Students

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Durham District School Board
The Durham District School Board (DDSB) promotes
and supports research-based strategies and
practices that provide teachers with the
framework, skills and resources for delivering
quality programs to their students. These
strategies and practices are aligned with
Ministry curriculum initiatives and our
Districts strategic directions. The District
Improvement Plan focuses on literacy and numeracy
as the foundational skills that play a critical
and central role to student success in every
subject discipline. Priorities are determined
through the analysis of Provincial, Board and
school data and success is measured in terms of
increased student achievement. The Durham
District School Boards values, goals and high
standards are reflected in the development of a
consistent, unified approach to teaching and
learning.
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Students Environment
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• Name Sara Marshall
• School John Dryden Public School
• Subjects taught Literacy, Math, History,
  Geography, Phys-ed
• Grades 8
• Brief description of your project
• Through the use of multi-media the students will
  gain an increased awareness of empathy, self
  confidence and self pride by discovering the
  Hero Within. The students will create a
  monologue of their Canadian Hero, a visual
  display of characteristics that help mould a hero
  and a media production using Audacity and
  Moviemaker to promote their hero.
• Brief description of your artist Geoff Coulter
  is an established artist specializing in drama,
  TV production and media
• Length of project approx. one month
• Teacher partners C. Hurst, J. Mottershead, K.
  Bugelli
• Community partners parent community

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Students Environment
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• Reflection
• Why have you chosen to participate in an
  ArtsSmarts project?
• I was first approached to participate in the
  ArtsSmarts project by my Vice Principal, K.
  Bugelli. After viewing a presentation by Eva
  Olsson (a holocaust survivor), early in the year,
  I was inspired to incorporate her message into
  this project as a way to address our schools and
  Boards Character Education initiative,
  specifically empathy and respect.

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General Question
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Question General
Tell Your Story

• What is your general question?
• How can writing, drama and artistic expression
  forge relationships and enhance empathy and
  understanding amongst peers.
• Reflection
• - Students will participate in a variety of
  learning activities in order to address their
  varying learning styles and needs
• Students of all abilities, whether social or
  academic, will experience success
• All aspects of the Literacy program will be
  touched upon, focusing predominantly on drama,
  writing and visual
• Daniel Pink writes
• Students will learn about other people
  stories. People compress years of experience,
  thought and emotion into a few compact narratives
  that we convey to others and tell to ourselves.
  Personal narratives have become more prevalent
  and perhaps more urgent, in a time of abundance
  when many of us are freer to seek a deeper
  understanding of ourselves and our purpose.
  
• 
  (Whole New
  Mind)

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ArtsSmarts Engagement Model
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ArtsSmarts Engagement Model
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• Reflection
• All students regardless of academic or social
  level were able to take part and feel proud of
  their accomplishments

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Specific Inquiry Questions
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• Teacher questions
• Will the use of an artist help to increase
  the knowledge and excitement for learning in
  students?
• Students attitudes about what a hero meant
  to them changed dramatically throughout the
  process. Heroes seems to morphed from the
  supernatural to mortal being who had/have who
  possess their own hopes and dreams and who have
  worked tirelessly to overcome adversity in order
  to achieve greatness. Once the students had an
  opportunity to explore feelings, attitudes and
  emotions of their chosen Hero through drama, the
  students formed a relationship with the mental
  aspect of their Hero. Students took ownership of
  their Hero once they had the opportunity to feel
  compassion and empathy toward them. Each
  student, regardless of gender or academic
  ability, felt a need/responsibility to tell the
  story of their Hero.
• Artist questions
• Will I be able to motivate and enhance the
  learning environment of students through drama?
• Student questions
• Will the use of drama aid in developing empathy
  for my chosen Hero?

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• What information do you need to answer your
  questions?

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• Reflection
• How does this information relate to your general
  question?
• It confirms that arts infused programs helps to
  stimulate and motivate student learning. The
  program engaged our students and challenged them
  in all areas of the curriculum in a multitude of
  different learning styles.

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Curriculum Connections
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Reading - read and demonstrate an understanding
of a variety of literary, graphic, and
informational texts, using a range of strategies
to construct meaning Writing - generate,
gather, and organize ideas and information to
write for an intended purpose and audience -
draft and revise their writing, using a variety
of informational, literary, and graphic forms and
stylistic elements appropriate for the purpose
and audience Oral - listen in order to
understand and respond appropriately in a variety
of situations for a variety of purposes - use
speaking skills and strategies appropriately to
communicate with different audiences for a
variety of purposes Media Literacy - create a
variety of media texts for different purposes and
audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions,
and techniques Drama - interpret and
communicate ideas and feelings drawn from
fictional accounts, - create drama pieces,
selecting and using a variety of techniques -
create different multimedia interpretations of a
single work, using available technology
to enhance their work in drama and dance
performances. Visual Arts 1. produce two- and
three-dimensional works of art that communicate a
variety of ideas (thoughts, feelings,
experiences) for specific purposes and to
specific audiences, using a variety of art forms
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Tell Your Story
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Tell Your Story
In the beginning The Hero Within theme sprang
from the desire to invite Eva Olsson into our
school to speak with our intermediate students.
The students were exposed to Evas struggles with
adversity while living her teenage years in a
concentration camp in Germany under Nazi rule.
As a class we had completed many activities on
what a Hero meant to the students. Our follow up
to Evas talk was to have the students write an
opinion piece based on whether they felt Ms.
Olsson was a Hero or not. The impact this had on
the students was immense as many students
attitudes and beliefs on who they considered a
hero changed from the supernatural being to the
ordinary person who has done ex-ordinary things.
They were able to broaden their opinion and
combine it will well thought out reasons to
justify their position.
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Tell Your Story
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In comes our artist! Once the students had
formulated a strong opinion of what the term
Hero meant to them they were asked to select a
Canadian Hero of choice to prove that indeed this
person deserves the title of a Hero. Students
were required to do some preliminary research of
their chosen Hero. This is where we then
collaborated with our Artist, Geoff Coulter. He
was able to lend his expertise to inspire the
dramatic aspect of the project which was
providing their Hero with a voice for their
monologue. Students developed their own
monologues that reflected the lives of their
Hero. The content was enriched by emotion, and
displayed a deeper understanding trials and
tribulations of their Hero and ultimately lead to
an appreciation of how we fit in and why our own
stories matter.
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Tell Your Story
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Tell Your Story
The students warmed up and continued to explore
characters.

Students working in the gym on their monologues.
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Tell Your Story
Having fun creating.

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Art Attack! A Heros Tribute Using a variety of
materials and 6ft sections of acetate, students
created a banner that displayed their beliefs on
what a Hero means to them, incorporating
characteristics and attributes which help mould
an ordinary being into a Hero.
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Tell Your Story
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Tell Your Story
What does a Hero mean to you?
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Students use Audacity! Monologues are recorded
and set to music. Some students had the
opportunity to extend their learning and
incorporate Moviemaker to create a short video on
their Hero.
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Tell Your Story
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Our Coffee House! Geoff continued to work with
the students over the course of a few weeks to
assist them in our ArtsSmarts celebration. The
gym was re-invented into a Coffee House. Student
banners hung throughout our front foyer,
computers ran continuously showing off the
Audacity projects as well as pictures of the
students over the duration of the project.
Monologues were performed on the gym stage over
coffee, tea and delicious treats. The night was a
great success!
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Tell Your Story
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Reflection I feel that the project was a great
success. The incredible staff at John Dryden
collaborated to ensure the ultimate success of
the project.
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Exploring Your Information
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Students Environment
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Exploring Your Information
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Tell Your Story

• Describe how you explored your information.
• The design of our project allowed us to
  provide meaningful feedback on student work
  throughout the process. This allowed them to
  make changes/improvements to their work before
  their end result was complete. We noticed
  student work was being completed with enthusiasm,
  empathy, emotion and a sense of connection to
  their subject.

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Making Sense of Your Information
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• The project itself was originally designed to
  complement our Character Education program. Our
  focus was to engage the students through
  involvement and instill a greater sense of
  responsibility, respect and empathy for others.
  The school curriculum was embedded into all
  aspects of our program. We focused largely on
  preparing our students for OSSLT, while also
  targeting information gathered from our term one
  Data Wall. While the ArtsSmarts program did not
  directly target CASI, the program provided
  motivation and enthusiasm to students that they
  were able to apply in other areas of school. CASI
  results soared, their writing became more
  passionate and meaningful and therefore increased
  their writing scores.
• CASI results. Numbers in each column represent
  number of students.

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Information Gathering

• Although we have much hard data of student
  achievement derived from the ArtsSmarts program,
  much of the information gathered can be best seen
  by walking the halls of our school or sitting
  down to talk to one our grade 8 students. The
  multi media approach to the ArtsSmarts program
  enabled all our students to succeed. For this
  reason our students feel that they learned a
  significant amount throughout the program.
  Students were excited to display their talents at
  our Coffee House performance and from speaking
  with parents, they felt the program was
  invaluable to student success.

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Final Reflections and Reporting
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• Do you consider this project to be successful?
• I feel the project was great success. Students
  were engaged and excited to learn. All students
  had an opportunity to display their strengths and
  seek assistance from others in their area/s of
  weakness.

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Final Reflections and Reporting
Information Gathering
Students Environment
General Question
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Exploring Your Information
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Tell Your Story

• What additional questions were raised that you
  would like to explore in the future?
• I would like to explore how drama can enhance
  student learning in other subject areas.
• How well did the students meet curriculum
  expectations?
• The drama aspect of the projects allowed the
  students to form greater connections with their
  Hero. Their writing improved and the students
  took greater pride in their end product (a
  research essay on their Hero).

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Final Reflections and Reporting
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Tell Your Story

• Describe any other learning that occurred.
• Students formed relationships with other students
  and learned to work collaboratively and
  effectively in group situations. They explored
  different techniques and discovered methods that
  were most successful while feeding through those
  that were not so successful. The students
  learned that first ideas are not always the best
  and the more one becomes involved the greater the
  experience. All students learned that they were
  capable of being great! The smile below says it
  all!