Maselli @ Maple

Things to celebrate... Over these past two weeks, students have been working very hard to understand, showcase, and celebrate their use of the creative process to devise original stories, characters, and material. From the senior students' work as part of the Quest conference's Artonomy series (photos below) to the junior students' work in improvisation, we have been intentionally working on strengthening our critical and creative thinking skills through inquiry-based games, activities, and workshops. Things to look forward to... Our junior and senior drama students will be wrapping up their current units this week as they prepare for final performances (to be completed in class this Thursday and Friday) and unit reflections (due next Monday). Weekly reflection due dates have been changed to Mondays in order to accommodate students who may require additional processing time to reflect on and process the learning completed throughout the week.  Things to

A personal note... Unfortunately, I became quite sick over the Fall Break and was not fully recovered when we returned, so I needed to take some additional time to rest and heal as I became feverish mid-week. I try to do my best to take care of my health, but, as many of you know, getting sick while pregnant can be an especially tiring and worrisome ordeal, so I am grateful to the patience and support of students, colleagues, and parents as I continue to work towards recovering fully. Things to celebrate... The juniors students began developing their improvisation skills this week, beginning with focus, attention, listening, and memory, and moving into the important role of imagination and application of all the Actor's Tools from our prior unit. Students learned about the five-step story structure this week, which will help them quickly devise or improvise sketches that--as wild, creative, and funny as they can be--move through a coherent narrative towards a r

Things to celebrate... In our final week before the fall break, the junior students completed their Vocal Collage performances with their ensembles and for their classmates, and had time to reflect and build upon the work they did in the later part of the Creative Process; specifically, the cycle of using feedback from producing preliminary work to revising and refining to the final performance to reflection and evaluation. Students were given time on the final Friday before the break to begin, continue, or finish (depending on their own pacing and writing process) their Unit 2 Portfolios, which will be graded as part of their final report card mark. Our senior class worked through the initial steps of the creative process in their teams and ensembles and have landed on the ideas that they will be using as their starting point in developing ten-minute plays on the topic of family dynamics (previously identified and voted on as our primary area of focus or source of inspiration

Things to celebrate... We kicked off a new unit in senior drama last week, in which students will work in smaller teams and ensembles to begin generating material that can be used in our class's collective one-act by developing mini-collectives. This unit is designed to help them review the creative process and the collective creation technique while giving more students an opportunity to share their voices, ideas, and perspectives than would be possible if we were working on a whole-class level at this stage of development. After several hours considering a variety of student data (portfolio entries, preference surveys, conversations and observations in class, etc) two ensembles and four teams were created to help support students in revising / developing material for our mini-collectives, with each student being given a specific production role (director/dramaturg, designer/producer, stage manager/producer, and performer). We used a few different techniques to select a starti

Things to celebrate:  Our grade nines and tens have now had lots  of practice not only exploring the different actor's tools we learned about throughout our second unit (stage image, physicalization, and vocalization), but also gathering feedback as they learn to layer different elements and techniques into their performance work. As they began to work through the early stages of the creative process this week in preparation for their final performance (and assessment of  learning task) for this unit, they have demonstrated increasing proficiency and skill not only in each of their actors' tools but also in the process of developing work from a source. Meanwhile, our grade elevens and twelves have showcased a variety of production skills via their differentiated assessment of  learning performances this week. Their scene studies explored perspectives on themes related to our earlier activities, such as identity, family, and independence. Performances continue into Monday fo

A Personal Note What a busy couple of weeks! Between interim reports last week and our upcoming parents' night, students and teachers alike have probably been busy juggling a number of responsibilities and assignments all at once. This Thanksgiving weekend, I was grateful for some much-needed time with family, but also to have a job that keeps me engaged, even if it does mean I have trouble keeping up with everything at some points. These past two weeks have been exceptionally busy, not just with the marking and planning that go into regular assessment and teaching, but also an influx of department-, school-, and board-level responsibilities that came down the pipes these past couple weeks--everything from planning for upcoming school events and performances with our Drama Council to collaborating with colleagues about upcoming leadership meetings and arts programming across the board! As I write this at 5pm on Thanksgiving Day after six hours of working, I am grateful to be busy