Category: Drama

In today’s input, we revisited the task of teaching a 20-minute drama lesson to the class in groups as there were still some groups who has to carry out the task. the book my group choose to focus our lesson around was “Little Red Riding Hood”. Throughout the other micro-teaching lessons, there was a wide variety of texts which had been used. This reinforced the vast possibilities there are in terms of teaching drama within a classroom setting.

My group covered a variety of drama techniques which included role on the wall, thought-tunnel and freeze frame. All of these techniques can be used in any drama lesson in schools across Scotland. After reflecting on this task, I found it extremely nerve-racking, to begin with as we were delivering this lesson to our peers instead of children. My peers were reluctant at first to fully engage with the lesson but after the first task, they begin to get more involved. As future teachers, this is something we will face in relation to drama as a whole. We must encourage the children to fully engage with a drama lesson for them to get the most out of it and fully understand the key outcome of the lesson. The micro-teaching task was beneficial as it identified any potential barriers that a teacher might face when teaching drama within the classroom.

According to Grainger (2003), “Drama…It represents an opportunity to construct powerful and imaginary worlds together, and enables speculation, modification and transformation of our understandings through examining different people’s perspectives, alternative possibilities and the consequences of our actions”.

In today’s input, several small groups took the role of the teacher and taught the class a drama lesson using the techniques we had discussed in previous weeks. We had to choose a children’s book and base our lesson around that book. Three groups performed that task today and we peer assessed each group after they had completed their 20-minute lesson. Time became a massive barrier during this activity as each group had to rush through the drama techniques. When doing this with children you would space a common theme or book over several drama lessons to ensure that they received the most out of it.

It is important that we discuss topics which the children can relate to through drama, such as bullying. This ensures that the children engage fully with the input and can make connections to their everyday life.

At the end of the lesson, Andrew discussed some major points that, we as future teachers, must be aware of. For example, as teachers, we must not enforce our own personal beliefs or opinions on topical issues onto the children but instead give credit to both sides. When implementing a drama lesson, it is essential that once the drama ends everyone comes out of role and returns back to their normal persona. This ensures that no disagreements occur over the ‘role’ the child played and the children must be aware that no one gets laughed at or ridiculed over a drama input.

References

• Teresa Grainger (2003) Creative teachers and the language arts: Possibilities and potential, Education 3-13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 31:1, 43-47, DOI: 10.1080/03004270385200071

Role On The Wall

Role on the wall is when you draw the outline of a character with information written on it – either inside it or around the edge. Usually, inside the outline is what the character is feeling or thinking themselves and round the outside of the outside is how others view that character. Below are some demonstrations of this technique.

 

“In drama, teachers and students are engaged in collective enquiry and exploration.” (O’Neil, 1987)Firstly, we recapped the drama techniques that we had covered over the previous weeks and also discussed the skills and attitudes of both the teacher and pupil in relation to the subject of drama.

Firstly, we recapped the drama techniques that we had covered over the previous weeks and also discussed the skills and attitudes of both the teacher and pupil in relation to the subject of drama. Then, we discussed why drama in education is so significant. Drama allows children to ‘make-believe’ and explore their creativity. As future teachers, it is essential that we support the children’s individual creativity and capacity to ‘make-believe’.

We then proceeded to take part in a drama lesson where we were the students. Andrew read us a short story called ‘The Tunnel’. We carried out the “Role on the Wall” task where my own group drew an outline of the girl. We put the feelings of the girl on the inside and how brother thought of her on the outside. This task took place at the main point in the story, we then carried out the same task once the story had ended. The idea of this was to highlight the journey the brother and sister took in order to convey the main theme: that no matter how much they fight they will always be there for each other.

 

“Drama, the art form of social encounters, offers a particularly rich, effective experience for teachers and children alike.” (Grainger, 2003)

References

• (2017) [Online]. Available: http://Grainger,T. (2003) Creative teachers and the language arts: Possibilities and potential. Education 3-13. Vol.31 (1), pp.43–47 [Accessed 8 Jan 2017].

In today’s session, we looked at drama within the current curriculum and how research shows that many primary teachers lack confidence and subject knowledge in terms of teaching drama to a class.

“Drama means different things for different people” (Kitson and Spiby, 1997)

We continued to discuss the previously stated story of The Lonely Dragon. In this session, we concentrated on the theme of being misunderstood. This is a good theme to incorporate into a drama lesson and link to a circle time to get the children to open up about their feelings and understand how others may be feeling in the class. We used several role-playing techniques, including freeze frame, a thought tunnel and teacher in role. A freeze frame is useful as it gets the children to think about how the character is feeling and thinking at that point.

The Teacher in Role focus allows the teacher to work with the children from inside the drama and enables them to structure the children’s contributions. Furthermore, this allows the teacher to challenge ideas through questioning within a story. The aim of Teacher in Role is to establish appropriate atmospheres, set particular language contexts and also to support appropriate understanding and empathy.

Below is a clip of Jonothan Neelands in role as Cordelia.

References

• 2016, D. F. (2014) Teacher in role [Online]. Available: http://dramaresource.com/teacher-in-role/ [Accessed 8 Jan 2017].
• Kitson, N. and Spiby, I. (1997) Drama 7-11: Developing primary teaching skills. New York: Routledge.

Today was the first input from the drama aspect of this module. Growing up at school, drama was a subject which you either really enjoyed or hated with a passion, but for me it was a pleasant experience. In my primary years I found drama fun and enjoyable. I was not embarrassed or had a fear of doing something wrong. This I think, was due to my amazing teacher who made all of the children feel comfortable and that there was only 10 children in my primary class therefore, we  were all friends.

However, from discussing with other students during this input I have concluded that not everyones drama experience was a pleasant one. Many of my fellow students simply hated drama at primary school or did not receive many drama inputs. Is that not bad?

There is a massive stigma in schools surrounding drama, as many professionals view this curricular area as unimportant and unnecessary. However, it is essential that we use drama to build children’s confidence, make it enjoyable for them to engage them in important topics for example bullying and to help the children who do not like to participate or take part to ensure that they are involved to a small degree.

“There is value in teachers experiencing drama as participants in order to better understand it as learners and teachers.” (Baldwin, P 2009)

In today’s session, we discussed the book ‘The Dragon Who Couldn’t Help Breathing Fire’ by Denis Bond. Andrew explained to us the concept of teacher in role. This is where is teacher puts on a piece of clothing for example a scarf to let the children know that the drama exercise has started. This concept is particularly easy for children to grasp as the “let’s pretend” is part of childhood experience. Children naturally slip in and out of roles of their own imaging, taking on new identities and putting themselves into imagined situations, where they devise and drive outcomes.

We had to slip into groups and describe our situation with the dragon and then act out the situation. This task showed how everyones creative imagination is different, as some group portrayed the dragon as evil and others portrayed the dragon as a friendly dragon who was misunderstood. You will find this especially with children as they tend to have more creative ideas than an adult would and this can make for an interesting drama lesson. One minor consequence which I witnessed was that when individuals become embarrassed they tended to laugh while acting their scene. You may find this with children but must explain to them that when we are acting we fully immerse ourselves into the situation, this may take some time for children to grasp this concept.

The key aspect of learning in today’s session was to understand the importance of participation and involvement and to know that you do not have to be an amazing actor/actress to do drama. Although some say drama has no limits, it is essential to only provide a few minutes for each task otherwise the children will get carried away and will keep asking for more time.

This video below shows a workshop with Cecily O’Neil where she is taking a drama lesson on the book above with a group of children.

References

Baldwin, P (2009) School Improvement Through Drama A Creative Whole Class, Whole School Approach Network Continuum.