Visits 5 and 6 11/ 18 and 11/20

It's amazing sometimes the things we do or do not know about those closest to us. For example, do you know which of the people living near you have broken a bone? What about those who don't like chocolate? Does anyone share the same crazy fear of Chimpanzees that you do?

Part of the reason we don't know these things is because it's hard to ask! Theater has a lot to do with learning to interact with other people, and if not for the ability to interact, many of the great explorations would never have happened! Columbus had to tell SOMEONE what he found; and for that matter, he had to talk to someone in order to get ships to go, too!

This was one of those activities that I thought would fit into one day, and ended up stretching to two. The students in a previous lesson about trying to identify things about characters had tried to guess anything they could infer about me. They tried to guess my age (ranging from 19 to 72 with lots of in between), favorite color, and favorite school subject. They stated something which they knew about me from things that I'd said before like my adoration of the Sacramento Kings basketball team, the fact that I go to BYU, and my being married. Then they stated some things they could tell just from seeing me like the color of my shirt, the fact that I was indeed wearing pants, and the fact that I had glasses which they thought meant either I was really smart or that I couldn't see very well. Some of those things were true, and some were not, but we built off that idea to have the students get to know one another better. They went out into the Kiva and were instructed to have dialogues like this:

Chris: "Hi! I'm Chris, it's nice to meet you. What's your name?"
Megan: "Hi Chris, I'm Megan. Nice to meet you. Can I ask you a question?"
Chris: "Sure!"
Megan: "My greatest fear is spiders. Are you afraid of spiders?"
Chris: "No, I'm not, but I am afraid of big dogs."

Megan would then respond about her fear, or ask another question. If she couldn't find something to relate to with Chris, and vice versa they would simply part with a well wishing. If they could, they were to sign one another's signature sheets.

The students went to town on this, and by the end, each student had as full a sheet as they could obtain. I filled one out, too, and was able to keep modeling for the students what to look for. Sometimes students ran into problems. "What if no one wants to be the same thing as me when they grow up?" or "What if no one is shorter than me?" At that point, students were told that that's an important thing to understand relating to history, and so they simply did what they could.

All of this was to model the pattern they were to do for famous explorers, which was our Thursday class work. Each of them was given a sheet with facts, a picture and maps of famous explorers' explorations. They read through them, and I helped answer questions about any words they were unfamiliar with like "Conquistadors" "Adhered" "Tenochtitlan" and "Catholicism."

Then the students were off to the races to introduce and meet other famous explorers, or people crucial to the explorations in similar ways. We had royalty, explorers who succeeded, explorers with much less success, and speakers for the nations to help paint the picture of what each nation really wanted.

Overall, the students learned lots. I could have prepared better and given the students tangible things to help them connect better with their explorers, or encouraged the use of accents. Another suggestion from Doug Allen, BYU Arts Bridge coordinator, was the idea of using music from the period to help set the tempo for their conversations with one another.

All in all, these explorers were able to find and understand the role of financial backers, discover that the English were considered Pirates by many and that the Portuguese and Spanish had the idea that everyone who didn't worship the way they did was a Savage (ba-dum-tsh!) and that the not everyone involved in the explorations was an explorer. Smart kids asked smart questions and made great connections.

Going forward these fine young people are going to be doing some heavier drama work to help them create a short presentation about the explorations. Parents will be invited. Feel free to contact me or Lindsey Pettibone for more questions.

Until Next time!

P.S.

Below are the sheets that they filled out to learn!

Someone Born in My Same Month.	Someone who doesn’t like chocolate.	Someone who was born out of Utah.	Someone who is taller than me.
Someone who has read a book I haven’t read.	Someone who has broken a bone.	Someone who has the same favorite school subject as me.	Someone who is the youngest in their family.
Someone who is afraid of the same thing as me.	Someone who likes BYU more than U of U.	Someone who is shorter than me.	Someone who wants to be the same thing as me when they grow up.
Someone who wants to be the same thing as me when they grow up.	Someone who likes U of U more than BYU.	Someone who has been somewhere I’ve never been.	Someone who likes cats

Someone From the Same Country As Me	Someone From A country my country is fought with (in real history)	Someone who was a pirate.	Someone who never sailed across an ocean
Someone who is probably Catholic	Someone who died on a journey / sea voyage	Someone who sailed with a family member.	Someone who saw part of the world my person never saw
Someone who got to the new world before me	Someone who got to the new world after me	Someone who was a financial backer of someone else	Someone who was a “speaker” for a country I’m not from
Someone Uneducated	Someone who sailed farther than me	Someone who sailed for my country, but wasn’t from the same country.	Someone who attacked other people