second, because just now I’m in the process of letting go to make space for the new.

Oh, I haven’t actually let go yet — the End-of-Year Performance, which has consumed my time these last few weeks, is still 3 days away. At this point, I’m making the program, arranging the music playlist, creating a backup on my iPod, copying the rehearsal videos onto my hard drive, and writing notes for teachers on how to prepare their class on the day of performance.

But I’m letting go of the kids’ performance. It’s up to them now. Each class has one more rehearsal, with no more changes. Critiques & suggestions have given way to “Have fun!”… “If there’s a problem, improvise!”… “Do your best!” Each class has gone as far as developmentally possible just now…

Kindergarteners… have 2 dances, both based on following musical cues. In the first, set to Pathway Puzzles* by Eric Chappelle, they use scarves for juggling, making curvy pathways & making straight pathways, melting & rising with the musical changes of pitch. In the second, they do The Shoemaker dance, with a different locomotor skill during each traveling interlude (walking, jumping, hopping, galloping, skipping, bear walk, crocodile, frog jump, crab walk, and choice dance). Kindergarteners do this dance every year, so when they start dancing, it’s delightful to see the whole audience of older kids do the gesture part with them from the audience!

This year one of the classes has been HUGELY difficult, so their locomotor skills aren’t at the same level as usual. I’m letting go of that. They’ll enjoy the performance, and next year we’ll continue refining their skills.

First graders… have 2 parts of a dance about weather. First, they sing “Rainbow Round Me” with multi-colored scarves, highlighting the colors for sky (blue), clouds (white) & sun (yellow). Then they put the scarves away & join a 4-person dance group for a very structured improv with 3 cinquains about weather that they wrote as a group:

Sky
Tall empty
Stretching reaching widening
Weather crosses the sky
Blue

Clouds
Puffy wispy
Flying in the sky, bringing storms, flattening out
Clouds make many shapes
Clouds

Sun
Bright hot
Rising shining setting
The sun is a star
Sunshine

There are 32 1st graders in each class & both classes perform at the same time.  Every single one of them has an opportunity to leap through general space, while others stay in place. Some of them skip, hop or run instead — but I’m letting go of that. They do look wildly free, which was the intent of leaping!

Second, third & fourth graders… are triple threats this year.  They’re acting, singing & dancing in a musical from the Bad Wolf Press (more about that in another post) — a first for me!  They’ve learned the words, so I’ve let go of singing every song with them.

The class that combines 20 fifth graders, 14 self-contained special ed students & 2 students from one of our self-contained autism classes… is a production including narrators, boomwhackers, ribbon sticks, an earthquake, a tsunami, 3 long sheets of blue plastic tablecloth, 14 10′ streamers on sticks, a cymbal, and 2 rolling blackboards with a village scene on one side & Namazu the Earthquake Fish on the other (painted by the kids of course). In the past week, we rehearsed it down from 45 minutes in length to 9 minutes (all having to do with having their props in the right place & knowing their cues). It’s a recreation of the book The Magic Fan by Keith Baker, and it could well fall apart if there are too many absences on the night of the performance (which is always an issue with our families who speak another language at home or work several jobs). I’m letting go of how nuts I was to allow their dance to get so complicated!

The other 5th grade group… is doing fine!  Their dance is called Night in the Wax Museum. It includes a rap, a shape museum with role models coming to life to speak about their accomplishments (5th graders did autobiographies of important figures earlier this year) , and a reversal where the 5th graders teach their historical role models how to dance “their way.”  They all succeeded at getting their choreography done! But now I’m going to have to let them go, cause they’re graduating. Most of them have been with me since they were kindergarteners doing The Shoemaker!

Anyway, it’ll all be over within a few days, with graduation & summer vacation following in a few weeks.  Then, judging by how much time has been going into the prep, there’ll be space and time for something new!  And that’s a good thing. Maybe I’ll get a hint from my horoscope about what’s next — or maybe I’ll figure it out by writing down my thoughts.

*The link for Pathway Puzzles takes you to volume II of Music for Creative Dance by Eric Chappelle, which inexplicably doesn’t include Pathway Puzzles, but honest, it’s on the CD!

Friday last week, the class fell apart. There were a lot of absences, from colds & such, so only 5 students out of the usual 8 were even available for class. Of the 5, only one and a half of them were there in mind & spirit: Samir was back & in good form after a 4-day absence, generally joining in, and Joey was with me about half the time. Adriel spent his time studying wall posters, worrying the edges of them to loosen the staples holding them up. Marty went after various props & tools on my shelves. Kelsey melted down in the hallway outside, collapsed in a sobbing heap. She never arrived.

The instructional assistants were also off. My most wonderful support wasn’t there at all. Another assistant wound up escorting a student from my other autistic class to PE, after he mistakenly came to my room. When she arrived 10 minutes late, she chose to model good participation without intervening with any of the student wanderers. It was a good indication of how dependent a good class is on the teaching team, rather than just the teacher!

What to do? Back to square one: hula hoops with a long spell of soft music. No verbals. Modeling engagement & exploration. A sit-down clapping pattern to end. A smiling goodbye. And hopes for next time.