Week 9 Recap

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). Students worked from a place of conscientious generosity throughout the week to build their ideas collectively in their ensembles and then share those ideas with the whole class. 

Things to look forward to...

The junior students have begun our third unit, focussed on Improvisation, which builds skills that are very transferable to a number of fields. We will work on developing our improvisation skills over time through a variety of games and activities, and as we develop those skills we will discuss how, when, and where we might be able to apply those skills in other situations, including a variety of professions from medicine to law and beyond.

As of today, the senior students have voted to continue working in their ensembles of 14 on their ten-minute play ideas, and will begin completing workshops for evaluation this week, as they prepare to produce their play as their assessment of learning performance for Unit 2. The understanding is that our plan remains to develop one complete 20-40-minute One-Act Play as a whole class in Unit 3 and for our exam productions, with that play being taken on to competition by interested students to the NTS Ontario Drama Festival in February.

Things to do at home...

Before the break, teachers learned about mathematical literacy and teachers of every course had a chance to look at the math curriculum and identify areas of overlap with their own curriculum. Recognizing that achievement in mathematics may be a high priority for many parents, you can help support your child not just by supporting their work in math courses specifically, but in developing the transferable skills identified in the mathematics curriculum (termed “mathematical processes”) in EVERY class and context, which will result in strengthening their confidence and abilities in mathematics. Consider asking your student which of the skills listed in the mathematical processes are practiced in Drama and other seemingly “unrelated” subject areas:
- Communicating
- Connecting
- Problem-Solving
- Reasoning and Proving
- Reflecting
- Representing
- Selecting Tools and Computational Strategies