04.01.07
WEEK 5 – PROCESS DRAMA IN ACTION
This week we went out to Essex primary school to put our process drama into action. Jo was kind enough to write up an extensive lesson plan so when we arrived we felt comfortable in knowing exactly what was going on.
We’d all brought along with us a few costume items or props that helped define the characters we were going to be playing… it’s amazing how a character can just come to life with a small article of clothing.
To get the students into the mood, we played a few warm up games that related to print journalism. I nominated myself to run the first warm up. I was confident in running the game, however it makes for hard work when you don’t know the students you’re working with, and they don’t know you. We were not given any prior information on the students in the group, which can be a hard experience if you’re dealing with special needs students. This aside, everyone was very responsive to the activity which proved to be a great introduction to their journalism task.
The body of the drama began with Deakin teachers in role as newspaper editors. We then progressed to play suspects in the missing snake saga. The students responded quite well to us “playing†characters and approached us in an appropriate manner. I must say that when I was playing Jason, the troubled school boy, I had to hold my tongue a few times as I needed to use language that was appropriate for grade 6 students and appropriate for the character himself. Hot seating can bring up some interesting topics that can at times become exaggerated. I think I painted quite a negative picture of Gemima which was not my initial intension, however somewhat evolved from the student’s questions.
The students were then given instructions to go off and write a newspaper article about the snake incident. This was a huge task for the students to tackle, especially as they’ve just gone from a drama environment straight into a literacy task. They were only given 15 mins to complete this task, which again was quite an ask. These students were not really used to quickly jotting down some words on a page. They were used to brainstorming then planning their reports, before actually sitting down and writing one up. Having said that, most groups managed to write a decent story. It was especially good to see the ESL students writing well in excess of what their teacher expected.
I guess that using drama as a way of facilitating literacy, taps into some students way of learning and really allows them to shine, when often they struggle to even understand. It would be really nice to be able to extend this activity with the students and really develop their literacy skills through drama. It’s a pity this was a one off activity…….. I would love to get my teeth into some thing like this when I start teaching!