Talent Identification Toolkit

Typical Peer Group

• Dance classes should include simple, repetitive phrases of movement and floor patterns using space, time and energy, and exploring stillness.
• Introduce and repeat basic dance skills including gross and fine motor skills.
• Create opportunities for social development by performing simple social dances with a partner or full-class that encourages expressions of feelings in movement.
• Improvise movement, alone or with a partner, to music and other stimuli that translates into simple ideas of imagery, stories, sounds, words, or games to build articulation and confidence.
• Observe different dance styles from around the world and describe movements.
• Demonstrate appropriate etiquette at a dance performance.

Gifted Student

• Gifted students of this age should be able to execute isolated as well as coordinated dance movements, maintaining alignment and balance, as well as more complex and contrasting body movement patterns.
• Understand and remember simple movement motifs and phrases.
• Observe and reflect upon the feeling that is communicated through various dances.
• Recognize dances from different cultures.
• Communicates through the language of dance.

Typical Peer Group

• Perform dances from at least two different styles or genres using basic, accurate movement skills
• Create short solo and small group dances using compositional elements
• Recognize styles in major dance works.
• Understand dance as a means of communication.
• Both genders should be given the same range of activities at this level to avoid stereotyping
• Performance considerations that are appropriate for this level are collaborative activities in duets, trios, and small groups that strengthen emotional and social awareness and foster confidence.

Gifted Student

• Demonstrate skills in foundational dance forms (ballet, modern, tap or jazz)
• Demonstrate consistent performance skills
• Develop movement phrases using basic composition skills
• Recognize that culture and geography are reflected in world dance traditions.
• Analyze and evaluate dance works.
• Uses dance symbolically to demonstrate 21^st Century Skills and creative problem solving.

Typical Peer Group

• Students who have been taking dance since childhood are able to train as professionals from a technical perspective
• Those who have not had such training still bring a level of maturity that allows them to grasp the discipline of the process of training the body.

Gifted Student

• Depending on access, a gifted dance student will likely be dancing on or at a pre-collegiate/pre-professional level.

Typical Peer Group

• Participate in music classes that include simple, repetitive phrases and patterns.
• Engaged in social development by performing simple melodies and rhythms that encourages expressions of feelings in movement.
• Improvise movement or musical phrases alone or with a partner, that translates into simple ideas of imagery, stories, sounds, words, or games to build articulation and confidence.
• Observe/listen to different musical styles from around the world and share their feelings about the music.
• Demonstrate appropriate etiquette at a musical performance.

Gifted Student

• Identify and are aware of the differences between musical sounds and listens with intent and focus when music is present in their environment.
• Understand and remember melodies and rhythms and can repeat them accurately.
• Experiment with sounds and musical materials.
• Observe and reflect upon the feeling that is communicated through various musical pieces.
• Confidently performs music.
• Recognizes music from different cultures.
• Finds music a language of communication.

Typical Peer Group

• Perform musical pieces from at least two different styles or genres using basic, accurate performance skills.
• Create short solo and small group musical performances.
• Recognize styles in major musical pieces.
• Understand music as a means of communication.
• Performance in duets, trios, and small groups that strengthen emotional and social awareness and foster confidence in grade level repertoire.

Gifted Student

• Identify and are aware of the differences between musical sounds and listens with intent and focus, beginning to discern separate musical elements.
• Accurately senses a rhythmic pulse in music and easily responds to subtle changes.
• Learn musical elements/sequences quickly and intuitively strives to improve physical/technical musical skills.
• Understand simple compositional elements and create music using these elements, including revising their work.
• Experiment with sounds and musical materials.
• Are capable of and interested in working independently.
• Demonstrates perseverance in musical tasks with focused concentration, energy, and internal motivation.
• Constructively and appropriately critiques the musical work of others and self.

Typical Peer Group

• Recall melodies and rhythms and can repeat them accurately (audiation).
• Follow a rhythmic pulse in a fluid manner in appropriate grade level repertoire.
• Notice and attend to differences in melodies, rhythms, and sounds.
• Experiment with sounds improvises musical phrases
• Attend to aesthetic elements of music in performance, appreciation, and critique: mood, dynamics, style, instrumental timbre.
• Practice and revise musical ideas.
• Perform and react to music with personal expression and shows intensity and involvement with the music.

Gifted Student

• Accurately sense evident and non-evident rhythmic pulse and are able to respond to subtle changes.
• Discern evident and subtle differences in melodies, rhythms, and tone color and is able to compare and contrast.
• Are aware of aesthetic elements of music (e.g., mood, dynamics, style, instrumental timbre) and are able to demonstrate sensitivity in performing, creating, and responding.
• Are capable of and interested in working independently.
• Create, perform, and respond to music with passion, and indicates a personal affinity for a musical product.
• Quickly develop and intuitively strive to improve physical/technical musical skills.

Typical Peer Group

• Explore characters, ideas and situations through dramatic play
• Use dramatic play to increase understanding of self in relation to others and their surroundings.
• Identify elements of theatre to explore and understand the world around them.
• Participate in representational play to expand students' literary capacities.
• Early childhood learners: Even when they volunteer, children at this age should not be asked to perform spontaneously in front of the class or an audience.
• Performances at this age should be in intimate, safe spaces, for small audiences only.

Gifted Student

• Use expanded vocabulary in exploring characters and situations.
• Identify the elements of theatre that identify it as an art form.  Students should be encouraged to use dramatic play with the focus on the creative process.
• Identify questions which will expand the story or situation involved in dramatic play.
• Sensitive to feelings and the feelings of others involved in dramatic play emotional safety is of particular importance to these students.

Typical Peer Group

• Create and write simple dramas and scenes using theatric tools to increase and develop literary tools.
• Clarify and use stage directions; body positions; appropriate audience etiquette; selected criteria to critique what is seen, heard, and understood; and the role of the stage practitioner as elements of theatre as an art form.
• Communicate characters through physical movement, gesture, sound and speech, and facial expression.
• Work effectively alone and cooperatively to foster activities that engage students in imaginative play increasing individual understanding of his/herself and the world around him/her.
• Expands the understanding of literary forms by identifying the basic structures, mood, historical and cultural context within a script, and character relationships and dynamics in a scene.
• Focus and stay in character in improvisational performances.
• Practice and rehearse to perform scripted material.
• Late elementary school students are developing inhibitions; may be self-conscious and uncomfortable on stage.

Gifted Student

• Encourage complexity in characters and the use of extended vocabulary.       
• Include larger world view in creation of stories, characters, events, and/or themes.          
• Identifies multiple theatrical elements subject to critique      
• Identify questions which will expand the story or situation involved in play building.  Students should be encouraged to integrate a "better way" of including a given idea or character element.            
• Analyze and evaluate theatrical creation.             
• Increased challenges when working collaboratively may be present.             
• Perfectionism may stifle the creative production for students.

Typical Peer Group

• Explore individual perspective by creating characters for both improvised and scripts works.
• Use a variety of methods, new media, and technology to create theatrical works through the use of creative process for performance, directing, design, construction, choreography, playwriting, scriptwriting, and dramaturgy.
• Create drama and theatre by interpreting and appreciating theatrical works, culture, and experience through scenes and scenarios, improvisation, creating environments, purposeful movement and research.
• Employ drama and theatre skills and articulate the aesthetics of a variety of characters and roles.
• Express drama and theatre arts skills in a variety of performances, including plays, monologues, improvisation, purposeful movement, scenes, design, technical craftsmanship, media, ensemble works, and public speaking.

Gifted Student

• Require development of scripts, design or technical projects, and/or directorial leadership with complexity of relationships and varied interpretations.
• Encourage the development of dramaturgical processes.
• Many students in this developmental phase have the background and experience to work in professional settings for playwriting, performance, and design or technical theatre.

Typical Peer Group

• Students use materials provided.
• Students generally look for guidance and direction to interact with materials.
• Student’s art is more about experimentation than a specific representation.
• Drawings are often not meant to be representational, but rather are records of hand movement.
• Students may move from one exploration to another if their attention for the first exploration begins to wane.

Gifted Student

• These students may have more specific decisions about media, subject matter, inspirational material and working conditions than the average child.
• Even young gifted artists may show advanced perceptual discrimination.
• These students may prefer self-directed challenges.
• While an average child’s experience at this age may be about experiment, a gifted artist may be more representational or specific with their choices and include minute details, unusual perspectives, and/or action.
• Students may or may not move from one exploration to another, but an intensity of involvement is present.
• Artistic giftedness may or may not be connected to being intellectually gifted – there are no research-based direct links at this time.

Typical Peer Group

• Students may contextualize new information to make it relevant to their lives.
• Students may make connections to the world beyond the classroom.
• Students may use basic figurative language and symbols.
• Students may begin to develop visual metaphors.
• Students may work thematically with encouragement.
• Student may begin to be reflective about their work.
• Students may be encouraged to work with an inquiry-based approach.
• Student may begin to integrate skill and conceptual considerations.
• Skill and technical ability is commiserate with opportunities available.

Gifted Student

• Some traits of the exceptionally artistically creative that are viewed as positive characteristics are being curious, open-minded, energetic, artistic and having a keen sense of humor. Other dispositional factors can challenge teachers’ tolerance levels, such as questioning rules, disorganization, absentmindedness, and a tendency to be emotional.
• Students may show a range of multidimensional processes that includes knowledge of art concepts and traditions in a culture, highly developed visual thinking skills, and intrinsic motivation.
• Students may exhibit decisions and actions that are both purposeful and not predictable.
• Student outputs can be individual where materials, forms, and cultural conventions are fused with the artist’s personal history and emotions.
• Students may create something that has never before existed in exactly that form, which may not be related to drawing ability but more associated with original ideas or innovations.
• Those less creative may produce drawings that are realistic without much inventiveness, whereas more creative students find problems and attempt to solve them by producing novel solutions with advanced representational skills in traditional and new media.
• Problem-finding and problem-solving, being emotionally involved, and focusing on personal visions when making art projects.
• There may be a large volume of works over a sustained period of time along with thematically specialized work.
• Students’ methods of discovery, visualization techniques, and ways they seek productive questions are often far better indicators of talented creative abilities than specific solutions to art problems.