Entry 1
Circle Up, everyone! You must be thinking, why is she starting with circle up? Yes, that is my calling for you my reader but circle up is also the name of a teaching strategy I learned in my first drama class! Circle Up and Home Base are two strategies that can be used to grab the attention of your students or to get them organized to commence the class. Whether as Zip, Zap, Zop is a fun game to get your students warmed up or used anytime during the lesson.
Circle Up!- For this activity, you would simply call out "circle up!" and students would form a big circle in the classroom so that way they will either be ready to start the lesson, or ready for their next instruction. This will need to be explained to the students and take into consideration the layout of your classroom with desks around. Classroom management could also be considered with who and where certain students are standing in the circle. In that case, you can either tell the students where to stand or the first time they choose a spot is where they will be the whole time for circle up.
Home Base- This is also great for getting students attention either at the beginning of a lesson or within a lesson. Home Base requires students to find a space in the classroom that they can have an arm's length of space around them from the other students. This strategy also requires that students pick their spot and also have to go back to the same spot until the teacher chooses otherwise. Home Base is great in that sense because classroom management can be taken into consideration with where the students are located in the classroom which can be foreseen.
Raft Writing- This is an activity that I wanted to sneak in as it is a create consolidation activity to use with your students. In this exercise, students write about the role of one of the characters. Once the students take on the role, they target their writing to their audience, choose a format and lastly choose a topic. This activity is created to get the students deep into character and go beyond the script to think of reactions, context, results and so much more within their story. The specifics of the writing component can be changed to the consolidation for the activity of your choosing.
Zip, Zap, Zop- This is a fun game to play with students either as a warm-up (this will really wake them up and get them alert) or used within the lesson as a fun break. Enjoy the video below of me playing this game in my drama class!
Entry 2
The power of storytelling! I wanted to take the time to reflect on a guest professor that we hand in our second drama class. Not only was she a professor at Brock University, but she was a professional storyteller. She demonstrated the power of storytelling to not only teach your students through a story but to grab their interest and attention. As she was telling us an African folk story, she would emphasize her movement, voice and had a call to grab our attention. Throughout the story, when she would say "crick", the audience would respond with "crack." But this response would be at random, it would be embedded within the story for moments that needed that sound effect. It was also great that it was also a way to grab the attention of the audience.
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| Professional Storytelling telling us a story in class. |
I could see myself using this strategy in my classroom as it engages them and teaches them about whatever the story is about. It can demonstrate to the students that there are different forms of drama rather than the usual drama on stage for a play. Thinking critically, as a first timer to storytelling, I do see how it is beneficial and practical to start off with one story to retell and refine my skills around that.
Choral Speaking
In the realm of storytelling, students can be a part of the storytelling by using choral speaking.Students get the opportunity to experiment with language and exploring with sound. In choral speaking students practice the strategy of chanting, working with rhyme, repetition, tempo, volume and sound effects.
Elements of Choral Work
- Numbers of Voices: Unison/small group/solo
- Pitch: High/Medium/Low
- Tempo: Fast/ Medium/Slow
- Rhythm: Repetitive/ Isolated sounds
- Dynamics: Loud/ Medium/Soft
- Rhyme: Similar sounds/ slant rhyme/ dissimilar sounds
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| Voice Collage & Choral Speaking done in my drama class. |
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Entry 3
Let's talk theories! In our first class, we were introduced to The Learners Theory by Dwyer (1996). This theory focuses on the ways in which students learn best. This is great to keep in mind for planning lessons and which activities to use for the students. Even though this is a strategy that was learned in drama class, it can apply to any subject that students will be learning.
Multiple Intelligences Theory by Howard Gardner
This theory focuses on each individual student and how they learn best. Teachers should be aware of their students and their strengths as learners. From there, students will fall under certain categories of the Multiple Intelligences as displayed in the image to the left.
This is important to teachers as it will guide the planning process to create lessons that focus on the multiple intelligences as opposed to catering to just one, that way, all students have an opportunity to learn.
Both these strategies help the teacher to create differentiated lessons that cater to different learning styles and intelligences. They can also be used in promoting multimodal authorship in the classroom. Below are ways for teachers to promote multimodal authorship with student:
"•Design: Suggest alternative ways of designing information (e.g., try performing, drawing, or singing the same information); determine how meaning might change when the mode of design is changed.
•Negotiation: Encourage students to collaborate and edit their work during their creative processes.
•Production: Provide a variety of materials; ask questions about or draw attention to students’ multimodal choices throughout the production process.
•Dissemination: Evaluate how the information was shared; suggest alternative ways of disseminating information; determine how the meaning might change when the mode of dissemination is changed.
Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2001). Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Arnold.
Winters, KL. (2012). The missing tooth: Case illustrations of a child's assembled, out-of-school authorship. Brock Education, 22 (1) 3-25." (Taken from Week 3 PowerPoint).
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Entry 4
Let's take a moment to focus drama strategies for social studies. Creating cross-curricular lessons around social studies encompasses literary text and books for students to reference. Below is a list of drama strategies that can be used when working with books to teach a lesson. In drama, books can be used for students to explore different characters, become involved in a setting, or explore a world different than what the students are used to in order to develop creativity as a starting point. I have had personal experience with using books in the classroom in order for students to develop ideas for writing. With my background knowledge, I feel that using books in drama is a is a great starting point for students to get around the idea of certain drama techniques.
In my drama class at Brock, we explored tableaux and Teacher in Role/Hot Seating.
Tableaux- Tableaux is a great drama strategy to get shy students involved. It is also one of the easiest to get students up and going faster since it is pretty self-explanatory and not too much explanation is needed for the most part. This strategy can be done with only 1 Tableaux, or for something more complex students can create multiple tableaus and tell a story through that, using the book as a reference. Since this strategy does not involve talking, I would use this strategy at the beginning of either my drama lesson or unit. By scaffolding learning, I would be students (especially the shy ones) to work in tableaux to get their bodies moving, then incorporate other activities once they get used to this and incorporate the element of voice after.
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| One student put in the Hot Seat with 3 audience members asking questions. |
In this strategy, one student or the teacher in the role is put in the hot seat. The person in the hot seat will be asked questions from the audience. The questions that the audience will ask can either be targeted towards uncovering who the character is, investigate an incident or anything that the teacher has prompted.
Drama Strategies for Social Studies
•Wonder game: activate inquiry
•Teacher in Role/Hot seating: develop character
•Tableaux: develop the narrative
•Improvised Scene: deepen understanding
•Proxemics: make personal connections
•Collaborative writing: perspective, emotional engagement
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Entry 5
Curriculum Connections
•Wonder game: activate inquiry
•Teacher in Role/Hot seating: develop character
•Tableaux: develop the narrative
•Improvised Scene: deepen understanding
•Proxemics: make personal connections
•Collaborative writing: perspective, emotional engagement
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Entry 5
Curriculum Connections
As educators, we need to deliver a curriculum that provides multiple means of representation to acquire knowledge, multiple means of expression to demonstrate learning, and multiple means of engagement to spark learner's interest. The theories addressed in entry 3, Multiple Intelligences, and The Learner's Theory coincides with how educators should deliver not only the drama curriculum but the curriculum for all subjects.
The drama curriculum is intended to help students understand cross-curricular contact through kinesthetic movement of role-playing. At the intermediate level students are encouraged to expand their thinking, solve problems, and develop their ability to express ideas and feelings through aspects of the art form. As visual arts get students to express themselves on paper, drama gets students to express themselves with their body.
Looking specifically at the Arts Curriculum, the Critical Process helps students to acquire their knowledge and apply their skills in the form of drama. Teachers and student will go through the Critical Process in a fluid and circular process and both explore in each section. Teachers can aid in the students learning in each process by applying the strategies and the theories as discussed in previous entries to each process of the Critical Process.
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Entry 6
Drama Strategies
- Tableaux/Still image
- Tap in/Voices in the head
- Rolling Theatre
- Magic Hand/Sculpting
- Mirrors
- Flash Forward/A moment in the future
- Flashback/A moment in the past
- Hot seating
- Teacher-in-role
- Corridor of voices/Voice alley
- Voice over narration
- News reporting
- Soundscape/Sound Effects/ Sound Tracking
- Story board making
- Graffiti
- Guided visualization
- Mimed activity/Pantomime
- Cross cutting
- Caption making
- Writing in role
- Collective drawing
- Thought mapping/Positioning
- Re-play/Re-enactment
- Choral speaking/Choral reading
- Gibberish
- Overheard conversations
- Alter-ego
- Machine
- Exquisite Corpse/Draw and Pass
- Side Coaching
- Puppets/Shadow puppets/Hand shadows
- Masks
- Connection webs
- Chamber theatre
- Guided tour
- Verb Chains
- Story blank
- What if
- Slow motion
- Slowmotion animation/stop animation
- Symbolic Representation Interview
- Role on the wall
- Collective Role
- Eavesdropping/witness
- Kamishibai
Reflecting back on this course, I can confidently say that I have enough strategies and background knowledge of theorists and curriculum connections to create and deliver successful drama lessons. I have created a resource folder of lessons that have been taught in my Brock drama class along with strategies that I have shared with you, my readers. In my 3 placements, I did not get the opportunity to teach drama but I now have the resources to go about it and deliver the curriculum that will be engaging and attainable for all students alike.
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