Report – Curriculum Integration

Date: 12th February, 2020

Topic: Traditional Carnival Characters: The Dame Lorraine

Subjects Integrated: Social Studies, History and Dance

Teachers: Mrs. Reshma Sookhoo and Mrs. Cherry-Ann Alves-Bravo

Class: Form Two History

On the 12th February, 2020 Mrs. Bravo, the dance teacher and myself Mrs. Sookhoo, the

history teacher, collaborated to deliver a lesson on Traditional Carnival Characters in Trinidad

and Tobago with a special emphasis on the “The Dame Lorraine” because that character was

selected for our Carnival celebrations. For the purpose of this lesson, a Form Two class was

selected because it was part of the history curriculum for that level and that class were taught by

the two teachers. They lesson was taught utilizing a double period of seventy minutes. There

were fifteen students present, thus the students were divided into three groups of five in order to

facilitate demonstrations and group work. The school’s dance studiowas used as it was spacious

and had the necessities to facilitate the lesson objectives. The lesson was taught from a

constructivist approach and included problem based and inquiry learning strategies.

The lesson objectives included:

 OBJECTIVES:
At the end of this lesson, pupils will be able to:

Objectives of the lesson Classification of Domain

objectives
1. Examine the history of The Dame Lorraine in Analyse Cognitive
Trinidad and Tobago.
2. Express the hidden meaning of the Valuing Affective
movements of the different The Dame
Lorraine characters.
3. Imitate a typical dance performed by The Guided Response Psychomotor
Dame Lorraine.

This lesson began with the Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Sookhoo, showing the students

looking at several photos of some of the traditional Carnival characters including, Bats,

Bookman, Dame Lorraine and Fancy Indians. The students were asked to identify the characters

in the photos. Many were able to identify all the characters accurately except for the Dame

Lorraine. This was used as an opportunity to launch a discussion about the Dame Lorraine. The

students were shown snippets of video clips showing Dame Lorraine’s performing dances to the

traditional music. The students were then asked thought provoking questions by the History

teacher (Mrs. Sookhoo). For example:

1. Why do you think that this character is dressed in this manner?

2. What message do you think the character is trying to display in the dance moves?

These questions facilitated quite a bit of discussion as students were interested in the story

behind the Dame Lorraine and how it became part of the Carnival culture in Trinidad and

Tobago. Their responses included “they wanted to make fun of the way the ladies dressed” one

boy even indicated that “they wanted to attract a man!”

After the discussion, the students were asked to form three groups of five. Each group looked

at a video depicting a specific form of the Dame Lorraine dance. The groups were required to
identify and decipher the meanings of the dance being displayed. For this aspect of the lesson a

problem-based approach was utilized. As groups viewed their videos, they were able to identify

some of the hidden puns in the dances. For example, one character displayed the dance of having

a bad back, another a damaged foot and thirdly big breast and bum. Each group conducted an

oral presentation on their version of the Dame Lorraine sighting specific movements and their

significance.

The next part of the lesson was the historical significance of the Dame Lorraine in Trinidad

and Tobago’s history. I, (Mrs. Sookhoo), began by posing a question to the students “Why

would the slaves want to imitate the French Planters in the 18th and 19th centuries?”. The students

pondered and gave various responses; one student indicated that they wanted to look like the rich

planters, another said that this was their opportunity to make fun at the planters who treated them

badly. The students engaged in discussion about how the slaves felt seeing these lavish parties

held by the French Planters and what it would be like for the slaves and the planters to be living

in Trinidad during that time. The teacher focused the students attention on other traditional

Carnival characters. Students looked at a documentary describing the other characters such as the

Midnight Robber, The Bat, The Bookman, Fancy Sailors, Blue Devils and Moko Jumbie. The

students were then required to write a short description of each character as well as the historical

significance of the characters. As a follow up to this lesson, the students were required to

construct a replica of a traditional Carnival character using recycled materials (photos of these

can be seen below).

After this, the final aspect of the lesson was to learn the dance of the Dame Lorraine. This

was done by the Dance Teacher, Mrs. Bravo. This was done as a form of modelling the activity.

The students gathered in the school’s dance studio, where Mrs. Bravo described and
demonstrated different forms of the Dame Lorraine’s dance. Students observed the

demonstrations and were then allowed to practice the different pieces. The students were quite

timid, but they all made an effort as they enjoyed the activity. The students displayed a high level

of confidence and enthusiasm in their performance that four of them were selected to portray the

Dame Lorraine character for the school’s Carnival celebrations (videos can be seen below).

Integrating Dance, History and Social Studies in order to complete this concept, expanded

this more that I was expecting. The students were not only given the opportunity to complete this

aspect of the curriculum, but they also learnt vicariously through the combined efforts of both

teachers. The curriculum integration could be considered a success as it ran fairly smoothly and

when the students were asked their opinions, they expressed that they enjoyed it. The students

expressed that the most memorable part of the lesson was seeing the link between both subjects

and one student even expressed that this was one of the most active history class that he had ever

been in.