Integrated Arts: workshop – drama and music.
Drama: This weeks drama class was halloween based. We began with the technique of ‘teacher in role’. The lecturer acted as a reporter type character. He began by telling us about house that we had the chance to visit. However, this house was haunted, and there were many stories about how this happened. The lecturer walked around the class asking us if we had heard about the house, and what we think happened. To get us all involved, there were many questions being asked. This was a good task as the pupils would have the opportunity to contribute to the story by deciding what actually happened to make it haunted. We then went in to groups and discussed ‘flashback’ and ‘flashforward’. A flashback is taking your drama back to a time in the past. A flashforward is taking your drama to a future time. In our flashback, we decided to tell the story of how the house was before it became ‘haunted’. When letting pupils decide what to perform, we, as teachers, should ensure that it is appropriate to show the drama to the class as some ideas that children could have could be too extreme. We discussed the technique of forum-theatre. This is the idea that a member of the audience can contribute an idea to change or enhance the performance. Members of the audience can also take over another actors part by tapping the actor on the shoulder to take their place.
**I can create, develop and sustain a realistic or stylised character through the use of voice, movement and language.
EXA 3-12a** (Scottish Government, 2004, p.65)

Music: This week in music, we started by discussing ways we could get pupils involved in music as not everyone wants to join in. We started by discussing a music company called ‘Choon-Baboon’. This was a very useful resource and I will definitely be using this in my class. This resource is videos which teach your pupils music for you. This may seem like a lazy way to teach, but it was highly engaging and thoroughly entertaining. We as a class learned a song about street dancing pirates which I have linked below. There were many songs for different topics such as dogs, the titanic and the eighties. We then practised our singing to ‘Dr Knickerbocker’. As not everybody was getting involved, we then had to sing the penguin song. This was getting us to sing and dance along. I found this quite fun and have linked both songs below. I will be using these videos in my classroom as I have found that the pupils in my placement class enjoy dancing and singing. To complete this workshop, we worked as a class then in groups and used instruments to count out beats. Firstly, I used bells to contribute to the class activity. We used the topic of fireworks to create sounds like bang and crackle. As a group, we decided to use the topic of animals with the likes of snakes, lions and ducks.  I would use this with an older age group as it can be quite confusing with the timing as nobody is conducting the task.
**I can use my voice, musical instruments or music technology to improvise or compose with melody, rhythm, harmony, timbre and structure.
EXA 3-17a** (Scottish Government, 2004, p.67)

Reflection
Drama: The ongoing learning of drama techniques ensures that the learning in Drama is continuous. Allowing everybody to have the chance to perform, is important in the teaching of Drama. I have become much more confident due to the Drama workshops as we get to share our ideas each session. When teaching Drama to young people, we need to be aware of the topics that may occur. We, as teachers, need to be sensitive to what ideas are being discussed as some ideas may be too extreme for pupils. In topic work, some wars or other harsh realities, should not be acted out, however, some teachers may see it effective as it might help pupils to understand the scenarios more. Drama isn’t always acting out a story, using a script. It is about discovering the unknown, creating new ideas and discovering new concepts (Winston, 1998, cited in Grainger, 2003, p.45). Allowing children to adapt stories and create their own dramas, will allow for creativity in the classroom, a key motivation for teaching the Arts in schools.

Music: Allowing Music to be taught in different ways can engage children, rather than allowing them to continue playing an instrument week after week. Teaching children to care for their voice whilst singing, is an important thing to discuss. On placement, my class have been singing, however, they don’t warm up their voices. As a teacher, that may not be the first thing that would come to mind, however, it is very important. Teachers can use online videos to allow pupils to warm up before beginning to sing. Using an online source, such as Choon-Baboon, allows the teacher to have a ‘new teacher’, which can be exciting for the pupils. However, if the teacher would prefer to teach the class, websites such as Charanga Scotland, supplies teachers with lesson plans and videos to teach the class with.

Link
This link for these workshops would be involvement. Both workshops ensured that everyone was involved with Drama allowing everybody the opportunity to perform and Music with the encouragement.

References
Scottish Government. (2004) Curriculum for Excellence [online] Available: https://www.education.gov.scot/Documents/all-experiences-and-outcomes.pdf [Accessed: 18 December 2017]

Winston, J. (1998) Drama, Narrative and Moral Education. In: Grainger, T. (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