The Art of Lesson Planning

On November 12th, TATIP reconvened at The Drama League for the third installment of the Saturday training days. We had some special new partners with us as well, staff members from the Memphis Music Initiative. We hope to share more with you about this exciting partnership in the coming months.

After an intense election week that left many feeling rattled and lost, the trainees and facilitators were able to come together, share, celebrate one another, and heal. Facilitator Heidi Miller led the group in an activity to start the day off and reflect on why we were all there.

After our warm up... it was time for the lesson plan presentations!

For the last two weeks, the trainees have been working on a collaborative lesson with a partner. Each participant was matched with a person of an opposite art form and together they created a lesson that showcased both art forms, targeted a specific age group and scaffolded to allow for gradual experiential learning.

The trainees presented an abridged version of their lesson for 15 minutes. Then, facilitators Patti Chilsen, Karla Robinson, T. Scott Lilly and Heidi Miller provided feedback to help make their lessons stronger.

These presentations give our trainees the opportunity to experiment and test drive teaching a lesson in front of their peers, allowing them to work out the kinks of the lesson before actually teaching it in a classroom.

It also allows our trainees to see multiple different art forms and styles together, so that they may get ideas for future creative lessons.

We saw a wide variety of lessons targeted at multiple age groups and art forms. It was a great way to talk about and explore opportunities to reach our students and to teach for social justice.

After the lesson presentations, we broke into small groups and discussed school partnerships and residencies; in-school, after school, etc.

For many participants, the need to be in a community that stands for social justice and is working to protect and serve vulnerable voices is essential right now. There wasn't a better place we could have been to heal, hope and work for a brighter future. Right now, the voices of our students are at risk of being silenced and we need these strong educators in our schools to make sure that never happens. As an organization, Community-Word Project's mission has always been to give voice to those deliberately silenced by the world. That mission remains the same, but we are doubling our efforts, starting with our teachers.

We'll be back on November 19th with more lessons, the creative process and ideas to promote change in this seemingly fragmented world.