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Through Dance and ELA instruction, investigation and collaboration, students will be able to create a weight-sharing shape that represents a conflict from Island of the Blue Dolphins.

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Part I: What is conflict? What is weight-sharing?

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Students explored, identified, and made connections to the four types of literary conflict during Readers Workshop and read alouds.

In the Classroom

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In the Dance Studio

Students learned the different types of weight sharing through studying images, videos.

What did you see?

What more did you see (elements of dance, etc…)?

What do you think it means? Why?

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In the Dance Studio

Students represented their own written conflicts using weight-sharing shapes. They then gave and received feedback through parallel teaching where Whitney & Fourth Grade Teachers split the class in half and had two feedback groups giving feedback using dance vocabulary simultaneously.

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Types of Weightsharing

Support

Lift

Counterbalance

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Part II: Exploring Conflicts in Island of the Blue Dolphins

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Students used their understanding of the four types of conflict to identify and categorize the conflicts found in Island of the Blue Dolphins. Students practiced justifying their reasoning with evidence from the text.

In the Classroom

and the Dance Studio

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In the Dance Studio

Small groups of 2, 3 or 4 students worked together to create a variety of weightsharing shapes to represent different conflicts in Island of the Blue Dolphins.

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Part III: Collaborating & Creating

Students began working together to design a shape that represented a specific conflict in Island of the Blue Dolphins.

Students worked to ensure that all voices and ideas were heard and honored by each designing a shape and then working together to create a final shape.

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Planning

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Photoshoot Preparation

Students were introduced to the different perspectives and angles seen in photography.

Using iPods, students explored different perspectives and angles to best share their shape.

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Part IV: Working With Travis Jensen

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Part V: Celebration at Gift of Art

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KEIRA, MOSS, BOWIE

Our weight-sharing shape represents the conflict between the women and the men of Ghalas-at. This conflict happens when the women did the men’s jobs because so many died from the battle between the villagers and the Aleuts. The men got angry because they believed that hunting and fishing were the men’s job, not the women’s. We feel that this conflict is an example of character vs. character because the women of Ghalas-at and the men of Ghalas-at are both characters and they wanted two different things.

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Teaching Others

Students worked together to plan and practice their lessons for how to teach their families and other visitors of The Gift of Art about weight-sharing.

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Standards Addressed in This Unit

Reading:

  • RL.4.1 Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
  • RL.4.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.
  • RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions).
  • RL.4.7 Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text, identifying where each version reflects specific descriptions and and directions in the text.
  • RL.4.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, drama, and poetry, in the grades 4-5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.

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Standards Addressed in This Unit

VAPA Standards:

  • Demonstrate additional partner and group skills (e.g., imitating, leading/following, mirroring, calling/responding, echoing).
  • Convey a range of feelings through shape/postures and movements.
  • Describe a specific movement, using appropriate dance vocabulary.

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National Core Dance Standards

  • Execute techniques that extend movement range, build strength, and develop endurance.
  • Make static and dynamic shapes with positive and negative space.
  • Relate movements, ideas, and context to decipher meaning in a dance using basic dance terminology.
  • Relate the main idea or content in a dance to other experiences. Explain how the main idea of a dance is similar to or different from one’s own experiences, relationships, ideas or perspectives.
  • Depict the relationships between two or more dancers in a dance phrase by drawing a picture or using symbols (for example, next to, above, below, behind, in front of).
  • Revise movement based on peer feedback and self-reflection to improve communication of artistic intent in a short dance study. Explain choices made in the process.

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