Dance: Grade 8

Learning Dance Skills and the Creative Process

Analysis, Culture, and History

Healthy Practices

Integration

Community and Careers

Reading for Literacy in Dance

Writing for Literacy in Dance

Students demonstrate knowledge and skills of dance elements.

Students understand and demonstrate choreographic principles, processes, and structures.

Students understand and demonstrate dance as a way to create and communicate.

Students reflect upon, evaluate, and analyze dance experiences.

Students understand and demonstrate dance from diverse cultures and historical periods.

Students demonstrate connections between dance and healthy living.

Students integrate dance with the other arts and disciplines outside the arts.

Students value the role of dance in the life of the community and identify its associated careers.

Key Ideas and Details

Craft and Structure

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

Text Types and Purposes

Production and Distribution of Writing

Research to Build and Present Knowledge

Range of Writing

Demonstrate two dance forms using knowledge of kinesthetic awareness (body awareness).

Demonstrate knowledge of spatial awareness by accurately performing a wide range of spatial components.

Demonstrate knowledge of the element of force by accurately performing a wide range and combination of force components through movement.

Demonstrate knowledge of the element of time by accurately performing combinations of all the time components through movement.

Demonstrate knowledge of all the dance elements by combining kinesthetic awareness, spatial awareness, force components, and time components.

Demonstrate knowledge of choreographic principles alone and with others.

Demonstrate knowledge of choreographic processes by creating, teaching, and performing dance compositions based on students' ideas or concepts from other sources.

Utilize and manipulate various compositional structures and/or choreographic forms in dance compositions.

Create, present, and explain a dance composition derived from a personal perspective.

Demonstrate the knowledge of theatrical elements that affect interpretation and justify their use to communicate meaning in a dance.

Create and present a dance composition based on the use of abstracted everyday movement.

Share personal experiences from participation in dance.

Establish personal criteria for evaluating an observed dance from an objective and subjective viewpoint.

Identify and define personal aesthetic criteria for evaluating the art of dance.

Compare, contrast, and evaluate the role of dance from two or more cultures or historical periods.

Create a project that incorporates diverse cultural dance styles/forms.

Create and demonstrate the evolution of folk, social, or theatrical dance as it progresses from one historical period to another.

Demonstrate knowledge of the physical and mental benefits of dance.

Explain the correlation between developing a healthy lifestyle and dance.

Create and present a dance project that integrates various art forms (visual art, music, theatre).

Create and present an integrated dance project and analyze how integration of disciplines enhances learning.

Actively support local dance activities while recognizing the value of dance on a regional and national level.

Identify careers needed to stage a dance performance and list the responsibilities of each selected career.

Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of technical dance texts.

Follow precisely a multistep procedure when performing technical dance tasks.

Determine the meaning of symbols, key terms, and other domain-specific words and phrases as they are used in a specific technical dance context relevant to grades 6-8 texts and topics.

Integrate technical dance information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).

Compare and contrast the information gained from performances, simulations, video, or multimedia sources with that gained from reading a text on the same topic.

Translate technical dance information expressed in words in a text into visual form (e.g., a table or chart) and translate information expressed visually or mechanically (e.g., in an equation) into words.

By the end of grade 8, read and comprehend technical dance texts in the grades 6-8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

Write informative/explanatory texts, including technical/mechanical processes. <ol type="a"><li>Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts and information into broader categories as appropriate to achieving purpose; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.</li><li>Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.</li><li>Use appropriate and varied transitions to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts.</li><li>Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.</li><li>Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone.</li><li>Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented.</li></ol>

Note: Students' narrative skills continue to grow in these grades. The Standards require that students be able to incorporate narrative elements effectively into arguments and informative/explanatory texts. In technical subjects, students must be able to write precise enough descriptions of the step-by-step procedures they use in their technical work that others can replicate them and (possibly) reach the same results.

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.

Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Write routinely over extended time frames (time for reflection and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.