Artists and Educators

Teacher

dedicated, passionate

striving, challenging, inspiring

our most important mentor

Gift

Orlando Family Stage is proud to provide a variety of professional development opportunities for educators with a focus on early childhood, bi-lingual education, arts integration, and of course, theatre. Our Engaged Learning Through the Arts (ELTA) programs serve teachers at Orlando Family Stage as well as in our schools. Teachers are not often given the gift of time to focus on their craft or hone a teaching strategy. Our partners at Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) carve out space for professional development and crucial time to spend with peers exchanging ideas and supporting one another. We were thrilled to contribute to their full day dedicated to exploring theatre in our schools with an exciting workshop.

Per the teachers’ request, Orlando Family Stage staff members, Emily Freeman and Maria Katsadouros, led devising strategies that invited them to step out of the role of educator and into the role of artist for the morning. Using written reflection, poetry, and movement, teachers generated original pieces inspired by their own lives. By the end of the day, the teachers developed a theatre piece that asked audiences to step into their shoes and explore a day in their lives. It was powerful, dynamic, and created in under 75 minutes!

One of our favorite ways to generate original collage performance is to think of dynamic, formulaic writing prompts or structures. Enter, the cinquain. A fun and easy form poem, a cinquain can generate beautiful writing that can easily be activated on stage using physical images, movement, monologues, or even scenes. So, how do you write a cinquain? It’s easy!

Follow these simple steps:

Line A:  One-word subject or topic
Line B: Two vivid adjectives that describe the topic
Line C: Three interesting -ing action verbs that fit the topic
Line D: Four-word phrase that captures feeling about the topic
Line E: A term or synonym that explains Line A

Cinquains are great writing strategy for any subject and are most effective with student in 3^rd grade and up. See some examples here:

Planet
Graceful, ringed
Spinning, whirling, twirling
Dances with neighbor Jupiter
Saturn

Insect
Hidden, hungry
Preening, searching, stalking
Waits as if praying
Mantis

 What makes a cinquain so effective? It’s fast, dynamic, and active. It immediately conjures images, setting, sounds, tone, and movement, which are all essential when creating an interesting performance. The tried and true strategy proved a powerful one in our workshop as well. Teachers wrote original cinquains about themselves, which in essence was another way into an “I am” poem.

Interested in trying? In honor of the incredible amount of work our teachers, and in this case, our theatre teachers give to their school community, take a stab at writing your own poem. Use your favorite teacher as your muse and then share it with them. Teachers are gifts and everyone deserves to know the impact they have on others’ lives. Spread the love!

Teacher

dedicated, passionate

striving, challenging, inspiring

our most important mentor

Gift