Revised National Curriculum Statement Grades R-9 (Schools) - Grade Six

Learning Area: Arts and Culture

Learning Outcome 1:  Creating, Interpreting and Presenting

The learner will be able to create, interpret and present work in each of the art forms.

Organising prinicple: The learner will be able to develop skills and knowledge to create and present artworks based on South Africa’s past and present.

Assessment standards

We know this when the learner:

• Dance
  • In preparing the body, demonstrates increasing skill and understanding of warming up, including:
    • the development of spinal flexibility and strength;
    • the controlled and relaxed use of the joints, especially the knees, hips and ankles.
  • Improvises and creates dance sequences that use:
    • steps and styles from various South African dance forms;
    • costumes, props, imagery and music;
    • varying use of energy such as tension and relaxation, stillness and flow;
    • personal and general space.
  • Learns, interprets and performs dances from South African culture with competence and appropriate style.
• Drama
  • Performs simple relaxation, breathing, resonance, pitch and articulation exercises when warming up and cooling down the voice and body.
  • Uses African stories to develop dramas that:
    • have a clear plot;
    • highlight key moments;
    • contain credible characters;
    • use space effectively.
• Music
  • Focuses on music from a variety of South African forms:
    • improvises and creates music phrases with voice and/or instruments that explore dynamics, articulation, pitch and rhythmic patterns;
    • plays simple rhythmic patterns on a drum or equivalent;
    • explores and uses drum hand techniques such as base slap, open slap, muffle;
    • reads and sings or plays the scale and simple melodies in C Major.
• Visual Arts
  • Transforms visual information into structured compositions based on individually selected, real or imagined situations in South Africa, using available materials and appropriate techniques in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional work.
• Composite
  • Illustrates/interprets African tales through puppetry:
    • designing and making hand and/or head puppets;
    • devising and producing puppet shows;
    • composing music for puppet shows;
    • choreographing movement for head puppets if used.
  • Uses dramatic devices, visual illustrations, movement and sound to tell jokes, tall stories, lies, fantasies or absurd tales to explore realities in South Africa.

Learning Outcome 2:  Reflecting

The learner will be able to reflect critically and creatively on artistic and cultural processes, products and styles in past and present contexts.

Organising principle: The learner will be able to think critically,reflect on and share understanding of the Arts in the historical,social and culural environment of South Africa.

Assessment standards

We will know this when the learner:

• Dance
  • Researches the historical background of dances done by their elders in terms of social or cultural contexts, purpose and unique characteristics.
• Drama
  • Finds out about different types of drama in the country and makes connections between some of them in terms of origins and similarities.
• Music
  • Listens to and discusses the use of repetition as an organising principle in African music.
  • Selects a repertoire of songs that are used in various cultural environments, describes what cultural events they are drawn from, explains what the message of the lyrical content is and what the songs are used for.
• Visual Arts
  • Identifies the main purposes and design features of artworks in the home, the community and public places in terms of theme, subject and scale.
• Composite
  • Explores and discusses own concept of culture.

Learning Outcome 3:  Participating and Collaborating

The learner will be able to demonstrate personal and interpersonal skills through individual and group participation in Arts and Culture activities.

Organising principle: The learner will be able to interact with others, showing adaptability to new ideas or situations, affirming and acknowledging diversity.

Assessment standards

We know this when the learner:

• Dance
  • Works co-operatively with partners, improvising and composing dance sequences.
  • Shares opinions with other learners about dances from various cultures in a supportive and constructive way.
• Drama
  • Extends and develops given snippets of dialogue with a partner, showing ability to ‘feed off’ and respond to partner’s ideas.
  • Assumes both leader and follower roles willingly in dramatic activities.
• Music
  • Sings and/or plays in a group - canons, rounds and two-part songs from at least three cultural traditions of South Africa.
• Visual Arts
  • Shares resources, choice of materials and negotiates choice of subject matter in a group project with other learners, with a focus on:
    • joint decision-making;
    • presentation;
    • safety;
    • the environment;
    • cultural diversity.
• Composite
  • Shows respect for and acknowledgement of the work of others.
  • Participates in a performance as an audience member.
  • Expresses own personal sense of identity and uniqueness in any art form.

Learning Outcome 4:  Expressing and Communicating

The learner will be able to analyse and use multiple forms of communication and expression in Arts and Culture.

Organising principle: The learner will be able to explore, express and communicate the meaning and form of various historical, social and cultural rituals or practices in South Africa.

Assessment standards

We know this when the learner:

• Dance and Music
  • Finds out about, tries out and explains a song-dance ritual (e.g. snake dance, rain dance, wedding dance, circle dance, reed dance, stick dance), referring to its purpose and structure - patterns, repetition and sequence.
• Drama
  • Dramatises a cultural ritual (religious ceremony or social celebration), showing the use of the elements of drama (e.g. patterns, repetition, sequence).
  • Explains the importance of this ritual for the people who participate in it.
• Music
  • Researches, creates and presents music that conveys and suggests the symbolism of ritual.
• Visual Arts
  • Demonstrates and describes the use of various artefacts in cultural rituals.
  • Researches murals in the community as a form of visual communication in relation to:
    • the intended message;
    • target group;
    • techniques;
    • appropriate materials;
    • symbols and signs.