Colour Coordination

http://thegorillaagency.com/2011/02/11/the-psychology-of-colors-in-advertising/

Colour coordination is one of my favourite elements of art.  I love it in fashion; I love it in interior decorating; I love it in visual art.  Colours affect and often communicate emotion.  I have never been naturally talented at knowing which colours work well together.  It’s especially difficult for me, because often can't visualize something I haven't seen.  I used to always have to get my outfits approved before I left the house (and still sometimes do... but not by my brothers anymore!), because I just couldn't tell if the colours looked strange together or not. 

I decided though that I wanted that skill, because I wanted the confidence in choosing my interview outfits, decorating my house (and some day my classroom), and any other visual projects I couldn't avoid.  I realized that it could affect my career and my life some day, … which sounds a little melodramatic, but in teaching, you’re going to have a more peaceful classroom if you know how to use colour properly.  You need to design visually appealing newsletters, hand outs, websites, bulletin boards,etc. It’s also useful to be able to analyze use of colour in visual art to teach about the connection between form and context in social studies (ex: why the impressionists used different colours than Renaissance painters).  It’s great for visual learners.  Colour could also be used to analyze media and advertising.

So... I kept working at.  I analyzed my mistakes and successes until I figured out a bit of a system so that I could intuitively figure it out a little better.  I developed more awareness of how colours make me feel, together and apart.  Now, it’s a lot easier for me.  I even repainted the room where I run my inner city kids’ program (or at least I picked the colours—a couple self-sacrificing heroes painted it).  I’m happy with the colours, and so is everyone else.  The kids are calmer and more relaxed, and it feels like a comfortable space.

I think it will be important for me to share my journey with my students, because they need to know that colour coordination is often a learned skill, rather than a natural born talent.  They need to see that it is an important skill that can benefit their lives and buy into developing the ownership to build it.  I hope that I will be able to teach about colour using the colour wheel when I am teaching, so that my students can learn a little quicker than I did.

(I thought this was interesting-- not sure I agree with this completely because colour with have a slightly different association for everyone, but it was neat to see this all laid out.)

Whose Line is It—Who Knew?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_from_Whose_Line_Is_It_Anyway%3F

 

I’ve spent a great deal of time searching for improv games online, in a disorganized fashion, but last semester I discovered that Wikipedia has an entire list of ideas!  What a marvellous time saver!  I adapted several of these games and others from the Creating Meaning text for my social studies inquiry project last semester (and adapted a second time for this blog).  Some of these are also games that I played with classes I have taught and some that I created myself.  Clearly these could be adapted for almost any subject.

**Most of these games could alternatively be played with puppets (because puppets make the world better, like cheese).

-Small groups acting at the same time at different spots in the room could also work.  Two groups could be together, taking turns being the audience and actors.

-WL= Adapted from Whose Line is it Anyway?

-Charades – act out a historical figure, event, glossary term, or concept

-Who Am I? – Students have a name, event, glossary term, or concept written on their backs.  They have to go around asking classmates yes or no questions to find out what is written on their backs. 

-Backwards Who Am I? – Students know who they are and act like their historical figures (or could be done with events and terms).  Students walk around asking each other questions and trying to figure out who everyone is.  The object is to figure out the most names.

-- Pictionary Charades – One student is has to act out the term like charades.  The second student has to figure out what that student is acting out and draw the term on the board.  The third student has to figure out what the term is and write it on the board, spelled correctly.  This game could get rowdy with whole class involvement (calling out guesses), or you could ask your students to write their answers on individual whiteboards (or just pick hands and take turns).  I like the whiteboard version the best, because non draw/actors are not just waiting to be picked.  I have mainly used this game for French.

-- Director’s Skit (WL) --- a small group acts out a scene (event) in history.  After performing the short improve skit, the director yells cut, tells them that it’s all wrong, and that they need to do it another way (picks a different theme --- ex: western, musical, soap opera, see separate list on Director’s Skit post for more ideas).  The process is repeated a couple times.  The groups could change each time.   It could be helpful to save time if the themes were all written on papers and chosen out of a hat each time.

--Whose Line Papers Game (WL) – Students have papers in their pockets with unknown lines written on them (for famous quotations, terms, or concepts).  At random points in the skit, the students will take out a paper and read what it says (randomness is the key to humour here).  Will increase familiarity with terms (use early in unit, or even before teaching terms)  Glossary, drama style!

--  Freeze! (WL) – Two students at a time act out something from the unit or course.  At random intervals, other students will call out “Freeze!” The new student will jump in and take the position of one of the previous players.  The improv must be related to the course content, but can combine different points in the course to add humour.

--Scenes from a Hat (WL)--- All the students write a term on a slip of paper.  All the papers go into a hat.  Small groups will take turns acting out the terms written on the papers.

-- Newsflash (WL): One student is the field reporter, and the other two are news anchors.  Play a silent video (pictures could work too) on the screen (behind the field reporter, who is not allowed to turn around and look.  The reporter has to guess what is being shown on the screen based on the anchor’s questioning and sometimes the audience’s reactions.  (The idea is that the reporter is only standing in front of a green screen)

--Party Quirks (WL): Each student in the small group is given a term that he/she has to act out.  The party host has to guess what each student’s term is.  Once the term has been guessed, that student sits down.

-- Themed Who Wants to be a Millionaire (WL) --- Students play who wants to be a millionaire, but with a theme, like the director’s skit.

--Mission Impossible (WL) – Two students are secret agents.  A third student is the voice on tape, who reads out the mission for the other students to act out (in a boss-type voice).  The mission will be one of the terms, people, or events, which the secret agents have to act out in an exaggeratedly dangerous and intense manner (like secret agents)

--News Report (WL): Four students act out a news report of a scene from the unit/course.  One student is the news anchor, one the field reporter, another the expert, and the last student will play every other character needed.

- Game Show (WL): Three students are game show contestants and a fourth is the host.  The three contestants have secret identities (historical figures from course content).  The host has to figure out what the three identities are, based on their behaviour (caricature) and answers to two questions each.  The audience knows what the identities are.

--Talk show (Creating Meaning 221) -- student guests take on the role of a historical figure or participant in an event.  The host and audience ask the character questions (ex: how did it feel when ___ happened?  What were you the most afraid of when ____ happened)?)

-- Could be done in panel form so that several students have the chance to answer and work together.

- Narrative Pantomime (Creating Meaning 221) –Students mime as the narrator reads or tells a story


-Claudia Cornett. Creating Meaning through Literature and the Arts: Arts Integration for Classroom Teachers.

Director's Skit: The Traveling Pants of Drama Integration

How it works: A small group acts out a scene (event) in history/ story/ area of science/ math.  After performing the short improv skit, the director yells cut, tells them that it’s all wrong, and that they need to do it another way (picks a different theme --- ex: western, musical, soap opera, see separate list for more).  The process is repeated a couple times.  The groups could change each time.   It could be helpful to save time if the themes were all written on papers and chosen out of a hat each time.  THIS ONE IS ALMOST ALWAYS A HUGE HIT. 

-This could also be adapted to teach point of view, mood, tone, theme, pacing, structure, and several other skills/ concepts.

 -It is great for teaching about connections between form/ structure/ style/ mood/ theme and/or tone.  A story has a drastically different feeling/ meaning if the characters are all overly happy than if they are distraught, traumatized, or apathetic.

-Students can experience what happens when style/ structure do not correspond with literal meaning (great jump to irony and wit for older students).

-“The Director’s Skit” is a marvellous way to teach Shakespeare too, or any other text with difficult elements (or anything else, just to make it more memorable).  It’s a step up from reading aloud.  One student or more students are the narrators/ directors.  They have the text open in front of them and explain to the others what each character needs to do and say.  It is a live action, active experience of the text.  Of course, audience members get to call out for theme changes and actors are constantly changing.

Director’s Skit Theme Suggestions :

Western
Overly Happy
Underwater
Medieval Times
Halloween Time
Leprechauns
Silent Movie
Action Movie
Sitcom
Musical
Opera
Star Wars
Dancing
River Dance
Ballet
Hip Hop
Sponge Bob
Soap Opera (overly dramatic)
Overly emotional
Gangster
Multiple accents
A specific accent
Cheer leaders
Macho men
Valley girls
Opposite genders
Robots
Monotone
Angry/ easily offended
Les Misérables (sing every line)
Ninjas
Pirates
Snobbery
Over the top people pleasing
Spoiled children
Hyper children
Hippies
Paranoia
Samurais

 

Emotional Intelligence through Drama: ideas

We talked last semester about the importance of providing our students with opportunities to build their emotional and social intelligence, because that is likely going to be more important to them in their adulthood than academics will ever be.  However, the problem we discussed was how difficult it can be to teach, authentically.  I think that drama is the perfect solution to the problem!  Improvisation is especially valuable, because it teaches people to think on their feet and to accelerate problem solving.  I enjoy going to the university drama club's improv. night, because I know that is one of my weaknesses and it really does help me grow in that area.

The next problem, I suppose, would be how to integrate improv and drama in general into your regular curriculum.  Thankfully, that problem too, has a solution!  Yay for drama!!  The last year I was teaching, I started to integrate drama into my lessons, and they usually loved it.  I found it useful in helping my students grasp difficult subjects (at the time, I didn’t really realize they were also building emotional intelligence).  Drama is also useful for teaching humour, because students are able to explore what is funny, what is not, and why.

 Here are a few ideas (stay tuned for more!):

 ·         The BEST option ;) Puuuuppet show!!!

o   acting out a scene
o   performing in different scenarios as the characters in a story--- how those characters would likely respond—for teaching characterization

·         Moral Dilemmas (Creating Meaning 243, see reference at bottom)
o     Assign a biography or historical fiction text
o   Instruct students to stop at a point where the character has to make a decision where there are multiple options and no clear answer.
o   Small groups discuss the decision from the first person POV (the character’s)

·         Point of View --- Allow groups to choose a scene to perform for the class.  After the group performs the scene, the audience gets to change the point of view and the group has to re-perform the scene from the new point of view. This could also be a prepared skit (and maybe should be until students are comfortable with the concept.)  I used it in an LA 8/9 class, and they loved it.

·         There are countless drama review games (upcoming post!), many inspired by Whose Line is it Anyway

·         I watched a biology 12 class perform a music video (not filmed) about DNA to the “Barbie Girl” song, by Aqua.  I’m betting they are always going to remember how that works!  They weren’t singing, just acting out the story and making it apply to DNA.  It was quite witty.

·         Some of my grade 6/7 students chose to create a music video (using lego) to a moving song about a soldier coming home from war.  That was pretty neat.

·         Some more of my 6/7 students created a video summary of the novel we were studying as a class.  They filmed it in several locations and put it all together entirely on their own.

·         I have had students take an instrumental version of a popular song and adapt the words to teach about a social studies concept.

·         My English 12 students filmed a western (as in cowboys) interpretation of Hamlet, where they explored what would happen if specific elements were changed.  We played the video for the high school.

Claudia Cornett. Creating Meaning through Literature and the Arts: Arts Integration for Classroom Teachers.