MIKE KACHUBA
TEACHER WORKSHOP: SONGWRITING TO THE CMTS FOR – A METHOD OF WRITING AND ASSESSMENT IN THE CLASSROOM SETTING
Objective: To demonstrate songwriting as a multiple intelligence based writing skill that can be incorporated into the CMT Language Arts preparation and to demonstrate how songwriting can be used as an assessment tool.
Goals: Teachers will learn and be able to use basic “songwriting for non-musician” concepts so that these concepts will be utilized in a classroom setting as a method for students to prepare for the CMT Language Arts.
Overview: Song writing is an excellent way to learn succinct writing techniques. Using samples from the open-ended writing section from the Language Arts CMT Handbook teachers will learn how to write songs with students and address the CT State Department of Education’s Position Statement on Language Arts, especially as it pertains to writing in a variety of formats, reading and interpreting texts, composing, revising and editing written materials, and communicating with others. In addition, this workshop will help create classrooms that are rich learning environments fostering literacy in all students.
Outline of Workshop:
Introduction to song structure and samples of student work
Getting to the heart of the story
Reading and recalling a piece of literature
Critical assessment of the story
Building a lyric model
Adding melody
Assessment and wrap up
Eileen Dulen Jennings
Eileen’s Professional Development Series provides teachers with an opportunity to explore the use of the arts in teaching and learning. She offers various strategies to develop arts-integrated lessons which deepen and demonstrate student learning across the curriculum with emphasis on literacy and science. With no arts experience requirements, the workshops present a safe and supportive environment in which to discover the impact of the arts and creative thinking on standards-based instruction and assessment. Teachers will learn the foundations of the arts discipline and curriculum content, experience lessons and are provided tools for future planning. Workshops are hands-on, collaborative and tailored for specific district and school needs.
1. American Sign Language and Teaching: Classroom Management and Community Building
In this 2 hour workshop, teachers will learn the basics of American Sign Language and the various ways it can be utilized in the classroom. Silent Lunch and Morning Meetings, Visual Directions, Non-Verbal Book Reports are just a few of the many activities that will be introduced. These simple strategies are fun way to develop a classroom community and help with classroom management.
2. Theatre in the Classroom: Instruction and Assessment
Uncover new ways to introduce concepts and provide assessment opportunities with the use of theatre strategies and techniques. No longer just a school play, the use of theatre arts integrated lessons helps students think conceptually, work collaboratively and express themselves. This workshop is designed to help teachers discovers ways to apply the foundations of theatre in all curricular areas – from instruction to assessment. Tools for working with reluctant student presenters will also be addressed. A full day workshop provides teachers with an in-depth exploration of the artform and integration as well as the structuring of a classroom production.
3. Using Writing and Theatre to Explore Science
In this workshop teachers will discover how closely the conceptual, creative and scientific thinking processes are linked. Through ensemble theatre exercises and personal writing experiences we identify further parallels between various scientific concepts and artforms. This training provides teachers with an opportunity to learn various approaches to teaching science concepts in conjunction with district texts. The results are lessons that engage and inspire higher order thinking – skills required in scientific processing. Specific theatre and writing exercises are implemented for teaching conceptual physics and earth science content including but not limited to: the water cycle, molecular bonding, states of matter, energy, light and many other topics.
4. Strategies That Work – A Visual Arts Approach to Comprehension
Utilizing Harvey/Goudvis’ “Strategies That Work”, this workshop provides teachers an opportunity to experience concepts of reading comprehension through a visual arts approach. “Viewing Strategies” is an arts-integrated approach developed to help teachers come to know the meaning of comprehension. Anchor works of famous paintings are the base from which each comprehension strategy is analyzed. Teachers will learn how to make connections, develop questions, visualize, make inferences, determine importance and synthesize, supporting the belief that the arts encourage higher order thinking and enhance learning. The benefits are a deeper understanding of the strategies allowing for smoother and more meaningful application, as well as a stronger appreciation of how the arts can used to improve student performance.
Fee: $540 for 2 hour workshop, $745 for full day
MIKE KACHUBA
LITERACY, MUSIC AND ART
Songwriter, Master Teaching Artist and former teacher, Mike Kachuba, leads this professional development workshop that focuses on connecting selected artwork from the New Britain Museum of American Art to writing and the Connecticut curriculum standards. Teachers will learn how both visual art and song writing can be used in the classroom to teach curricular concepts; and how to write a song, even with limited formal knowledge of music concepts. Communication through visual art work and song writing is explored. This workshop is for general educators, music, language and visual art specialists.
Fee: $540 for 2 hour workshop, $745 for 4 hours
LESLIE BULION
SCIENCE IS PURE POETRY
Children’s author Leslie Bulion leads this interdisciplinary workshop that connects the language and concepts of science to the art of writing poetry and visual arts. Teachers will learn how poetry can be used in the classroom to further science curricula and how science can provide the building blocks for entertaining and creative poetry. Teachers will explore the basic form and function of poetry and will practice writing science-based poems.
Fee: $540 for 2 hour workshop, $745 for 4 hours
ANNE PASQUALE
USING THEATRE IN YOUR CLASSROOM
A unique hands-on workshop in teaching across the curriculum via theatrical improvisation . Employing the art form as taught by Viola Spolin ,teachers will gain a myriad of tools for communicating complicated curriculum concepts in Science, Social Studies, History and Literature in a non-static and kinesthetically joyful way. Concrete examples of curriculum as catalysts such as : primary sources , historical events, patterns of social change classroom texts etc., will be employed as participants , play creative dramatic games,create storyboards, write and or perform dramatic skits all while having fun.
Fee: $675 for a 2 hour workshop, $945 for 4 hour workshop
SUSAN ROSANO
EXPRESSIVE ARTS
Dance & Movement in the Classroom – This session will teach the basics of doing dance & movement exercises in the classroom for children of all ages, from pre-school to sixth grade. Aside from the physical benefits, dance & movement exercises provide calming sensory integration, feelings of community, cooperation and can be tied in to classroom subjects. This session will start out with sensory integration dances and end with a dance circle. Teachers will practice facilitating during this session.
Poetry and Journaling in the Classroom – Facilitating poetry writing with students and techniques for eliciting feelings through writing will be explored. Classroom creation of poems that include emotional expression, personal histories and memoirs will be taught. Forms that help with the writing of poems to express feelings will be constructed.
Fee: $540 for 2 hour workshop, $745 for 4 hours
CLAUDIA MATTHISON
VISUAL ART
An artist and educator, Claudia has brought her unique blend of traditional crafts and culture to the Wadsworth Athenaeum, the Mattatuck Museum, Guilford Art Center, and schools and libraries throughout New England. She holds a masters degree in Art Education and is on the faculty at the Guilford Art Center where she has taught teacher in service programs and art educational workshops for C. E. U. credit. Claudia’s diverse background in the arts and cultures enables her to bring the highest quality program to educators from varying disciplines.
Social Studies, Language Arts, and Math for Grades K to 6 -Claudia teaches fun and educational hands on art and craft workshops that easily translate to a classroom setting and will compliment social studies or language art programs. Her workshops give the classroom teacher the confidence to bring the arts to their students and a better understanding of how traditional crafts were created. Claudia will discuss methods to make all projects age appropriate.
Colonial American Workshops:
Basket Weaving: Each teacher will weave a small basket with a wooden base and natural reed.
Patchwork Quilt: Basic quilting techniques will be demonstrated and teachers will make a small patchwork pillow.
Canvas Journal and Ships Log: Bookbinding, calligraphy, stenciling and sailing ships will be discussed while each participant creates their own canvas journal. The class will have an opportunity to experiment writing with a quill feather pen.
Painted Floor Cloth: Painting techniques such as sponging, stenciling, rag rolling and tape designs will be incorporated into one of a kind floor cloths similar to the type made in Colonial America.
Native American Workshops: Basket Weaving/Same as above. Canvas Par fleche Bag bags were traditionally made from animal hides. Teachers will sew a canvas bag that will be decorated with colorful symbols and beads.
Navaho Sand Painting, Dry sand designs are said, by the Navaho, to represent ancient paintings done on the clouds by the Gods. Sand painting will be made using colorful sand on boards.
Multi Cultural Crafts-African Adinkra Cloth: Colorful fabric, paint, stamps and thread will be used to embellish a traditional Adinkra Cloth from Africa. The children’s book, “The Talking Cloth” will be discussed. Basket Weaving / same as above
Mexican Day of the Dead Celebration of Crafts: El dia de los muertos, or day of the dead, is one of Mexico’s most important celebrations. The beautifully illustrated children’s book “Day of the Dead Celebration” will be discussed. Traditional project could include decorative sugar skulls, tin ornaments, a retablo or fanciful skeletons.
Math Quilts and Math: Basic quilting techniques will be demonstrated and teachers will design and sew a small patchwork pillow. Teachers will be able to assist their students with recognizing symmetry, exploring fractions within a quilt square, identifying patterns in quilts and the environment and explaining the aesthetic qualities of a quilt.
Fee: $540 for 2 hour workshop, $745 for 4 hours
Sarah D. Haskell
Sarah D. Haskell is an award winning artist/educator who has been weaving and teaching for over twenty five years. She is an active artist in schools, communities and institutions in New England as well as a faculty member at Heartwood College of Art, Kennebunkport, ME. She has trained with the Kennedy Center for the Arts Education Program and the Creative Center, New York, NY.
Read Between the Lines: Integrating Weaving with Language Arts
Have you ever noticed that weaving and written text have a lot in common? Both written text and weaving are built with lines of information. In writing, we use words to build our stories and tell our information. In weaving, we use a variety of materials from yarns to plastic, leather, ribbon, paper, and fabric to tell our stories.
This Hands-On workshop will introduce tools and techniques for integrating weaving and language arts.
Using readily available, inexpensive weaving materials and equipment, we will build weavings that become a threshold for a piece of writing. These weavings will spring from a story such as the Greek myth of Philomela and Procne, or personal anecdotes.
From this weaving, grows a writing, followed by a time for sharing. This writing then becomes a doorway for a new weaving.
Weavings are built line by line in a methodical and meditative process. During this process, the mind wanders, travels, and comes back to focus. Each line we put into our weavings becomes rich with thought and encoded with information.
The weaving becomes a language which can be translated into written text. The beauty of this process is in its simplicity, and its accessibility to all ages and abilities of participants.
Resource materials and handouts are provided for participants to support the weaving and writing process. “Read Between the Lines” is a magical process for self discovery, and will produce successful and surprising results for every artist/author.
Materials fee: approximately $5.00 per participants for fibers, looms, papers, glue, drawing materials, and assorted equipment. Participants can bring: magazines, fancy papers, photos, yarns and other fiber materials such as ribbon, string, fabric, lace, wire, tubes, plastic, and leather.
Brian Gillie
Program Name: Teacher Training in Dance: Ballroom, Folk, Swing, Hip Hop and Student Choreography
Teacher In-Service Residencies: These extended workshops help teachers become familiar with all the tools necessary for bringing dance into the lives of their pupils. Teachers will learn important information about: designing the space, music selections, how body parts work in isolation and in combination, concepts of strength, endurance, patterns and rhythms, interaction with the students and the issue of “boys vs. girls,” movement exercises, demonstration, ice-breaking activities, structures of the various dances, stringing steps together, inventing a dance from scratch, group evaluation and much more. You do not need to be a dancer to provide an excellent atmosphere effective dance experience.
Workshop Description:
These teacher in-service workshops and residency programs are designed to address and enhance the critical thinking skills of your emerging artists. Studies show that accessing personal awareness through the arts enables students to achieve empowerment and leadership skills. Through the camaraderie of team accomplishment, dancing has a “force” to build community and to facilitate communication, transformation and growth. Students learn that their thinking “matters,” and that inspiration comes from both the mind and the heart.
CT Academic Standards for Dance call for students to create, evaluate and perform art works that express concepts of dance. Dance history illuminates human experience and values and reveals facets of different cultures. In creating dances students learn to apply choreographic principals and analytical thinking and to make connections between dance, personal accomplishment and healthful living.
Teachers will learn to help students to improvise, to build a complete dance form a single phrase, to explore the joys of solo, partnered and team composition, and to feel history come alive by doing authentic steps from our diverse dance heritage. Brian helps faculty prepare for a high quality performance or video. Teachers will also learn sequential and effective ways of implementing safe and rewarding techniques for providing positive, doable and memorable dance experiences for even the most reluctant students.
Studies show (the Mozart Effect and learning curves based on the Multiple Intelligences) that early movement experiences improve overall academic performance and well-being.
Teachers will become versed in training techniques that address the following four areas of dance:
Never Too Small To Boogie, for grades K – 2. This workshop addresses CT State Academic Standards for Dance in learning basic loco-motor movements, spatial concepts, accuracy in moving to a musical beat, memorizing simple movement phrases, working alone and with a partner, creating and performing simple dances, learning some simple folk dances and evaluating dance styles and performance. The workshops advance the theories of multiple intelligences by providing opportunities to build a dance by adding the movement of one body part to another, then changing the rules by doing it low, large, in reverse, in slow-motion, etc. Movement exploration is essential for accessing information on one’s own strength, balance, coordination and what the body is capable of doing.
American Folk Dances from 1700 – 1930, for grades 3 – 8. This workshop addresses CT State Academic Standards for Dance in learning about the principals of alignment, balance and articulation of body parts; the memorization and reproduction of movement sequences; demonstrating ABA, canon and call and response patterns; creating sequences that repeat, contrast and lead to a climax; working cooperatively in small groups; supporting and counter-balancing the weight of a partner; learning and understanding social and theatrical dances from a broad spectrum of history; describing, comparing and contrasting the roles of dance in different cultures; creating duets and rounds; creating warm-up exercises; and assessing the health benefits of dance, Students learn specific solo, group and partnered dances and their origins and histories from this span of two hundred years and include: circle dances, line dances, square dances, grand march, clog, cakewalk, one-step, grizzly bear, slow drag, camel walk, ragtime dances, blues dances and charleston.
Ballroom and Rock Dances of the Last 100 Years, for grades 3 – 12. This workshop addresses the CT State Academic Standards for Dance as stated in number 2 above. Students learn the major social dances of the past century, their origins and histories: waltz, polka, foxtrot, tango, swing, rumba, cha cha, merengue, samba, stroll, twist, ‘60s rock dances, moonwalk, robotics and hip hop.
Swing Dance Intensive, for grades 4 – 12. This workshop addresses CT State Academic Standards for Dance as stated in number 2 above. Students learn the origins and history of swing, then master the high-energy partnered jumps, kicks, turns and fancy footwork that made swing dancing America’s favorite dance. Students learn a three-minute swing dance routine.
DENNIS WARING
The TransAtlantic Experience for Teachers
Through fun, informed musical activity featuring the latest techniques and resources, ethnomusicologist Dr. Dennis Waring involves participants in song and instrument play representative of three interconnected cultural traditions: Africa, Cuba, and Brazil. By singing and drumming traditional music of Africa, playing characteristic Cuban rhythms, and experiencing the Brazilian samba, participants will more fully appreciate how four hundred years of intersecting musical folkways have shaped a large portion of today’s global expressive culture. This show is intended for small to medium-size groups for maximum participation.
Africa
After an introduction to instruments found in a typical drumming ensemble of West Africa (bells, rattles, various drums), and viewing an introductory video, players will learn simple songs and create traditional polyrhythms characteristic to the culture. A follow-up activity of learning a recreational piece from Ghana called Gahu.
Cuba
Cuba offers the greatest insight of how African music influenced the music of many Latin American countries. By learning about the various percussion instruments in a standard Cuban rhythm ensemble (cowbell, claves, maracas, bongos, conga drums), paraticipants experience through playing how the intricate polyrhythms fit together. Further insight into various styles of Cuban music such as mambo, chachacha, rumba, and santeria, provide special understanding of Cuban culture in general.
Brazil
Brazil is musically noteworthy for the samba. The street samba or batucada samba, heard during the annual Carnival festivities, is most interesting for its special percussion instruments (surdo, reco-reco, ganza, panderio, etc.). Invariably involving song and dance, the samba is known around the world for its intoxicating, driving rhythms and spirit.
Teachers will gain:
- A working knowledge of selected world drumming traditions—their history, music literature, and sources in art and folk traditions.
- An awareness of the pluralistic nature of most musical traditions.
-An understanding of various culture’s musical organization form many perspectives: value systems, relationships to language, musical structure, transmission strategies, social hierarchies and, within their socio-cultural contexts, the relationship of music to the other arts, religion, philosophy, and human values.
-An understanding of the fine points of performance, improvisation, and composition in more than one tradition.
-An understanding of the political, social, technological and economic factors which affect the arts in various cultures in order to make informed decisions as listeners, composers, consumers, and/or patrons, taxpayers, and voters.
-An appreciation of classical, folk, tribal and popular musics as essential to a population’s local, regional, national and global identity.
-Development of non-ethnocentric views and positive attitudes regarding diversity issues.
-Recognition of the interconnectedness of all subject disciplines.
CUBANA
Arts Integration for Teachers of all Subject Areas: These methods workshops present meaningful ways to use music and dance in other disciplines.
Participants learn strategies for integrating music and dance in other content areas, with a focus on presenting curriculum through the music and dance intelligences and on deepening students’ multicultural understanding.
Music Teachers: Study with a Cuban master folk musician:
. Latin percussion, guitar, tres, vocals, bass, composition & improvisation . Cuban son & its musical roots
Dance Teachers: Cuban dance genres