Grade 7 Lesson Idea
In grade 7 social studies, student must “analyse the concept of civilization as it applies to selected ancient culture” by comparing various aspects of civilization in two or more ancient cultures. In order to focus this PLO on dance and movement, we thought it would be fun to have students work in groups and research a unique ancient culture and find out in which ways they used dance in their societies, and then come together as a whole group and compare and contrast the information they found. In order to set student off in the right direction, the teacher might want to show students these videos in order to give them an idea of how different cultures used dance differently. In one video, we see the delicate style of Japanese Geisha dancing, which was used to entertain and impress an audience, and in the other video, we observe the Middle Eastern equivalent of dance used for entertainment in the form of traditional belly dancing.