Links | Arts Alive! | Curriculum

Round Valley Arts Curriculum

*emphasis in Seventh Grade

I. ARTISTIC PERCEPTION AND RESPONSE

Students refine their abilities to recognize dramatic elements in a variety of sources.  They talk and write about what they see and experience, such as:

1.      *interactions between people (observe different roles people play in relationships,

2.      *sounds, smells, and other sensations which evoke certain feelings,

3.      dramatic conflict in real life situations, plays, novels, short stories, history, or social studies,

4.      universal themes in drama (peace, nature, personal expression, etc.),

5.      changes in dramatic elements that create variations and how they affect feeling and meaning.

Students will be exposed to these terms:

II.  CREATIVE EXPRESSION

Students communicate observations, feelings, ideas, and experiences about their own world. They create drama based on real events, stories, poems, and places. They use imagination to develop these foundational skills.

1.      *Nonverbal (develop awareness of body, movement, and space.

·        Do warm-up and isolation exercises.

·        Play theatre games.

2.      *Verbal

·        Practice vocal warm-ups.

·        Do vocal exercises.

·        Debate an issue (understand that conflict is the essence of drama).

·        Mediate a disagreement between friends.

3.      Improvisation

·        Practice sense memory exercises/improvisation.

·        Practice improvisation (scenes from real life).

·        Build a character from both the inside and the outside.

4.      Performance

·        Practice poetry, speaking solo and in creative ensemble (oral interpretation, choral reading).

·        Direct one another in scene study (scenes, monologues or dialogues from plays or adaptations of stories or events).

·        Dramatize a classic short story, legend or myth, or write an original one-act play.

·        Assign roles (actors, stage managers, prop persons, music and sound, lights, set design, construction, and advertising).

·        Produce a play in a classroom.
 

III. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Students increase their experiences of different kinds of artists and forms of drama from various cultures. They see, read or talk about:

1.      major theatre companies and the kind of drama generally performed by them.

2.      how to find out about performances (arts section, Sunday paper).

3.      *at least one performance of a play.

4.      doing research and writing about theatre history (e.g., early Greek theatres, medieval guild performances [wagons], Japanese No and Kabuki [Shinto shrines]; famous actors and actresses; playwrights).

IV. AESTHETIC VALUING

Students refine their ability to talk and write about their reflections on performances. They:

1.      *make informed responses to performances (plays, television, film, and puppet plays) using objective evaluative criteria,

2.      identify plot construction, conflict, resolution, character development, style,

3.      derive and interpret the meaning of a play,

4.      are introduced to drama criticism, by:

·        reading an example of dramatic criticism.

·        writing a simple critical review of a work they have seen.

V. CONNECTIONS, RELATIONS, APPLICATIONS

Students understand relationships between the arts and with disciplines outside of the arts by:

1.      Having access of the historical and technical information through appropriate support software.

2.      Being introduced to music, dance, art as mediums of dramatic mood in theater.

3.      Cheating written scenes using appropriate language arts guidelines.

4.      Being introduced to video production, use of technology, and software used in video editing.