Similar to mirroring, call and response experiences require students to focus on a partner or group of partners in order to respond appropriately. These types of exercises provide opportunities for students to express themselves without having to communicate verbally, and non-verbal responses from their peers offer encouragement and confirmation that they have been heard and understood. As students explore these exercises, they may find they have more in common than they thought, that they are not alone in their struggles, or they may feel heard and understood, which also gives them a sense of community and trust.
***There is usually no need to reinvent the wheel when creating activities that teach or reinforce social and emotional learning. Many of these lessons have been in circulation for years. In fact, if a student is familiar with the activity, it provides even greater opportunity to focus on the SE skill being explored***
Movement
Circle Dance - This exercise is something I usually do as part of a creative warm-up that leads into creative work for the rest of the class. I have, however, discovered that it also works well as a closing ritual. I generally begin by moving through Anne Green Gilbert’s Brain Dance and finish the warm up with what I call a Circle Dance.
Object: To practice following another’s expressive work
Supplies: Music and enough space for a group to move around in
Process:
The group begins in a circle.
If you are working within a certain theme or idea you can use that as your prompt, or I always like to use this as a check in to see how the students are feeling. I usually invite the students to notice how they’re feeling in the moment. How does their body feel? How does their mind feel? How are they doing emotionally and spiritually?
Then ask them to create a simple, repeatable movement. Explain that there are no right or wrong movements, and that it doesn’t have to be a “dance” move.
When everyone is ready, explain that you will “call” or model your movement first, and then everyone will “respond” and do it with you.
Then move to the next person. They call their movement, and the group responds to this movement.
Return to the first person’s movement, and together add the first and second movement together.
Then move to the next person. Respond to their movement, and then repeat the first, second, and third person’s movements together.
Repeat this process as many times as you need to include everyone in the group into the dance.
After the group has done the entire dance together, ask for volunteers who might want to try it on their own or with a friend. Always be supportive and give a hint if they get stuck.
This opens an opportunity for students to share how they’re feeling in the moment without having to use words. The rest of the group’s participation in the movement provides a feeling of being seen and understood and builds empathy within the group. A short debrief at the end of this exercise can offer another opportunity, for those who wish, to share how they feel or to have students make observations about some of the movements and what they felt as they were seeing/doing them together. The Circle Dance can also provide a base for many other empathy building and collaborative exercises.
Discussion Questions:
What did you observe about your body as we went through the Circle Dance? Which movements did you feel you related to the most? Why?
***This exercise could easily be done as part of a drama class as well as easily adapted for music class. Rather than movements, students can be invited to clap a rhythm or create a sound that expresses their feelings or is otherwise related to the given prompt.
Visual Arts & Movement
Responding to another’s artwork using dance - an important piece of collaborative art-making is the presentation of work, and the audience’s response to work. One of the most optimal ways to build empathy is to have students respond to each other’s work with another piece of art.
Object: To observe another’s work and create an honest and appropriate response to their partner’s work.
Supplies: paper, paint, colored markers and pencils, etc.
Process:
Separate students into partners. Using the given theme or prompt, have students draw, paint, or create a visual piece of art on their own.
When they are finished, students exchange artwork without explaining it.
Each student takes time to observe the visual art piece and find something about it that stands out to them. If they can, have them identify what emotions they feel as they look at the piece.
Each student then creates a movement or series of movements that they feel describe the work they have been observing. Each student shares their movements with their partner.
Debrief with their partner. This can include explanations of the visual artwork and the movement phrases, as well as verbal responses to each.
Discussion Questions:
As you observed your partner’s work, how did it make you feel? How did those feelings cause your body to feel? When you felt those feelings in your body, what types of movements did you want to create? As you watched your partner respond to your piece with their movements, how did that make you feel?
This exercise can be done with any artistic medium. Viewing a piece of movement and drawing/painting how it makes you feel is one example. Reading a piece of poetry and dancing/painting/writing a response to it also works. If you have instruments or very musical students, creating music and using movement and visual arts as forms of creative and expressive response are also options.