Thinking as They Create
Do Children have Similar Experiences in Dance
and in Language Arts?
Miriam Giguere, M.S.
Abstract
This study examines the cognitive experiences of
children as they engage in creative projects in hoth
dance and poetry. The data includes interviews with
fifth graders from an elementary School in Bucks
County, Pennsylvania, ahout their lived experience
of writing poetry and creating dances. Students
interviewed for this study participated in a three-
session artist-in-residence dance program lead hy
the researcher, which concluded with the creation of
group choreography to poetry. Contemporaneously,
the students wrote poetry as part of the language
arts curriculum. Transcripts of these interviews
were analyzed for predominant themes and thinking
strategies that emerged from the data. The students'
interviews showed connections between the way they
think, reason, and prohlem solve in language arts and
in dance. The author suggests that these overlaps in
cognition may he a good starting point for curriculum
design in dance and may also enhance our ahility to
advocate for a more central placement of dance and
dance making in elementary school curricula.
any dance educators advocate for the use of
M dance as a tool for learning, particularly in an
elementary school setting. The integration of
dance into the academic curriculum can he a natural
and effective connection. But what is it ahout dance
Miriam Giguere, M.S., is in the Department of
Performing Arts at Drexel University, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.
Corresi'ondeiK-c: Mirium Gigucre. M.S.. Drexel University.
2018 MacAlisler Hall. 32nd and Chestnut Streets. Philadel-
phia, Pennsylvania 19104.
that makes it such a powerful tool? Perhaps an inves-
tigation that looks at the ways in which dance learning
and other types of learning are related could shed light
on this question. It may also help us as educators to
huild a shared vocabulary with curriculum specialists
on ways in which dance could be more centrally placed
in the elementary school curriculum.
This investigation began by asking several ques-
tions. What is the nature of the relationship between
learning in dance and learning in traditional academic
areas, such as language arts? Can the experience of
creating a piece of choreography he linked in some way
to the experience of writing poetry for example? More
generally, do children use different thinking and prob-
lem-solving strategies when they are creating in dance
than when they are creating in language arts?
While it is likely that dance has many links with
academics, this study design focused on cognition
in part because pubhc education is driven by the
mandate to improve cognition, especially its verbal
manifestations. Witness the test given to every second
grader in Pennsylvania to evaluate student abilities,
class standing and special services: the COGAT or
Cognitive Abilities Test. By intentionally using the
language of cognitive psychology, this study attempts
to bring the disciplines of dance and public education
into further dialogue with one another.
This study examines cognition as children create
dances and poetry. For the context of this study, the
term "cognition" is intended to mean "thinking and
learning that involves perception and conceptualiza-
tion, especially that which involves symbolic knowledge
and use of notational systems," as defined by Howard
Gardner in Frames of Mind} The data was examined
specifically for thinking strategies or cognitive pat-
terns that children employ in their creative processes.
41
 42 Journal of Dance Education Volume 6, Number 2
'Thinking strategies" in this study refers to any method
or technique that a child uses to solve or conceptualize
solutions to problems. Overlaps or similarities between
the thinking skills apparent in the children's dance and
poetry experiences were explored.
The setting of the study was an artist in residence
program. Entitled "Moving to Words," this three-day
dance and poetry residency has been part of the fifth
grade curriculum during National Poetry month at
Sol Feinstone Elementary School in Bucks County,
Pennsylvania. This annual residency brings dance and
poetry together through structured improvisation and
group choreography This setting provided an oppor-
tunity to look at the ways in which 10- to 12-year-old
children think when creating dance and poetry.
While research in educational psychology has
mainly attempted to look at the effects of the arts on
learning from a quantitative viewpoint—attempting
to link increased scholastic test scores with study
in the arts, as in Keinamen, Hetland, and Winner's
extensive study^—tbis study was designed from
a qualitative viewpoint that seeks to illuminate
children's experiences of thinking in the arts. This
design in based on the idea that research should look
to children's creative experiences, not their testable
products, as a starting point for evaluating the learn-
ing that is going on. This study is also groimded in the
belief that children can recall and reflect upon their
experiences with enough clarity to yield insight on a
particular phenomenon.' In terms of the study, this
suggests that children can recall the thinking pro-
cesses they employed during their lived experience of
creating and that this recollection is a valid depiction
of their learning in dance and poetry.
The study design was also based on the researcher's
close observation of children's creative processes in
dance over the last 20 years. These observations give
rise to the conviction that children are quite cogni-
tively active when they create and have the capacity
to articulate these mental experiences if given the
opportunity. Children's accounts of their experiences
can inform our conceptualization of the educational
process. Indeed, including children's experiential self-
reports in the research process serves to give agency
to the children for whom we are designing curricula.
This research continues the tradition of Bond,^ Bond
and Stinson,^ Purcell,'' and Stinson' in focusing on
students' voices in the research. As Green and Stinson
claim, this kind of research can "give a voice to the oth-
erwise silent participants in dance and allow those in
decision-making positions to understand more about
what is happening for their students.. .and thus help
them make more sensitive decisions.'"*
It is not only the child's voice that is key to this
study; it is the voice of the average child; that is, one
who does not exhibit exceptional presence or absence
2006
of artistic skill. Participants in this study do not repre-
sent outstanding examples of young choreographers or
poets, but merely students who have engaged in this
activity. Most theoretical approaches to curriculum
design base their rationale on exceptional examples
of the phenomenon. Howard Gardner, for example,
identifies a specific intelligence within the theory
of multiple intelligences in part by "the existence of
idiots savants, prodigies, and other exceptional indi-
viduals."^ Robert and Micbele Root-Bernstein, too,
base their articulation of thinking tools on the reports
of Nohel prize winners and the "century's greatest
minds."'" While the ends of the spectrum may serve
to clarify the existence of a phenomenon, there is no
logical or empirical proof that people at either end of
a spectrum are its best representatives. A prodigy's
experiences may not accurately represent the mani-
festation of that same skill in middle-range learners.
Educators are designing the majority of curriculum
for the middle of the learning spectrum, and research
is needed that focuses on these learners.
Methodology
Part I; Artist in Residence Ciasses
In part one of the study, a three-day Artist-in-Resi-
dence program for the fifth grade at Sol Feinstone
Elementary School was conducted. The program,
entitled "Moving to Words," consisted of a series of
three dance classes. Approximately 25 students at-
tended each of the classes, bringing the total number
of participating students to about 100. There was a
fairly even distribution of boys and girls in each class.
Each 45-niinute class had four sections. While the
actual exercises differed in each of the three sessions,
the format was the same. In section one there was a
circle warm-up, which introduced the idea that the
body is the expressive medium of the choreographer.
The warm up included simple rhythmic locomotor
movements aimed at increasing circulation and get-
ting the students to focus on how various parts of the
body move. The second section of the class focused on
stret<;hing. The need forflexibilityin dance was articu-
lated as a way to enhance the movement vocabulary
of the dancer. The third section of the class involved
building large locomotor movement combinations
that travel through space. Sometimes referred to by
dance teachers as "across thefloorcombinations," the
students learned sequencing of movements in this
portion of class. Directions for the movements used in
building these combinations were open-ended so that
students could interpret the instructions in a variety
of ways. For example, the students were invited to
melt for four counts and then roll for four counts in one
of the combinations. Since there is no clear expecta-
tion of how a person "melts," multiple interpretations
were encouraged and reinforced during the class. It
 Journal of Dance Education
was explained to the students that this divergence in
responses is important in order to allow each of them
to find his or her own personal voice or style within
the group. This divergence was fostered to reinforce
the concept that learning dance includes creativity in
addition to imitation.
The fourth section of each class session involved
creating group choreography based on a poem. A
different poem was used in each class, progressing
from literal to abstract over the three class sessions.
The specific poems used were selected because they
contained images of particular interest to the age
group of the participants and were not otherwise being
directly taught as part of the classroom poetry cur-
riculum. Following a brief reading and discussion of
the poem, students were guided through a structured
improvisation to the text. Improvisations became
less prescribed with each progressive session as well.
Choreography for session one, for example, was based
on "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks." The stu-
dents were asked to communicate the personality of
the "cool" people the poem describes with their body
postures as they entered. Later in the choreography
the students made six large sharp shapes with their
bodies to coordinate with the moment in the poem
when a gang fight is described. The movements
that students were encouraged to create, while not
prescriptive, were concrete. They had an obvious con-
nection to the actions and intentions communicated
by the poem. Session two involved choreographing
"The Will of Writing" by James Schevill.'^ Students
began the choreography in this activity with a move-
ment phrase they created during the "across the
floor" section of the class. It had no literal or gestural
connection to the words of the poem. During the third
session, students created movements to "Dreams" by
Langston Hughes,'' a poem with no narrative and a
more abstract, multi-layered message. Students were
encouraged to see from this process how dance can be
more than simply acting out the literal meaning of the
text, and how each individual dancer can contribute
to the creative process.
Part II: Interviews
In part two of the study, participating students were
interviewed twice; once about their experiences creat-
ing poetry and once about their experiences creating
dances. Any student who participated in Artist-in-
Residence classes could choose to be interviewed. They
needed to get signed permission from their parents,
in accordance with Institutional Review Board guide-
lines in order to participate. Fifleen students volun-
teered and received permission by the deadline.
The first set of interviews focused on children's
experiences of creating poetry. The children had been
actively creating poetry as a regular part of their
Volume 6, Number 2 2006 43
language arts curriculum in celebration of National
Poetry Montb (April) concurrent with the Artist-in-
Residence project. A variety of teaching methods were
used to elicit this poetry. Each of the four classroom
teachers used a slightly different technique. The cre-
ation of poetry was not done with the researcher, nor
were instructional methods or teaching vocabulary
intentionally coordinated between the Artist-in-Resi-
dence project and the classroom poetry instruction.
The interviews began in a group setting to put the stu-
dents at ease. They outnumbered the researcher, cre-
ating an atmosphere that focused on their voices and
experiences. Because 15 students received permission
to be interviewed, a larger group than had initially
been anticipated, two interview groups were formed,
one with seven students and one with eight students.
The coordinating teacher of the Artist-in-Residence
project randomly assigned students to groups. The
discussion began with open-ended questions—What
is it like when you make up a poem? What are you
thinking about when you write a poem?
While the initial study design was to separate the
children for individual interviews following a few
minutes of group discussion to orient the students
to the phenomenon, this procedure was not followed.
The students were so comfortable speaking with one
another in a group that it would have been intrusive
to end the conversation to begin individual interviews.
In order to honor the researcher's role as listener in
the gathering of experiential data, the group format
was allowed to continue. It was impressive to note
how comfortable the students were in speaking to
one another while maintaining their own opinions.
Students disagreed with one another without rancor,
and seemed to be interested, even stimulated, by their
differing and overlapping experiences.
The second sot of interviews was based on the
students' experiences in dance in the classes taught
during the Artist-in-Residence program. The students
were interviewed to elicit experiential data on their
creative process in creating dances using the same
conversational format and interview groups as in the
first set of interviews. The questions for the second
interview followed the format of the first. The ques-
tions began with:
What is it like when you make up a dance?
What are you thinking about when you choreo-
graph a dance?
What are you thinking about when you pick the
movements you will do in the dance?
Findings
Part I: Graphic Depictions
The four interview sessions, or conversations, provided
a wealth of data. Before analyzing them, the conver-
sations were transcribed from audiotapes. Analysis
 44 Journal of Dance Education Volume 6, Number 2
began by looking for themes that emerged from the
children's words. Because so many participants were
involved at once it was possible to look for patterns of
meaning in theflowof the conversation. This is similar
to the henneneutic phenomenological process of "poet-
izing," a process Max Van Manen characterizes as a
telling of the event that "harkens back to the silence
from which the words emanate.''^^ Rather than creat-
ing a verbal reduction of the experience, as Van Manen
does through poetizing, a graphic depiction was cre-
ated. These graphic depictions of the flow of themes
and topics in the children's conversations helped to
clarify when the discussion touched on the research
topic of cognition. These depictions are referred to as
"maps" of the conversations for the purposes of this
study. Samples of these maps are provided in Fig-
ures 1 and 2. The first two conversations were about
creating poetry; the second two were about dance
making. The participants involved in conversations
one and three were the same children (group 1); the
participants in conversations two and four were the
same children (group 2). The words on the maps were
taken directly from the children's interviews, with
the exceptions of words in all capitals. These words
are topic headings or summarizing terms inserted by
the researcher to make the charts succinct and read-
able. The arrows on the maps show a chronological
perspective for the conversation. The circular areas
represent the moments when the interviews touched
on cognition, an intersection with the original research
question. These sections of the interviews are referred
to as "key data."
While the major function of these maps became to
identify which sections of the interview transcripts
were most relevant to the phenomenon under study,
these maps also allowed some observations to be made
about the interviews themselves. By looking at the
rectangular areas, those not related to the research
question, it can be noted that at least one theme in
each conversation related to catharsis or other issues
of emotional involvement in the creative process. A
consciousness of audience or reader came up in every
conversation as well. Feeling and communication, it
appears, were not sharply separated from thinking
and problem solving for the children in the context
of these conversations. While more about children,
art, and pedagogy could perhaps be deduced from
these conversations, in order to give thoughtful con-
sideration to a manageable amount of data, further
analysis was limited to the "key data."
Part II: Verbal Analysis
The second phase of analysis looked more closely at
the "key data" for evidence of cognitive processes. As
noted earlier, this analysis utilized Gardner's defini-
tion of cognition as thinking and reasoning in looking
2006
specifically for descriptions that showed how children
decided on ways, or strategies, to communicate their
ideas throughout the creative process.
Rather than use labels unique to this study to
describe the strategies encountered, designations
previously articulated through educational psychol-
ogy were used whenever possible. It was hoped that
by using vocabulary from psychology at this point in
the analysis the study results could begin to intersect
with the literature read by curriculum specialists in
the public education sector In particular, the Root-
Bernsteins' work was used as a jumping of!' point
because their theory articulates easily identifiable
whole brain thinking skills. Robert and Michele Root-
Bernstein have articulated 13 general-purpose "tools
for thinking."'"' These "tools for thinking" are used in
creative endeavors in the sciences, arts, humanities,
and technologies. These 13 general purpose strategies
include observing, imaging, abstracting, recognizing
patterns, forming patterns, analogizing, body think-
ing, empathizing, dimensional thinking, modeling,
playing, transforming, and synthesizing. It was rea-
soned that if "tools for thinking" were present in both
dance and language arts activities, then plausible
links between learning in the two areas could be
surmised.
Poetry Strategies: Tools for Thinking
During the poetry interviews the children did, in fact,
report using strategies that could be identified as
"tools for thinking," particularly empathizing, observ-
ing, recognizing patterns and forming patterns. One
child reported, "Sometimes I pick an idea, and then
I like think of what it kind of goes through. I think if
I was that thing, what would happen." This descrip-
tion of imagining yourself as the object of study (in
this example the student was describing herself as
imagining she were a clock, so that she could write
a poem about it) is an example of empathizing, one
tool described by the Root-Bemsteins. Another child
described this type of empathy as a deliberate day-
dreaming: "I daydream like I'm rescuing people from
a burning building or other things like that. That gets
me started on stuff, too "
A different strategy is at play in the student who
reported: "Another thing I do is like I look at things
in my room.. .One time I wrote about the sky because
my room was all blue." It is possible to liken this
experience to what the Root-Bemsteins refer to as
observing as a technique for brainstorming. Students
observe their world and use what they see as topical
material. This was seen again in statements such as:
"Sometimes I write about, like, the smallest things
that people don't really notice."
Several students (9 of the 15) also commented on
the need to follow form when writing poetry. These
 Journal of Dance Education
KirsI
Durins
FRKEDON IN WRIIIM; /
CATHARSIS:
Figure 1 Map of Conversation 1. Poetry discussion with
Group 1. Circular areas represent the moments when the
conversation touched on cognitive processes, also referred
to as "key data." Rectan^lar areas represent other topics
of conversation. The arrows represent the chronological
flow of the conversation. Words in all capitals are the
researcher's language; all other text is the participating
children's language.
students found that they: "think about it beforehand,
but I repeat the form... [I] repeat the type of poem,"
or again, "I read it and it had that rhythm...what
we were supposed to do on each line." This shows
the strategy of recognition of patterns. Students ar-
ticulated that the form or structure of a poem meant
fitting their ideas into a pattern of words.
Additionally students explained that they altered
the material to form new patterns with their words:
"I get ideas from people and like I switch it around. I
use some of their words, but I'll switch it around and
use some of my words."
The Root-Bemsteins identify this tool as forming
patterns, a correlate but separate strategy from pat-
tern recognition. A couple of children mentioned that
creating forms and patterns was one of the enjoyable
parts of the poetry experience, for example, "The thing
I like about poetry is that it has.. .it's in the shape of
something, or it has a nice form, it's flin to read."
Dance Strategies: Tools for Thinking
A number of these same thinking strategies can
be seen in the interview data pertaining to dance.
Examples of observing, empathizing, body thinking
and recognition of patterns were discovered in the
Volume 6, Number 2 2006 45
a NS( HOOI.Ki). BUT 1K)KS
ITAMVWAVI
cnNsri(>i'SNK,s.Si)f
Sii^iitc ii ptricirni:
^cl^ Viirk
CATHARSIS; tfltast
,.ni;ir,K.Ii.ull,rlinn.s
jiiM liki! lu pcrfcii
Figure 2 Map of Conversation 4. Dance discussion with
Group 2. Circular areas represent the moments when the
conversation touched on cognitive processes, also referred
to as "key data."
accounts of the children's dance experiences. One
student explained that her ideas for dances come
from observing:
I turn the music on and I listen and I look around.
I look outside and I think like how I feel.
I look at something.. .and 1 just make a dance out of
it. Like something on my shirt [has on a painted
shirt with a dragon and Japanese characters],
and I make up like a dragon dance.
An empathetic strategy is evident in this student's
report uf his or her creative process in dance:
You know those musicals where it's just all rain-
forest and water? It's trickling. It's quiet music. I
usually just think for a while when it's happen-
ing.... So I dance like calm and steady in that
rainforest. I imagine myself in a rainforest.
As would be expected, there was evidence of body
thinking in the children's dance experiences. One
child reported: "When you make up a dance you are
just having fun and you pay attention to what your
body is doing." Another commented that, "I can usu-
ally just feel if it's right. I can feel if it's wrong." More
than one student commented on the fact that they
listen for patterns of rhythm in the music when they
are creating dances:
I think there are certain moves that go with the
 46 Journal of Dance Education Volume 6, Number 2
beats, and when Ifindthose beats and rhythms
in the music, then that's what I'll do |in the
dance].
I like to feel the music and go along with it. I go
along with the beat.
It seems clear that creating dances for these students,
particularlyfrommusic, involves recognizing patterns,
a "tool for thinking."
Other Cognitive Strategies and Observations
One additional strategy came to light in hoth the
students' poetry and dance creation experiences.
Students commented that they used other art forms
to brainstorm during their creative process. In poetry,
for example, one student explained;
When I am usually thinking of a poem I draw.. .1
draw and I draw.. .1 draw to think about what to
do next...when I'm doing poetry I draw without
thinking.
In dance a different student remarked,
I usually listen to the tones of the music and put
them into colors. Then if they're like hot colors I
would try and do some strong moves, and like cool
colors I would do slow moves.
This strategy seems related to the "tools for thinking"
strategy known as transformational thinking. The
Root-Bemsteins define this as "the serial or simulta-
neous use of multiple imaginative tools in such a way
that one tool acts upon another.""' It seems however
to be a less advanced version of this strategy. Rather
than two strategies infiuencing one another, it seems
that the thinking described is really more "relational
brainstorming." Here a student calls on multiple ways
of stimulating thinking by generating artistic product
in more than one artistic modality.
Another cognitive element that came to light in
both dance and poetry was the prevalent idea of a
preconscious state where creative thought occurs.
Students reported this in two ways. Some conmiented
on the sudden fiash of insight: "You don't even realize
that you're writing and then all of sudden it's done.
You just do it. You don't really think about it.. .It just
comes to you." Others descrihed this preconscious
state as a semi-dream state, which I call "creative
reverie": "I just close my eyes and whirl and go where
the music takes me."
Discussion
In refiectiiig on the findings from this study, two issues
come to light. The first issue relates to the strategic
behaviors themselves, the second to the way these
strategies are applied during the creative process.
Firstly it seems clear that there are, in these data,
some common thinking strategies that occur during
both the creation of dances and the creation of poetry.
2006
Ohserving, empathizing, recognizing patterns, trans-
formational thinking, and creative reverie were noted
in both poetry and dance making. What is unclear,
however, is how this is related to pedagogy. Is the
use of common skills made apparent—or even cre-
ated—through the teaching process? Would children
spontaneously use these strategies in a less struc-
tured, more student-directed learning environment?
Perhaps a next step in this research could be to further
decontextualize, that is, identify more specifically the
conditions under which the use of the same cognitive
strategies in multiple contexts occur. As Perkins and
Salomon state, it is important for educators to "decon-
textualize the transferable aspects [of learning] and
bridge them to other contexts."'"
A second topic for further investigation is the way
in which cognitive strategies are applied during the
creative process. For example, are children learning
when and how to apply "observing" or "empathiz-
ing" during dance making? Is the creative process
teaching children how to apply cognitive strategies
to solve problems? Learning theorists in dance such
as Barr and Lewin^" and Matt '^ describe three kinds
of knowledge in the problem so]ving process: declara-
tive, procedural, and metacognitive. "Declarative"
refers to the factual material a person knows going
into a problem-solving situation. "Procedural" refers
to knowing wbat strategies for thinking or problem
solving could be applied to the problem. "Metacogni-
tive" refers to reflecting on the success of the strategies
applied and managing and controlling those strate-
gies for best use. Perhaps the creative process is in
actuality a type of procedural knowledge. The types
of thinking that go on during the creative process
may be closely linked to the types of thinking that
go on in expert procedural problem solving. One con-
nection between dance and language arts may be the
way in which strategies are applied rather than the
strategies themselves. Perhaps the creative process
itself is the transferable cognitive strategy that links
artistic learning to traditional academic learning. For
dance educators this could mean emphasizing dance
making and improvisation more in our classes. By
making the largest proportion of class time focused
on technique, we might lose the best opportunity for
transfer of learning into traditional academic areas.
This study supports the idea that the creative
process teaches problem-solving strategies. Students'
accoimts of their experiences in creating poetry closely
match educational psychologist Ellen Winner's de-
scription of tbe creative process.^" In Invented Worlds,
Winner characterizes the creative process as consist-
ing of four stages:
1. Conscious deliberation of the problem,
2. Subconscious deliberation of the problem while
attention is turned elsewhere,
 Journal of Dance Education
3. Insight, and
4. Development of the idea from insight.
In the following student's account, all four stages
are clearly present:
When I am thinking about a poem I draw... I
draw to think about what to do next.... Sometimes
when I'm drawing something else will come to
mind.... I don't even notice I'm drawing and then
"what am I doing?" And then I write about that.
In looking for cognitive strategies in this same ac-
count, it can be noted that the student is also using
Pressley and colleagues' four hallmarks of "competent
strategic behavior,"-' strategic behavior, being that
which effectively approaches the solution of problems.
The four stages are characterized by:
1. Comprehension of the problem,
2. Application of problem-solving strategies,
3. Monitoring of strategies and possible discovery
of the need for change, and
4. Processing shifts.
It appears that competent strategic behavior and
creative process are both present in this student's
experience. This confluence of competent use of
problem-solving strategies and creative process in
tbe data may point to a larger phenomenon—a close
link between critical thinking and creative process.
The Root-Bemsteins note frequently that exceptional
critical thinkers are creative individuals. Perhaps this
is a reciprocal relationship. Creative individuals may
be using critical thinking in their artistic process.
By giving children opportunities to create dances,
perhaps we are also giving them an opportunity to
challenge and refine their abilities to solve many kinds
of problems. If aspects of dance making are critical
to the development of creative process and therefore
critical thinking, then dance educators should advo-
cate for the use of dance as a path leading to general
cognitive development. Rather than emphasize dance
as a mode for learning material from other subject
areas such as language arts or math, dance could
be seen as a metacognitive tool, one that enhances
general problem-solving and reasoning skills. If the
findings from this study are indicative of a larger
picture, then the choreographic process has a critical
role in the scholastic benefits of dance and should play
a prominent part in curriculum design for children. If
dance education in the 21st century hopes to re-unite
body and mind, then dance researchers and educators
need to consider not only the body in motion, but the
mind in motion as well.
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Volume 6, Number 2 2006 47
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