From Fairy Tales to Myths

Good morning everyone!

The excitement is certainly building for the Winter Holiday!  Nonetheless, we were hard at work!  Here's the week in review:

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, we spent some time doing self-evaluations of our Wonder Women! quick writes from last week.  Students were given the rubric and an exemplar which we graded together.  Then, they needed to look at their own work and decide what descriptors from the rubric they were able to demonstrate.  Then then developed an action plan where they thought of next steps for reading entries they could create to show mastery.  Once they had developed their action plans, I gave them my copy of the rubric.  They could then compare how I evaluated their work versus how they evaluated their own work.

We also transitioned from fairy tales to myths.  We read a book called Icarus at the Edge of Time and then compared it to the original myth.  We used our read aloud to inform our predictions and expectations for the original myth and can apply a similar structure when making connections between mythological references in modern culture.

Social Studies

In Social Studies this week, we viewed the Animaker videos that students had created.  We also added a new entry to our online timeline Tiki-Toki.  We had to find an archaeological artifact that matched our topic/essential question and put it into our timeline.  We can then share these events with others to make comparisons.

Drama

In Drama this week, students talked about consistency in pantomime and how we make sure our invisible props like cups, phones or other items stay the same size and shape throughout a scene.  We also talked about how when we put an invisible prop down, we need to pick it up in the same spot.  We started talking about ground plans as a way to organize ourselves and our movements.  We also started talking about answering the questions: Who is the character? What is the emotion? What is the place? during a pantomimed scene.  Students will be creating their first performances in class today that will be performed next week.

Wonder Women!

Good morning everyone!

Here's what's been happening this week:

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, we have been watching a documentary called Wonder Women!   The Untold Story of Female Superheroines to add to our understanding of cultural storytelling.  We spent some time before watching the video explaining the difference between an archetype, a word we have been using a lot in our fairy tale work, and stereotype.  As they were watching the documentary they were looking for: 

Are female superheroes the archetype of a hero, the stereotype of a woman or a combination of both?  What is the perspective/opinion of the documentarian and how do you know?  What connections can you make between this documentary and fairy tales you have been reading?  If the authors are NOT in agreement, why might this be?

We then did some quick writes to respond to the questions above.  Students will be evaluating their responses to plan for next steps in our unit with skills mastery.  

Next week, we will start in on the research and writing portions of our family folklore piece.  Hopefully, your student has found some time to interview at least one family member to get some ideas for stories.

Social Studies

Students have been working feverishly on their Animaker movies about Ancient Egypt.  We will compile our Works Cited today and then start watching one another's work.  This will allow us to add to our broader understanding and add some events to our timeline next week.

Drama

The Trimester 2 drama students have transitioned to our pantomime unit.  We made sure we were secure about audience etiquette and stage directions before looking at some pantomime samples.  We defined pantomime and listed techniques used.  We will doing a series of activities that will help us practice these skills before we perform for others to receive feedback.