Visual & Performing Arts · 7th Grade

Active learning ideas

Developing a Movement Vocabulary

Active learning helps students recognize their natural movement patterns and consciously expand them, which is essential for developing a unique artistic voice. Physical exploration solidifies abstract concepts like movement quality and abstraction, making the learning stick beyond the classroom.

• Common Core State Standards
• NCAS: Creating DA.Cr2.1.7

• 20–35 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Project-Based Learning
• 30 min · Pairs

Movement Inventory: What Do You Always Do?

Students improvise for 2 minutes while a partner observes and records habitual patterns: Do they always move in a straight line? Always start with their arms? Never change level? The observer's notes become a 'movement inventory.' Students then improvise again, deliberately avoiding their habitual patterns.

Differentiate between literal and abstract movement in conveying a narrative.

Facilitation Tip

During Movement Inventory, ask students to perform their natural movements in silence first, then add sound or rhythm to observe how it changes the quality.

What to look for

Present students with a short video clip of a dancer. Ask them to write down 3-5 words describing the movement qualities they observe. Then, ask them to identify one movement that seems literal and one that seems abstract.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills
• Decision-Making

Activity 02

• Project-Based Learning
• 35 min · Individual

Word Bank Choreography

Give each student a personal list of 8 movement words drawn from Laban action categories plus student-generated words from improvisation. They use all 8 to build a 16-count phrase in any order. Groups of four share and identify which words are most distinctive in each person's phrase.

Construct a series of unique movements that can be combined to tell a story.

Facilitation Tip

For Word Bank Choreography, provide a word bank with action verbs and movement qualities to push students beyond literal gesture.

What to look for

Students create a short (4-6 count) movement phrase based on a given emotion (e.g., excitement, sadness). They perform it for a partner. The partner identifies the emotion and notes one specific movement choice that helped convey it.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills
• Decision-Making

Activity 03

• Project-Based Learning
• 25 min · Pairs

Borrowing and Translating

Students observe a partner perform a short phrase, then create their own phrase that translates one specific quality or idea from what they observed into their own physical language. The goal is interpretation, not imitation. Pairs discuss: what did you borrow and how did you change it?

Evaluate how personal experiences can inform and enrich a dancer's movement vocabulary.

Facilitation Tip

In Borrowing and Translating, have students physically trace the shape of borrowed movements in the air before performing them to internalize the form.

What to look for

Ask students to list two new movement qualities they explored today. Then, have them write one sentence explaining how a personal memory or experience could be turned into a movement.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills
• Decision-Making

Activity 04

• Project-Based Learning
• 20 min · Individual

Constraint-Based Improvisation

Students are given physical constraints that systematically introduce unfamiliar movement: 'your left hand must always be higher than your right shoulder,' 'no two body parts can move at the same time,' 'you can only move in the lowest 12 inches of space.' Brief sessions with changing constraints rapidly expand the range of movement students encounter in their own bodies.

Differentiate between literal and abstract movement in conveying a narrative.

Facilitation Tip

During Constraint-Based Improvisation, remind students to document their discoveries in a movement journal to track vocabulary growth.

What to look for

Present students with a short video clip of a dancer. Ask them to write down 3-5 words describing the movement qualities they observe. Then, ask them to identify one movement that seems literal and one that seems abstract.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills
• Decision-Making

A few notes on teaching this unit

Teachers should model their own movement exploration to normalize the process of trying unfamiliar physicalities. Avoid praising only technically 'clean' movement; instead, highlight expressive choices and risks taken. Research shows that students develop more creative movement vocabularies when they experience a balance of structure and freedom in tasks.

Students will demonstrate awareness of their habitual movements and intentionally practice new ones to build a flexible vocabulary. They will justify choices in choreographic tasks by connecting movements to expressive or conceptual goals.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During Movement Inventory, watch for students who assume their most dramatic or 'showy' movements are the most expressive.

  Remind students that expressive movement isn't about size or spectacle but about clarity of intent and quality. Have them reflect on how small, subtle movements can carry strong emotional weight.

• During Word Bank Choreography, watch for students who default to literal gestures like miming a tree or crying.

  Encourage them to use the word bank to select abstract qualities (e.g., 'spiraling,' 'jerky,' 'suspended') and shape those into movement rather than illustrating a story.

• During Borrowing and Translating, watch for students who copy movements without considering how they fit their own body or style.

  Ask them to physically adapt borrowed movements to their own physicality—slow them down, reverse them, or layer them with other actions—to make the vocabulary their own.

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Methods used in this brief

• Project-Based Learning