This resource is slated for revision in 2025 to include First Nations, Métis, and Inuit lenses related to land use and taking collective action, budget permitting. Please share any suggestions, recommendations, or ways that you have adapted this resource with us using the Feedback button for consideration in the updated version.
A note about Indigenous Perspectives and Voice in this Unit: It is recommended to consider and include Indigenous Perspectives and Voice when ever possible as issues of land and territory appear throughout this resource and are central to Indigenous People's rights. CODE works in active and respectful partnership with the First Nations, Metis and Inuit Education Association of Ontario. Click here to read more about TRC. To learn more about Drama, Dance and Indigenous Studies, read our document In a Good Way.
In this unit, students are introduced to the concept of community and the people who play key roles in meeting its various needs. Students spend time living in these community helper roles and are challenged to solve problems which are designed to illustrate the interdependence of people in a community. In role, the students are presented with a problem of a local park being unfit to visit and use. Students are introduced to some community members whose lives have been affected by the conditions in the park and are challenged to take action to address the situation. Students learn how to advocate for themselves by engaging in talks with the mayor and participate in whole class role play as they clean up the park and host a re-opening ceremony for the neighbourhood.
An inclusive community is built and maintained by connected and interdependent community helpers. Strong communities are formed and empowered when all community members cooperate and solve problems. Learning to build and follow community guidelines fosters a strong community and teamwork. Equitable communities meet their members diverse needs through roles and relationships that work, interact and depend on each other to solve problems, protect and value each other.
Through role play and dance, we can build an understanding of how community helpers work, move, interact and maintain a community. We can explore qualities of movements and experiencing situations that might occur in our everyday lives and how building relationships helps us participate to solve problems in a drama.
In this unit, students assume a variety of roles enabling them to take on different points of view about a common topic. They are exposed to different points of view through their interaction with guests in role. Students generate texts designed for a specific purpose and audience, attending to their vocabulary use and adherence to text conventions. Students are also asked to go beyond their direct personal experience and consider the needs/interests of all community members when planning for their park re-opening event. When students are acting as advocates for their neighbours when they appeal to the Mayor for help, they are also learning about what tools/means they have available as citizens when they feel their needs/rights are not being met.
*Instances of the use of Critical Literacy will be marked with the letters CL throughout the unit.
Read more about Critical Literacy and how it links to dance and drama.
In this unit, Assessment of Learning takes place at three key points:
Community Needs/Community Helpers / Besoins de la communauté/Aides de la communauté
In this lesson students establish and define a community and how community helpers are people who help us meet our needs. Students recreate and role play where several community helpers are introduced in context and students experiment with what kinds of things these helpers can do.
2 classes
(1 class = ~50 minutes)
Reciprocity / Réciprocité
Students explore the setting in which different community helpers do their jobs. They also experiment with how different roles interact with one another. Students solve problems in role as community helpers experiencing the ways in which a problem in one aspect of the community has a ripple effect on several others. They also learn to see a problem from multiple points of view.
2 classes
The Importance of Land / L'importance de la terre
In this lesson, students explore issues of land and parks as important community spaces. They investigate who uses them, how they are used and what they should ideally contain. Imagined exploration of park games and a class field trip to a local park to collect images on digital cameras help students build concern and background knowledge for the events that are to come.
2 classes
Community Coming Together to Speak Up / La communauté s'unit pour s'exprimer
The teacher in role as a woman from the community shares stories about damages that have been done to her local park. She and some of her neighbours tell stories of how the situation is seriously affecting their lives. The class joins her in bid to do something about it by writing a letter to the mayor, urging him to take action.
2 classes
Plan of Action / Un plan d'action
The Mayor responds to the students' plea for help by inviting them to present a plan of action to them at an upcoming council meeting. The students come up with solutions to each of the problems they brought forth to the mayor outlining how they could be fixed and who could fix them. The students rehearse their proposal in groups and later the whole class assumes different roles in a meeting with the Mayor.
2 classes
Repairing the Damaged Park-Dance! / Danse : Réparer le parc endommagé !
In this lesson, the students have got support from the Mayor to fix four problems in the park. As a class, and later in groups, students create a series of movements to go along with the solutions they came up with to fix the park. One by one, each group dances their way to a repair while the mayor and other helpers watch.
2 classes
Park Re-Opening Planning and Visit from the Councillor / Planification de la réouverture du parc et visite du conseiller
Now that the park is fixed, it's time to plan for the re-opening ceremony. In their community helper groups, students plan how they will contribute to the event, make it inclusive and determine what kinds of supplies they need. After meeting with a city councillor to have their plans approved, they get to work at preparing props/materials for the big day.
2 classes
The Re-Opening Event / L'événement de réouverture
The big day is here! Students take turns acting as community helpers engaging with the citizens of the community as part of a re-opening ceremony. They share food, play games, learn about the garden and listen to a closing speech from the Mayor.
Students contribute to a classroom book or write an article for the local newspaper about how to build an inclusive community and how they can affect change in their community.
1-2 classes
