New
York State Funding for Arts Education
Partnerships - SAP
McGraw
Elementary with Syracuse Stage
and Charles
R. Smith, Jr.
"Reading and
Writing under the Ancient Night Skies"
We asked:
How
can we better understand our world?
What
connections can we see between ancient
cultures and our world?
How can the creative process help me
make links between what
I know and what I wonder?
Many of our students
do not easily make connections
between new learning and what they
already know…How can we
encourage this process?
Many
of our students struggle with weak
language skills…How
can we build upon their strengths
to allow them to communicate more
effectively ?
Many of our students
lack background knowledge from
diverse experiences… How
can we “take them to new
places” through literature
and exploration of diverse cultures? |
|
|
Students
watched a theatrical production, The
Red Sun and Green Moon, based
on a "pourquoi story" that
explains why the sun and moon are
in the sky.
Our students learned
from our visiting artist Katrin
Naumann about
how the story was made into a play.
Students
wrote their own pourquoi stories
and learned to tell the story using
gesture,
props, tableau. After reading and
hearing myths from Ancient Greece,
Rome, and Native American traditions,
students began to apply writing
strategies they had learned from
Mr. Smith to their own creative
writing.
|
A field trip to Roberson
Museum allowed our students to connect
to learning about cultures and to science
discoveries. In the planetarium, students
experienced the night sky in 3-D and
heard Native American Sky Legends based
on constellations. They created pinch
pots in the Iroquois tradition while
listening to Iroquois tales.
|
Students
particularly interested in drama
formed a drama club. They produced
two plays, Catch It and Run and Persephone
and the Pomegranate Seed. Catch
It and Run is based on a
Native American tale that explains
how people came to have fire
and why woodland animals look
the way they do. |
At our culminating
school-wide festival, students from all
grades shared some of what they had learned
and created. Students wrote a pourquoi
tale, How the Giraffe Got Its Long
Neck, as an outgrowth of work with
Syracuse Stage. They presented their dramatic
rendition during the festival, which also
included games with mythological themes,
puppetry, and displays of creative writing,
masks and other art.
|
Students
learned about mythological characters
- their powers, their quirks,
and their stories - at the Mythology
Business Fair. |
Students learned
that wondering and seeking explanations
for why and how are
part of the human experience.
“I’ve
heard that story before! But
the girl had a different name.”
Students realized
that ancient cultures used story
to answer questions. Today we use
the scientific method.
“I
wonder about those things too…” “I
wonder if the Iroquois wondered
about
what made the Finger Lakes?” |
|
Teacher observations:
"Students really had to think about key
story events when creating their story
boards. But after doing that it
was easy for them to portray the story
in puppetry…. and they loved doing
it!"
"This project made planning
for coordination between classroom curriculum
and what we were doing in art really
make sense."
|
