Drama 3: Reader's theatre

In the drama workshop this week we looked at reader’s theatre, using an excerpt of The Paper Bag Princess (Cusworth & Campsie, 1992). Although it is a restricted, more formulaic drama convention, I like how the teacher can control the type of drama, adding layers: For example, you could start with the effect of voice, asking the audience to close their eyes and listen to the script being read. This focuses attention on the voice: pitch, pace, tone, emphasis and volume; and also to the sound effects such as body percussion. You can then add the visual layer of simple gestures, positioning on the stage and facial expression. With script in hand, I felt supported and less wary of performing. I wrote cues for voice inflection, pause, emphasis, gesture and positioning on the script. I can see the value of reader’s theatre in enacting a scene within more controlled parameters, and I can see how it would teach students how to use their voice effectively when reading aloud.

Annotated notes from The Paperbag Princess

We read ‘Herb the vegetarian dragon’ (Written by Jules Bass, Illustrated by Debbie Harter), until the complication point, at which Herb needs to make a decision: a perfect time to use a conscience alley to explore the decision-making process – also useful for brainstorming for persuasive texts. It also makes you think critically and on both sides of the argument.

We did a short word association convention where we were asked to think of a word that describes a knight, and a dragon, and to say these words out loud in an appropriate way. This is a short and effective lead-in to an activity, which could be followed by a sculpting activity of a character.

John concluded by showing us a variety of useful texts as starting points for teaching the elements of drama, and also engaging with texts in a deeper way. I am keen to use these conventions to help my students develop empathy for characters, construct contexts, alternative endings, and so on. 

Art 3: Collaborative art with cubist portraits

Our lecture concluded with a quote that was highly controversial but got me thinking, as it suggested that Hitler could orchestrate World War 2, but could not face a blank canvas. It is difficult to create something from nothing, and both students and teachers should not have to do this: there are plenty of engaging, authentic texts we can use as starting points. While the curriculum specifies that we cover various forms of artmaking and appreciating, and some explicit subject matters, these do not have to be taught as a stand-alone. Integrating with the other art forms and other KLAs would allow more time to spend engaging in the creative arts, whilst still teaching concepts. I hope I never reach the point in my teaching career where I hand students paintbrush and paper and ask them to paint from nothing.

The cubist portraits we made in the art workshops were a great way of appreciating the work of others, as we had to show respect and treat each piece as our own. For some students I can see how hard it would be to cut up their masterpieces and relinquish them on to a less artistic student, but the end product is something unique, collaborative and truly constructivist – something that no student could create themselves. Care would need to be taken to ensure students all put equal effort into the pieces to ensure a quality product. This can also be done by modelling the different painting techniques and use of tools for textural effects.

Cubist Portrait

Drama 2: Process Drama - unpacking the Stolen Generation

Given the premise that the primary curriculum should be based around narrative (Egan, 1988, cited in Ewing, p. 6), this workshop was a series of process drama conventions to explore the theme of the Stolen Generation, using The Rabbits (Written by John Marsden, Illustrated by Simon Tan 1998) as a starting text.

http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-rabbits.html

We started by pairing up, one holding a balloon in front of them and closing their eyes, whilst the other guided them around the room. John popped the balloons one-by-one. I was the last. The suspense grew, and I put my trust in my partner to keep me as far away from John as possible. Although we didn’t know it at the time, John was alluding to the feelings of fear and anxiousness families would have felt, as children of the Stolen Generation were removed from their families.

Secondly, we spent a few minutes drawing our families. Although we spent little time on them, I still felt sadness and shock when John tore them up in front of us. He was encouraging us to empathise with the families torn apart during the Stolen Generation. He then read us the starting text, a highly symbolic and confronting historical analogy with an effective use of surreal images.

Thirdly, we walked quickly around the room without looking at each other, changing direction. I felt swept up in a busy room, and it was an effective way to mix the room dynamics up instead of always forming groups with the same people. In groups, we created three freeze frames, capturing the moment a child was removed from their family. We watched the performances, accompanied by piano music. You could really see the effect of body language, facial expression, and the tension, relationships between characters and embodied roles, through this contrast created when you closed your eyes between transitions. We then added a phrase, word or sentence to capture each scene, and performed them again. Some words could be repeated, some people could stay silent etc… I noticed how effective it was when a person stayed silent. We had “we are united”, “taken” and “just the beginning”. This layering technique is interesting as you could see how a dramatic performance can be built up slowly, taking the effectiveness of each element into account.

We then listened to a passage about a son and mother being reunited for the first time. Each of us came up something either the son or mother might say in this situation, mine being “I never knew I could miss someone so much who I haven’t met.” We wrote these on post-it-notes and passed them to the next group, who then ordered them into a scene. Two characters recreated this scene accompanied by a simple gesture. An effective one for us was I, the Mother, cupping my hands over the son’s hands, saying “my baby”. The son in turn placed them to his forehead and said, “I never stopped thinking about you”.

"My baby"

"I never stopped thinking about you"

In the ‘dream’ convention, half the class whispered a thought (embodying the role of either mother or son) into each of the other class member’s ears, who were on the ground with their eyes closed. This was a highly emotional convention, being barraged with dream-like thoughts and it really made me feel empathy for the role. With these thoughts in mind, we then wrote a letter as the son. The words flowed easily as I felt such deep empathy and emotional connection to my role. We walked about the room like a letter gallery, stopping by a letter, and underlined a thought-provoking sentence. The class then created a poem by ordering these underlined sentences. It was a non-judgmental means of creating a deeply moving literary piece.

This whole sequence seamlessly flowed from one convention to another, deepening our relationship with the others in the class and with the text, the role and the concept. It would be an effective way to have students engage with historical events or debates, or any literary piece. Authentic integration (Ewing) is allowed across a variety of KLAs, particularly HSIE. As Ewing describes, the arts creates a space for risk-taking, and gives you the confidence to explore your abilities. It was a very sensory experience, heightening your experience of one sense by removing another, such as the dream sequence and the balloon popping conventions. Having our shoes off and soft music playing in the background also created a safe, quiet place. It was also a good mix of individual, paired, small group and whole class collaborations.

References

Ewing, transforming the curriculum through the arts, Ch1, pp. 1-14.

Art 2: Teach them how to draw so they don’t forget!

I was struck by Gibson and Ewing's (2011, p. 129) anecdote about Howard Ikemoto, about his child’s surprise that his father taught people to draw, “you mean they forget?” I am thankful for my creative and supportive upbringing and continued value and engagement with the arts beyond the classroom and the school years. The creative side of my brain has not gone to sleep, and I was amazed at my ability to sketch the portrait of Chris without too many reservations of ‘getting it wrong’. I was shocked that many people said they had not drawn since school, whereas it is sometimes my outlet for the frustrations of daily life!! I hope that I can instill this value of art into my classroom, but I have my reservations given the crowded curriculum. I was impressed at our tutor’s ability to seamlessly integrate other KLAs into her explanation of how to draw a face, using maths, interactive explanations like demonstrating proportions, shapes and so on. Although I did art through to Year 12, I don’t once remember being explicitly taught how to draw using simple conventions like proportions of the face. Doing so would have actually encouraged myself and others to continue to draw.

Follow the conventions of face drawings and you'll achieve surprising results!

Familiarity with vocabulary of art is important, but rather than needing to be explicitly taught, I think it would be sufficient to model it, in the hope that students subconsciously start using the language themselves, such as value, texture and repetition.

A final interesting thing we learnt in the lecture was Wilson's Graphic Principles for decoding children’s drawings. I recognise a lot of these features in my own early drawings, and even now. Perhaps our lack of confidence in our drawing capabilities means we revert back to simple representations – the simplicity principle. I don’t know if you can be judged for drawing a ‘bad stick figure'!

Wilson's Graphic Principles

As homework, we completed a name montage, where each letter of our name consists of a different material and reflects an interest we hold. This would be a good introductory art activity with a new class, to scope their abilities in art and get to know the students (Standard 1: Know your students) (AITSL, 2012).

Name montage

References

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2012). Australian Professional Standards for

 Teachers. AITSL. http://www.teacherstandards.aitsl.edu.au/Standards/AllStandards

Gibson, R. & Ewing, R. (2011). Transforming the curriculum through the arts. Camberwell: Palgrave,

 Macmillan.

Drama 1: Characterisation with the Green Children

The drama workshop this week introduced us to a variety of dramatic techniques, using the text ‘The green children of Woolpit’ as a basis.

We started by posing questions and facts we know from reading the text. To contextualise the text, we drew maps, and found that each group brought different perceptions and interpretations to the table.

Green Children story map

Sculpting the characters

We then constructed a freeze-frame of the moment the country people discovered the green children, and noted the differences in status, mood etc... created by the different compositions. A lot could be communicated non-verbally with body language and facial expressions. Other activities we used included a gossip mill and hot-seating with a group of students as a character. I liked how this removed the ‘spotlight’ effect that may cause shy students to retreat from performance. Improvisation also creates a ‘mantle of the expert’, where there is no right or wrong answers. During these activities our teacher guided us softly and without authority.

We also embodied the characters in the text using sculpting, which I can see has use in helping students develop empathy for characters.

Role on the wall

Lastly, we brainstormed words to describe each character in ‘role on the wall’. Although this activity is limited by the student’s vocabulary, if we referred back to it periodically during a unit, you would see how a character evolves over time, with students gaining more insight and empathy and descriptive richness to a character in a text. 

In this way, there are strong links to English outcomes in each of these activities.

Art 1: Breaking the ice with cryptic Pictionary

During our introductory art workshop we played Pictionary, drawing cryptic images of the attributes of arts teachers. Rather than simply asking us to reflect, brainstorm or discuss what constitutes a good art teacher, this activity shifted us into gear to work collaboratively, think creatively and abstractly, and allowed us to draw in a no-pressure situation. These are in themselves the qualities the arts aims to bring to the surface.

I would use this activity again in a heartbeat, for any topic or KLA. It could also be used at the start of the year as an ice-breaker activity for a new class, exploring ‘what makes a happy classroom’ etc. Obviously it would have more utility in a Stage 3 classroom, as some level of spelling and vocabulary is required.

Cryptic Pictionary