A Lesson in a Bird's Creativity

A Lesson Plan

Background: For this Special Topics Theater Course that I created this blog for, I had to present my independent project at the end of the semester. Seeing my project is sort of all over the place (as can be seen in my previous posts), I needed a way to find a way to unify everything for my presentation. Being a theater and childhood education major, one of the most common ways I express my creativity is through the art of lesson planning. So, I decided to create an interactive "lesson plan" for my classmates to partake in which will (hopefully) demonstrate the evolution of my creativity, as it has grown this semester.

Essential Question(s):

     What is creativity?

     How has Bird's creativity evolved throughout the Spring of 2016, due to her enrollment in TH291?

Learning Goals:

     Students will be able to:

         1. Understand how creativity is defined differently for different people

         2. Understand the importance that inspiration can play in creativity

         3. Understand Bird's process of creativity throughout the semester

Do Now:

     Think-Pair-Share:

           Students will brainstorm working definitions of "artist" and "creativity"

      How does our definitions of artist and creator differ? How are the similar?

Learning Activity:

     Human Machine - each student creates a movement and a sound, as all the students begin to group together, a "machine" is created that could serve a direct output.

     Our machine will operate using students' unique movements paired with the instructors words which define art as an act of negative energy, and again as an act of positive energy. After each circulation of the machine, Bird will read a piece she created using negative and confused energy, and then a piece she created using positive energy. Therefore making the machine's output her work throughout the semester.

Materials:

• Index cards for students to write their definitions on (one for each student)
• Index cards that have a negative word in blue and a positive word in red (one for each student)
• Print out of a piece that was created negatively
• Print out of a piece created positively

Assessment/Debrief:

     Together, the class should discuss their feelings toward each piece (being unafraid of offending the artist) after each machine cycle. 

     How does this piece make you feel?

     How do you think it would feel to create something like this?

     Which piece to you like more? Why?