After School 20-21

Music ~ Mr. Franklin

Big Idea: PoeMusic ~ Expressing Music and Poetry

Inquiry Question: Is music poetry or is poetry music? 

Project: The expectation in an elementary music class is that students would learn the basics of music theory, counting beats, reading notes, and practice this knowledge by playing songs on an instrument. What could a word-based artform aside from song lyrics have to do with playing notes and counting beats? Our collaboration set out to introduce students to a combined experience of music and performative literature in the form of poetry. Just as a song is meant to be sung or played, a poem is meant to be spoken. We wanted to explore how these seemingly (but not really) different artforms could be mutually experienced and expressed.  

What we did: In a sense, Mr. Frankling played the "straight rhythm" teaching the music lesson for the day for the first part of the class followed by my "swing rhythm" with poetry in the latter part of each class. However, it was never a hard switch from music to poetry but rather a time where the principles or songs learned in the first part of class could now be interpreted, applied, or adapted in performing our selected poem. This became our col(laboratory) space/time.

Openness: While music and poetry are in themselves perfect bedfellows to the idea of openness, it has been a pedagogical theme song for this year of remote/hybrid teaching/learning. The plurality of interpretive possibilities between music and poetry merged in literal ways with the personal lifeworlds of students/teachers learning/teaching from their homes.  

Physical Education (PE) with Ms. Walls

Big Idea: Let's Play

Inquiry Question: How can we play together apart? 

Project: The experience of playing and with others is at the heart of both team sports and ensemble performance. In fact, the two share relatable terminologies and processes: court/field/stage, blocking, games, audience, motivation, practice/rehearsal, movement, space, director/coach, cast/team, technique, warm-up, cooldown, performance, etc. It wouldn't be a difficult conceptual leap for students even though the two practices have divergent objectives with one aiming to tell a story and the other to be the victor in a competition. Still, stories are in everything and, just about anything can inspire a story. Most importantly, however, given the remote/hybrid context of school, we wanted to see how we could foster the "spirit" of play and playing together that is so essential in a physical education class and a performance art ensemble. 

What we did: Ms. Walls and I worked to fuse activities of ensemble play with her teachings of sports histories, rules, and techniques. We followed a class structure that was familiar to both of us; warm-up, main activity, and cool down/closing. While her warm-ups focused on physical exercise games which students did individually, my own warm-up games required collective participation with two or more people playing and usually for a "win." These were the moments that felt most like familiar play. These moments were sometimes difficult to muster or sustain when there were more silent icons than faces. We tried breakout rooms for some of the creative applications to unit sessions and these too were a hit or miss. Students sometimes just logged off or just didn't know how to get the activity going on their own despite the instructions and examples they were given. We found that students participated better sometimes when we approached an activity together as a whole class; the energy of participating students drawing reluctant ones to join in via camera or chat.   

The Meme Stories:

We decided to use images from basketball games for students to identify rules and techniques but also for imagining the behind the pic stories. Initially, students found this challenging until we pivoted the idea into memes which they intuitively understood.  The warm-up into this activity included having students make faces, freeze, a selected student was then pinned by the rest of the class who had to come up with funny but not mean meme statements for their frozen pose. We then reviewed and reacted to age-appropriate basketball memes we found online. Finally, students were given a group of unmemed basketball images to create their own meme stories, a series we called Court Tales.  

Jump Rope Songs:

Jumping rope would seem like the quintessential childhood activity, but surprisingly, most of the students in this unit didn't know how to jump rope which meant they also didn't have jump ropes at home. Making DIY jump ropes brought on some frustration not to speak of having to graduate from not knowing how to jump rope to creating a rope jumping routine. The one part of this unit that students did get into was the jump rope songs. We recited some tried and true ones with jumping activities, adapted them, and also created our own original songs. 

Songs 

• School starts at 8 o’clock and don’t be late. Sign your name on the golden slate (spell out your name with each jump)

• I like coffee, I like tea, I’d like _____ (Name)  to jump with me. (call someone's name to start jumping, then they start the song and add someone else to the jump and on and on)  

• Say this sharply, say this sweetly, say this shortly, say this softly, say this sixteen time very quickly (jump count 16 times) (this one is actually a tongue twister)

• Apples, Peaches, Pears, and Plums, tell me when your birthday comes. Jan, Feb, March, April, etc (jump out when you get to your birthday month)

• Candy, candy, in a dish, how many pieces do you wish, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. (keep counting your jumps till you mess up)

• My mother made a chocolate cake, how many eggs did it take? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, (keep counting your jumps till you mess up)

Adapted

• P.E. starts at 10:45 so don’t be late. Sign your name on the golden slate; (spell out your name with each jump)

• I like cake, I like cookies, I’d like _____ (name) to jump with me.  

Original Compositions

• I bought a jar of pickles, it cost a lot of nickels. How many nickels did it take, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, (keep counting by 5s)

• I bought a jar of honey; it cost a lot of money. How much money is a jar of honey? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 7. 9, etc. (keep counting till you mess up).