Objectives
to encourage group cooperation as individuals build on the physical ideas of one another, and to provide an introduction to the tales of the industrial age—John Henry and Casey Jones.
Materials
Drum, optional.
Activities
Warmup: Have students loosen up by shaking out their arms and legs. Begin a repetitive movement, (eg. bending and straightening arm from the elbow). Have the class do the same. Add a sound to the movement. Ask volunteers to initiate new movements and sounds. Encourage the use of other body parts and postures. To the beat of a drum, have the class experiment with their own movements and sounds. Increase or decrease the speed with the use of the drum.
Have a volunteer go to the center of the circle to start a motion. The students are to create a machine by adding their own movements and sounds. Volunteers should be called up one at a time to join the expanding machine. Body parts are not to touch, though the aim is to find cause and effect motions. (Eg. If I “push” your elbow, your arm raises over your head.) Encourage students to find interesting places to add on, not only in a linear fashion. Speed up the machine. Slow it down to a standstill and start it up again. Repeat, with new volunteers furnishing the first motion.
Divide the class into groups. Have them create their own machine as the class did above. Then, the Leader may suggest a real machine to each group, eg. washing machine, crane, record player, or, each group may come up with their own. Have them practice building their machines. Give each group a chance to show their machine to the class. See if the others can guess what it is.
Explain to the class that they will be working on the folktales of John Henry and Casey Jones. Ask what machines are found in their stories. The students should answer steamdrill and train engine. Divide the class into two groups, assigning the steamdrill to one and the train engine to the other. Tell them to use their imaginations to create each machine, and the sounds. As the steamdrill performs for the rest of the class, suggest it is a new machine, not use to working on such hard rock. It has a tendency to break down. The operator is continuously fixing the drill. To the train engine group, remind them that the engineer is in a hurry. The engine must go faster and faster. Have the group try to increase speed without actually moving ahead. The brake is applied, but too late. The engine crashes into another train.
Conclusion
Ask the class members if they felt they were a part of a whole working machine. Any suggestions on how it might work better? Give students a chance to go to the library to find pictures of the machines. How well did our imaginations compare with the real thing? The students will be asked to recreate these machines when the folktales of John Henry and Casey Jones are acted out.