Remixed Canvas

          After viewing many of my fellow students lesson plans on their canvasses I came across Miles Cody's very successful lesson plan on The Underground Railroad and how it relates to music. This lesson plan he created was very creative and informative. It allows the students to truly understand the history of the Underground Railroad by referring it to the song “Follow the drinking Gourd”. I felt an immediate connection to dance when I saw Miles' canvas and lesson. I felt that The Underground Railroad would be an excellent lesson not only in music but in collaboration with dance as well. Dance and music are very essential to one another. I took the basis of Miles' lesson and incorporated dance. I will begin by introducing the history of The Underground Railroad to my students, I will then introduce dance and music. I will use a dance Piece as the base of the lesson. The dance piece I will be using is called “Revelations”, I will be using a specific section from the piece called “Wade In The Water.” This dance piece was choreographed and performed by the Alvin Ailey dance company. “Wade In The Water” is a piece that holds great symbolic meaning and historical value that relates back to The Underground Railroad. The song and dance both represents a signal sent to the runaway slaves. This movement performed by the dancers represents somewhat of a storyline of the Underground Railroad, in the end the piece is upbeat and high energy representing Freedom. I feel that there is no other way to better represent this extremely important historical event then find symbolism within art. This will get students involved emotionally and physically, while truly comprehending the history behind it. I will also incorporate the song that Miles had chose for his lesson “Follow the drinking Gourd,” I will have the students really breakdown the lyrics and create symbolic movement to the song.

Overall this time around remixing Miles canvas was much more difficult then when I created my own.               The PLAYground application was not cooperating at all. It was not allowing me to publish the canvas until I continuously retried. It also would not allow me to rearrange where I wanted each text box. It would not allow me to drag any of the widgets, so unfortunately I had to keep the current format with no change. Although remixing the canvas gave me a lot of trouble, I feel that Miles lesson really opened up my eyes to ways that I can incorporate the history aspect of dance more into my future lessons.  

Here Is my remixed canvas

http://www.play.annenberginnovationlab.org/play2.0/challenge.php?idChallenge=2730&mode=edit#network6