Purpose: What senses and experiences does the term “pioneer” evoke for you?
Materials Needed:
● post-it notes
● pens, pencils, or fine-tip markers
● flip-chart paper
● tables
● chairs
● an artifact or person
Set-up: Provide each participant with 5 post-it notes and pen/pencil/fine-tip marker.
Sensory Poetry Activity conducted during an arts-based workshop with the staff of the Musée Héritage Museum in St. Albert.
Directions:
Begin with introductions
Option A: Facilitator will provide participants with a series of writing prompts (give participants ~2-3 minutes to generate responses in a point form list to each of the following prompts:
Pioneer sounds like…
Pioneer smells like…
Pioneer looks like…
Pioneer tastes like …
Pioneer feels like…
Encourage participants to consider feeling as touch and/or feeling as emotion
Option B: Assign each participant an artifact and have them write what that artifact:
sounds like…
smells like…
looks like…
tastes like …
feels like…
Take time for the participants to read their post-it notes to the group
Follow-up discussion: how do personal experiences shape how we understand pioneer and how does this fit in with the narratives at the museum?
If you are continuing from the collage activity, participants can stick their post-it notes to the collage flip-chart papers
Concluding Questions:
How are our personal sensory experiences/memories of pioneer complimented or contested by the narratives in the museum?