The exercises in this plan are designed for students to exercise improvisation skills and creative thinking in dance movement. The exercises could be used as warm-up activities, or could lead to a larger choreographic project. This instructional plan is designed to be used in parts or whole.

Dancers will learn to choreograph dance using the chance method. The basic elements of dance will outline each step of the project, and dancers will roll dice to land on movement choices in each category to create their phrase. 

Digital Media is a growing artistic element in Theatre Production. This unit covers common film/media terminology, introduces the career field of the theatrical digital media director, provides instruction on best practices for filming using cell phones or a laptop, introduces editing strategies, and culminates in a creative product by the student.

Students will demonstrate knowledge of rhythmic literacy by playing Disappearing Rhythms. Students will identify and perform simple rhythms, and improve audition skills, as well as accuracy and fluency of rhythmic music literacy, through repetition in a fast-paced environment.

This sample lesson is designed to enrich student exploration of existing class choreography.  Students will explore each of Laban’s effort actions and understand how each action engages time, space, and weight. Students will practice a choreographed movement phrase, manipulating effort actions to perform in a qualitatively rich manner. This lesson offers students the opportunity to demonstrate creative agency within a predetermined structure (the original choreography).

Students will learn about new media and “Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii” by Nam June Paik. Students will create an animation depicting an aspect of an assigned region of Virginia, then add it to a collaborative class map. 

This unit plan contains seven lessons taking students through activities related to elements of dance skills and vocabulary.

In this lesson, students will use a recording platform to layer tracks and produce a small ensemble piece as the only performer. This process encourages individual accountability and emphasizes the importance of ensemble performance skills.

Students will explore copyright and intellectual property standards as they relate to music, music technology, and digital citizenship. Students will apply their understanding of copyright law to complete the copyright process for an original work. Students will further apply their understanding by participating in a class debate about real-world copyright issues raised by a song that sets original lyrics to an older song.

The musical form call and response has roots in West Africa and acts as a form of communication and participation in music. In this lesson, students will participate in performance, composition, and listening activities on call and response form using music from Ghana.

Students will use a folk song to explore improvisation using a variety of singing, body percussion, and musical instruments.

In this lesson, students respond to music in triple meter and discover facts about the famous Japanese film music composer, Joe Hisaishi. Literary connections and global music concepts are also explored through the picture book The Sound of Silence by Katrina Goldsaito.

While being introduced to a variety of poets, students will be able to find personal connections with the works. These personal connections will be developed into narrative illustrations of their own life.

Students will learn a song about the seven simple machines. Students will collaborate to use three simple machines to create their own inventions. They will perform and demonstrate what their inventions will look like using body movements. Students will then have time to reflect on their inventions, how they can be used, and illustrate them on paper.

Students will create and perform scenes using tableaux in order to further understand acting techniques, physical techniques, character development, and theatrical direction.

Students will learn or review the concept of tempo and the appropriate music terminology associated with it. They will show understanding by discussing tempo changes in music, moving their bodies to different tempos, and coding Ozobots to move at different tempos.

This unit of study allows for students to gain understanding and confidence in figure drawing over a series of 3 separate lessons that result in a collaborative mural. These lessons can be used to facilitate an assessment of student growth and skills development, while still encouraging expression through different types of art explorations and working both individually and collaboratively.

Instrumental students will learn strategies and skills to effectively perform with dynamic balance as an instrumental ensemble. Students will experience and execute various exercises to achieve balance as a trio, section, instrument family, and full ensemble.

Students will learn about artists who create assemblages using found objects. After learning about colors and spatial relationships in composition, students will create an assemblage using found household objects in the color of their choice.

These dance activities are designed to increase student willingness to participate in dance and reduce their reluctance to dance. They are lead-up activities that can precede a dance unit, and can be used at the start of a new course.