Drama - Not just for the Theatre!

Inquiry for dance

How can drama activities develop relevant discussions?  By listening to students and having time for reflection with drama processes and other learning areas we are able to hear and discuss the student's learning and understanding.  In the article "What Do the Children Say? Student speaking and reflection can identify learning from their involvement in specific drama activities (Innes, Moss & Smigiel, 2012).  These learning areas include drama, self awareness, relationships to others and world understandings (Innes, Moss & Smigiel, 2001). One student, on reflection of a drama process, realises an individual dream, "yeah so I want a large family and to live in the country not in the big cities and things" (cited in Innes, Moss & Smigiel, 2001, p 219). 

Discussion and Reflection

I thoroughly enjoyed the tutorial this week based on drama and incorporating it into the curriculum. I found the idea of working in two different worlds interesting and thinking back to my experience in the classroom, I would love to try this with students! I've found grade 6 students to enjoy freedom in their learning rather than more structured learning in the classroom and while I was in a grade 6 class for 3 weeks I did some role play with them.  

That sounds good.  I have been doing small role plays with students and I am intrigued by the process and the way students respond.  

I had the basic ideas of using drama in the classroom, I asked the students to work in groups to represent safe and non safe activities as part of behaviour education. The students enjoyed the activity and it was highly successful with them, but after this tutorial I think I was given a lot of extra tools to use in the classroom which I had no knowledge of before.  I particularly enjoyed process drama strategies, starting with a text and then going through the steps to work out what has happened and what comes next.

While on my first prac, I used a skeleton from the science lab and asked grade 8 students in the art classroom to imagine who this person was before they became a skeleton. They came up with some brilliant drawings! 

That would be quite scary to think about, what did the students say?  My dad, who is an orthodontist, had a skull at home I always remember it and asking him about it. I was always examining that skull. 

The students loved the activity and had some fantastic drawings of a farmer, businessman etc as they had named the skeleton 'Fred.' I can see how this opens up the door to writing activities, role play and even visual art activities. I used objects in my grade six classroom to inspire the students to write stories (the students had to include each object somewhere) but I am now thinking that a quick drama processing lesson could have helped inspire them and develop their ideas further. I've included my narrative and drama lesson plans from these lessons under the 'for the classroom' section. 

Sounds like lots of fun learning.

While exploring a theme or subject, science activities could even be incorporated. Drama as an artform creates connections in learning, I hadn't seen how drama could do this until now so I'm feeling empowered about using it within the classroom.

(Tanya)

When Maureen introduced the story of Rosa Parks in such a dramatic way I was immediately   captured.  The use of follow up questions for example, what made Rosa in 1959 not stand up on the bus? Through her actions on that day Rosa created a chain of events that would create world change.  Why did she pick that day? My imagination was activated from this introduction and questions and I began to think about what sought of person was Rosa Parks? What happened to her that day?  And was it different from any other day?  Maureen suggested having some objects that could be the personal belongings of Rosa Park, or another character, like rosary beads or a hat.  Suddenly, I could get  glimpses of this character and  I began to weave images and stories.  It is great to get inside the world of these characters that we talk about and start viewing the world from another point of view.  I would like to share this experience with the students.  (Catherine)

If this story of Rosa Parks inspired so many people within our group, imagine where we could take it within the classroom!

Toolkit - for the classroom

"The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsburg

'Play Safe, Be Safe' role playing lesson plan for grade six.  (Tanya)

 'Literacy Narrative' lesson plan using objects to provoke creative thinking. I plan to incorporate drama the next time I use this plan as inspired by this week's lesson. (Tanya)

Website:
ACARA.  (2011).  http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/English/Aims

Books:

Bev Deriwanker - 'How Texts Work'.

Phillip Taylor - 'Red Coats and Patriots'.

Beginning Drama 4-11 and 11-14

John O'Toole and Julie Dunn - 'Pretending to Learn'.

Cecily O'Neill - 'Drama Worlds'

Activities:

*Process drama - starting with a text, looking at events/ideas pre and post text and explore where to next.

*Thought tracking - see what each student is thinking while in character or in thought.

*Metaxis - working within a real and fictional world alternatively

*Game- Handshakes

*Game- Build a machine

*Marking the moment (where you were when you had an interesting thought or idea)

References:

Innes, M.,  Moss, T. & Smigiel, H.  (2001). What Do the Children Say? The Importance of Student Voice, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 6:2, 207-221
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569780120070740 

Integrating The Arts in Generalist Areas

How can teachers develop inquiry questions that leads to arts integration?

Allowing students to process subject matter through role play, drawing, creating, dancing and music leads to deeper questioning, thought and communication.  The outcomes of these integrative practices is fresh and surprising. One way I can build and improve on some of these processes is by developing inquiry questions, as discussed today, that draw out exciting learning for teachers and students. 

Discussion and Reflection

Arts and creativity appear in many classroom settings and I have been told my colleague teachers that they find this approach more effective when teaching as students lose interest quickly with knowledge delivery without meaning or experience.I always had this idea with my own learning as I have a strong visual background and today it was fantastic to watch a presentation on how to integrate the arts into generalist learning areas.

Tanya, what did you think about the lesson today?  It is great to work with someone who has a strong interest in art.  You also come from a high school 'art' subject teaching.  To me the above practices that Arnold discussed are very artistic processes. Some-one said to me today when I was discussing integrative art - "but, that is not really art", it sounded so limiting and I guess some people have very fixed ideas of what art is and can be.  What do you think?  What would you say if a colleague teacher said that to you? (Catherine)

I would be shocked if a colleague teacher told me that it wasn't really art!  My colleague teachers insisted that the art lessons I ran included art skills, experimentation and also new knowledge of the marine science unit they were studying. I was so happy to make connections between Arnold's presentation and things I had seen in the classroom a week before. (I felt proud of my colleague teachers!) One of the teachers was teaching a dance to the students, this teacher also used a lot of multimedia for presentation and encouraged the students to also use multimedia daily. (Tanya)

Toolkit - for the classroom

Class-room Space game

Students are standing up in an open space.  They are asked to move into an empty space and then another. Speed of this can be changed by assigning 1 as the slowest (calm walking) and 10 as the fastest (slow run)The person calls out the numbers, counting up and down. A variation of this game includes sequences and building shapes within groups.

Arnold Aprill

website: http://www.capeweb.org/who-we-are/staff

blog: http://www.capeconslts.org/arnies-blog

Subject Agreement

Both Tanya Kean and Catherine Brown agree to each commit 50% to this Blog project and that we will generate the same score for  assessment 1 in EMT694.