Artist-in-Residence Opportunities

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Residencies
Ken offers Artist-in-Residence experiences K-12 schools, colleges and other organizations, including nature centers.

Songwriting Foundations & Creativity

A Songwriting Residency reinforces popular “6 Traits” writing skills and includes:

• Opening Concert on the morning the residency begins
• Six Songwriting Sessions per Day?(40 minutes per session) This schedule will typically yield 6 original songs during the residency. In a smaller school, each grade might meet 3 times (once each day) for songwriting. In larger schools, each grade may need to be divided into classes which will work “cooperatively” on the same song, each group meeting only once for a songwriting session.
• Final Concert on the evening of the last day, as students join Ken in performing their songs for their parents, families and community. Substituting a daytime concert is possible, but may involve additional fees.

Topics & Themes

Teachers may focus the songwriting activity on whatever curriculum or subject area they like. For example, songs have emerged from history units — I've written a song with fourth graders called “A Letter Home,” which realistically painted the struggles of German immigrants to Wisconsin in the 19th Century; an English class created a fantastical “story song” about aliens visiting Earth to abduct a new washing machine (!); a science unit yielded “Everything Matters” (yes, ALL about liquid, solids and gas). Really, a song can be written about anything under the sun!

Other topics we’ve explored in songwriting residencies: changing people’s attitudes toward bats (the song 'Bat' is a love song to the furry winged critter); the concept of fractions, decimals and percentages; even geothermal activity—the song 'Volcano Land' begins,

"Everybody's rockin', talkin' subduction
One plate can't wait,
Pushin' up against another one...
One goes under
And you're gonna get an eruption...
When it melts then
Everybody better study how to run!
Hey Mon...
Welcome to the Volcano Land...”

I've written songs with students about the poet Maya Angelou, the Solar System, local history, native peoples... you name it!

Musical Theater?

Songwriting & Storytelling

In this residency, songs are written as elements in a unifying story (either original or in the Public Domain) which students bring to life in a simplified musical-theater format.

Staff and students select a story — for example, Red Riding Hood. Ken will help each grade identify a key aspect of the tale—a plot moment, a character trait, etc.—to serve as the basis for their song.

When the songs have been written, an extra day is spent writing narrative (often this takes a rhyming form) that is delivered by student narrators in the final performance. Includes:

• Opening Concert on the morning the residency begins
• Six Songwriting Sessions per Day?(40 minutes per session) This schedule will typically yield 6 original songs during the residency. In a smaller school, each grade might meet 3 times (once each day) for songwriting. In larger schools, each grade may need to be divided into classes which will work “cooperatively” on the same song, each group meeting only once for a songwriting session.
• Final Concert on the evening of the last day, as students join Ken in performing their songs for their parents, families and community. Substituting a daytime concert is possible, but may involve additional fees.

Workshops For Educators

Ken conducts workshops for teachers and teachers-in-training that focus on using songs, the arts, or songwriting and music in the daily classroom. These workshops are viable for educators at all K-12 grade levels and across all curricular disciplines.

Special emphasis can be placed on particular issues or subject areas, including hot-button topics (diversity, sexual harassment, conflict resolution) or areas of study such as history, science, math or nutrition and “healthy habits.”

“An exceptionally talented and marvelously creative teacher of environmental education, from elementary school children to universtiy undergraduate student teachers.”
—Wendy Sterne, UW-Madison Curriculum & Instruction

From Kenwood School in Minneapolis, October 2005:

Teachers, parents, staff and students are still raving about Ken!

From the teacher surveys:
"Great fun! Very engaging. Students were on task, thinking and problem solving. This residency fits nicely with our reading curriculum. Rhyming, writing lyrics fits in first grade."

"Ken kept classroom control. I didn't have to be the bad guy. He's clever, quick and funny. One of the best residencies  I've seen in 21 years at Kenwood."

"Good energy, 5th graders very engaged."

"The residency is truly a collaboration."

"This little girl who can't speak any English just lit up and came out of her shell."

From the Principal:
"Outstanding classroom management.... Respectful of teachers and students.... I hope he can be on the calendar for next year...I would recommend him to any other school, absolutely."

Other anecdotal feedback includes:
Thank you notes to the PTA for funding the residency.

Brainstorming future residencies (science, body systems, Spanish) including having him for longer duration and planning curriculum focus around his work.

Referrals from one teacher to his wife, who teaches at another elementary school; "You gotta get this guy in your classroom."

Good natured, humously toned rivalry and ownership of Ken, i.e. teachers that didn't have him this time saying "No Fair! We missed out!" and teachers that did have him saying "We don't want to share him next time!"

Plotting ways to tap in to Ken's talent for fund raising purposes, i.e. sponsoring family concerts, CD's at the Silent Auction, etc.

Sally Roach
Kenwood School PTA
Minneapolis

"You made a real impact on our students, teachers and parents, on many different levels... a positive difference in the lives of the people here at Franklin School. I feel that is no small feat." —Alan Fuller, Franklin Elementary, Fond Du Lac, Wis.

© 2004-2006 Ken Lonnquist — All Rights Reserved