As a teacher with 31 years of experience, Mary Ruth McGinn has always sought innovative ways to meet the needs of each of her students. She has spent her entire career in schools where a majority of students speak English as a second language and where poverty significantly impacts the...
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From intricate opera character relationships, a story is born. Conflicts, directly transferred from our collective lives to our original characters, come to life and create a storyline sure to make us think. The process for writing our scenario begins as we determine how our primary and secondary conflicts develop and are resolved in our setting, a train station. Why are the characters at the station, together? What events and activities take place that enable us to see the conflicts played out in a believable fashion? What is logical? How do we see these situations in our daily lives? How do we show connections to our theme and thesis throughout the story? What is the central message we wish to deliver to our audience?
These questions guide us as we improvise, discuss plausible possibilities and carefully weave together our powerful thoughts and ideas. A combination of individual contributions through homework, partner work, small group discussions and whole group sessions provides the creative framework to produce a profound and meaningful story.
See how eight-year-olds make this happen.
Imari and Lauryn discuss action between characters:
Daylon, Raneem and Elliot improvise fake injury for scenario:
Small groups discuss possibilities for scenario:
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About Mary Ruth McGinn
As a teacher with 32 years of experience, Mary Ruth McGinn has always sought innovative ways to meet the needs of each of her students. She has spent her entire career in schools where a majority of students speak English as a second language and where poverty significantly impacts the learning experiences and opportunities of students and their families.
Nineteen years ago she had an experience that changed her life and altered her professional path in a profound way. She attended training sessions at The Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York City, spent nine intense days living the process of creating an original opera and learned how to replicate the experience with her students. She then began creating opera with her students and using the process of creating the opera as a vehicle to teach curriculum and life skills. The authentic purpose for learning coupled with the arts provided the perfect stage on which to construct a love for life-long learning.
The profundity of the work, the transformation of the students and a desire to “bring to light” new ideas in education, inspired Mary Ruth to share this way of thinking and learning. In 2006 she was granted a Fulbright Scholarship, sponsored and funded by Teatro Real and Fundación SaludArte in Madrid, and a sabbatical from Montgomery County, to travel to Spain to develop and implement a similar program there. She lived there two years training teachers and working side by side with teachers and students in their classrooms. The reception of the project was overwhelming. Mary Ruth returns to Madrid every summer to train a new team of educators and artists in the process. In the summer of 2018, she joined forces with The Kennedy Center to offer the opera training for teachers in the Washington Metro area. She currently teaches third grade at Stedwick Elementary School in Montgomery Village, Maryland where she is implementing a classroom curriculum based on the principles of authentic learning.
Read more of Mary Ruth's blog Learning for Real.
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