As a lesson within their Nile River study, the third graders integrated the subjects of geography, grammar, and movement. First students identified various Nile River vocabulary words as parts of speech and then added to lists of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs describing each word. For example, if the noun was "delta" then the other words could be "vast," "squiggly," "rich," etc. From there, students were given the opportunity to explore moving their bodies as they heard various combinations of the words called out by the teacher. They might hear, "sharp highlands" or "rushing low" or "pushing softly." In their own private spaces, the students created movement using their own bodies, and then experimented further with directions for which part of the body, what speed, and what level, such as "fast, low, rushing water" or "smooth ripples in your head, then arms, then whole body."

Next, students chose from a list of about ten different parts of the Nile that they had previously generated to represent the entire length of the world's longest river, one of only two that flows south to north. Each student chose which part (s)he wanted to be; cataract, Lake Victoria, Ethiopian Highlands, Mediterranean Sea, etc. They connected up with others who also wanted to be that same part. Each small group was asked to chose four or five words from the word lists to represent that part.

The Blue Nile group, for example, chose the words: violently, crashing, deadly, smoothly, smashing, calmly. They used these words to guide the choreography of a movement piece to abstractly represent the Blue Nile, while keeping in mind some of the techniques they had been taught, such as the use of gesture, attention to varying the speed and levels of their movements, and putting similar movements into various body parts. They needed to have variation in all of these elements of the movement, creating a flowing and meaningful final piece.

Once each small group had a chance to share and receive feedback from the larger group, they worked together to combine and connect each group to the next. The students decided that Khartoum, the city where the Blue and White Nile meet, needed to be the one which physically joined those two parts together, and the Delta needed to flow physically into the Mediterranean Sea. Finally, the students were clear that all the parts needed to work together at the end to show the complete Nile as one river. Students also helped to choose the music.

Click here to see a video of the performance.