Cambridge+Springs+Drama+2+-+Spring+2012

Please keep this information up-to-date.
**Teaching Artist:** ** Box of Light Studios **

**Art Specialist:** ** Cory Wilkerson **

**Core Group Teachers (A teaching artist may work with up to 3 "core" teachers.):**
 * S hani Kingsley, Kindergarten **
 *  Kenda Murdock, Kindergarten **
 * Rebecca Leandro, First Grade **

**Planning Date(s) (To be facilitated by an Art Specialist):** **Friday January 6th, 2012**

**Date(s) when Teaching Artist observes the school culture and classrooms:** 1/9/2012

**Residency Dates:**

This residency begins on January 9 and ends on Feb. 10.

The daily schedule is:

9:20-10:00 Shani Kingsley, kindergarten

10:00-10:40 Kenda Murdock, kindergarten

12:45-1:45 Becky Leandro, first grade

The weekly schedule is:

Jan 9-13.

Jan 17-19

Jan 23-27

Jan 30 - Feb 2 (no afternoon class)

Feb. 6 - 10

**Documentation (Please add your video, photo & other documentation here):**

[|Residency Planning Form - K-1 Final.docx]



**__Artist Reflection__**


 * We are working on storytelling in this residency, focusing on the parts of a story (beginning, middle, end, characters, setting, plot and problem (conflict). We will explore storytelling live, with cameras, clay (stop motion), film and through graphic books in the course of the residency.**


 * Week 1:**
 * We began each class with a live story, told by Rand or Lethan. This did many things. It modeled storytelling for the kids and, because our stories were interactive, gave them a chance to play a part in the performance. The beginning of every class also included a physical game or activity that worked on balance, coordination, concentration and began to build the students' ability to 'play their part' with Lethan or Rand. Our physical activities and storytelling required the students to closely watch us (Lethan and Rand) for their cue or to follow our actions. This will pay off as we get to filmmaking. The students will have a sense of physical concentration and know how to hit their mark and perform their part. Our first week was also spent just getting the students familiar with the cameras, their images on screen and the process of filmmaking. We created some simple stop action counting videos, alphabet live action videos with the kindergarteners.**
 * Lethan recreated our alphabet videos as books in Comic Life. (See our Comic Life tutorial video below.)**


 * We created live action beginning/middle/end and spelling videos with the first graders.**


 * We feel we're off to a great start.**

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 * While working with the students, we put together an alphabet video staring the students and referencing objects found around the class room. This video was then turned into a comic book using comic life with pictures extracted from the video, allowing students to revisit this lesson by seeing themselves and their classmates. Below is a Quicktime video showing the pages of the comic book.**

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 * Here's a quick tutorial video for Comic Life, the software we use to turn our movies into books.**

Week 2 at Cambridge Springs reflection:

For this week, we continued to work with K and 1st graders on physical and verbal self control through mirroring exercises and by responding correctly to storytelling. We also worked on the concepts of Beginning, Middle, and End by creating short films and clarifying the respective parts of each story. The first graders took this exercise one step further by composing original stories inspired by real events. These stores were then turned into short films, again emphasizing the appropriate sections of stories. According to the teacher, this inspired several students who had previously avoided writing to compose short stories at a higher level then they had perviously reached. (see video below)

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 * Final project movies**
 * Parker's Hat:** This movie is an adaptation of Jan Brett's THE HAT. In Brett's book a hedgehog ends up with a hat stuck to his quills. As other animals ask why he is wearing the hat in such a strange way, the hedgehog makes up various reasons and, in the end, all of the animals end up following his example.

In our version, we decided that we would use the kindergarten classroom as the world of the story with a likeable, hapless student rather than a hedgehog. The class is making paper snowmen and the student, Parker, gets the snowman's hat stuck to various part of his body. The other students respond like the animals in the book and the result is the same.

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 * Finding Lilly:** In this movie, we took a story about a penguin searching for its home and adapted it to express a kindergartener's experience with the seeming vastness of a primary school. In our story, Lilly, who is not paying attention, gets separated from her class. Her classmates search for her, following clues throughout the school.

media type="youtube" key="_4P8juEsJfY" height="315" width="420" In this project, done with Ms. Leandro's first grade students, we re-told Celia Warren's book POLES APART. In the book, Walrus and Penguin, who live on opposite poles, travel to visit each other. We stuck to the characters in the book in this instance. The kids played penguins, parrots, huskies and more. Jo Vargo, the art teacher and building champion, created some wonderful backgrounds for the different locations of the movie. The book takes the characters to each location but doesn't go into detail about what might happen in the locations. This gave us a chance to imagine what might happen when Walrus met a team of huskies or Penguin encountered kangaroos for the first time. The scenes and dialog we added were created by the students.
 * Poles Apart**

media type="youtube" key="OPJteP1gPFQ" height="315" width="420" We took the students' film and recreated it as a printable book version. This file presents the book as a slideshow but the book itself is a file that can be printed and placed on the classroom's bookshelf.
 * Poles Apart, printable book version**

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We finally turned our Poles Apart film into an iBook that can exist on the school's iPads. Students can then flip through the book on their iPad. This is the fifth engagement with the book for the students. They read the book, recreated it as film scenes, performed the scenes, watched the movie and read their new version of the book. They can hold the printed version of their project, flip through it on an iPad or watch it on their computer. In the iBook, the students can both read the book and watch their movie. We expect to upload the iBook to the iTunes store where parents can download it for free.
 * Poles Apart, iBook version**

media type="youtube" key="PTTsAPyQnA8" height="315" width="420" The above clip is one created with Ms. Leandro's first graders. We were focusing on beginnings, middles and ends of stories. The students were asked to write the story down and, once it was written, they could put it on video. This was a great, simple, efficient use of video as a supplement to a writing task. The videos were quick to make and required very little editing.
 * Beginnings, middles and ends.**

I think that the process of filming with kindergarteners is as important as the storyline of any film. The process of filmmaking involves listening and following directions, remembering lines and action and developing emotional awareness (placing oneself in an imagined situation and responding appropriately). They are also learning a very structured process and can become pretty independent in running that process.
 * Thoughts about using film with kindergarteners.**

Students making films need to cooperate and be aware of the needs of the group. They learn to be quiet (hopefully) when they hear 'quiet on the set' and move or act as a cohesive group. We always try to say 'Quiet on the set, please' to get quiet and 'thank you' in setting up the shot. The 'please' and 'thank you' words also help keep things flowing smoothly. Kids will want to shout out 'quiet on the set!' as if they are commanding quiet. We try to get them to use gentler words and tones. It makes a big difference in the atmosphere of the shoot.

Kids love to see themselves on video. One virtue of this use of video is that kids are excite to get on camera. They will be motivated to acquire knowledge (put together a story with a beginning, middle and end or find an object that starts with the letter 'K' ) in order to show their work on camera. Getting on camera is requires them to transform that knowledge into performance, a kinesthetic experience. Once they are on camera, they will again interact with that knowledge as viewers. And, they will view their movies multiple times.
 * Transforming knowledge, a three step process when using video.**

It is good that the making of a film is as important as the story that is made. Making a film that follows a story is a big project and I can see how this project would be difficult or un-doable for an individual teacher. Smaller projects, like the alphabet videos posted above, are more practical for a classroom teacher. The editing job is simpler and the results are seen much more quickly. In smaller projects, the video can be used to give students almost immediate feedback on an activity. Becky Leandro's short story films (see below) are also good examples of how to use video to support writing activities. Becky got the process down to 10 minutes for creating a film. This, to me seems workable in a classroom situation.
 * Big film projects vs. little film projects.**

We will be uploading the Poles Apart book and both Alphabet books to the iTunes store where they can be downloaded by parents for free. [|KIngsley iBook1.tiff]Two pages from Ms. Kingsley's Alphabet iBook are posted above. The first image is of the book's cover. The second shows a page of the book. The black rectangle holds the video in the actual book. Users will click on the video to see it play.
 * Transformations and connections to parents.**

At this time, we are planning to just recreate the still image books but creating an iBook that incorporates video is possible. We might just not have the time do to it. It is this connection to parents that is one of the great strengths of video in the classroom. Because parents will keep, view and share these files, they are interacting with the project and the life of the classroom that they cannot when just reading a page of text. It would be good, at some point, to work with a teacher on creating a series of such videos/iBooks intended to teach parents. Parents tend to leave the education of their children to classroom teachers more and more as their children progress in school. It would be interesting to explore how this technology could be used to counteract that.

As I write this, we have finished our third Art In Action residency focused on the use of video and stop action animation. In each residency, we have created videos and transformed them into printable books or iBooks. Because of the volume of work we are creating, the amount of available time it takes to shoot, edit and transform the material, we have never had the time we wanted to be sure the teachers with whom we are working were comfortable using the cameras, editing and page layout software. We have put up one video tutorial but I think the video tutorials serve better as reminders than as first line teachers. It makes sense for us to see if it is possible to do a day long workshop for all of the teachers with whom we have worked (and any other interested teachers/artists) on using cameras, editing and transforming videos into books and iBooks. Likewise, it is impossible to both create a project such as a filmed story, edit it and transform it into other media files within the timeframe of a residency. We routinely spend an additional one to two weeks on our residencies after leaving the classroom finishing the films and transforming the files. Both the creation of the films and the transforming of the files are important. It is the big ticket item, the filmed story, that most excites the students and parents. I think we need to make some decisions in future residencies about which part of the process is more important; making the film or developing ways for students to re-engage in the film. This decision is related to the need to find time for teachers to learn the software for creating books and iBooks. At this point, Box Of Light personnel create the books as examples of what can be done because we have not had time to develop these skills in the teachers. If we could find that time, it would be the teachers who create the books and iBooks, freeing Box Of LIght's time for the film editing that is less important to the teachers.
 * World enough and time, thoughts about an ongoing difficulty in the use of video in the classroom.**

__ **Residency Planning Documents** __ (Please upload copies of your residency planning documents here. They will include the Residency Planning Guide, Residency Plan Worksheet, Residency Observation for Artists, and Standards Based Lesson Plans. To find blank copies of these forms, visit the Useful Forms page of the wiki.)

[|Residency Planning Form - K-1 Final.docx]