04.25.07

WEEK 8 DRAMA AND MULTI-LITERACIES

Posted in Uncategorized at 7:40 pm by tubs

Ok, so in class on Monday we looked at ‘The Great Bear’. It was the first time I’d seen or read the book. Hmmm… I must be honest and say that my initial reactions were not very inviting. I thought the ending was very morbid as such, and perhaps not appropriate for students. It’s not that I don’t understand it’s possible meaning and intention, it’s just that my first reaction was one of death and sadness.
This is not to say that I’m not open to the use of this book as a pretext for a drama class. And for the purpose of this blog, I am in fact going to explore the possible classroom activities and learning that can take place through the eyes of the book….. So here goes –

Discussion – After reading the book students can discuss relevant themes and issues presented in the story - For example, Hope, Letting go, animal cruelty. From this discussion, many of the activities will evolve.

Storytelling / Tableaux - What happened next? Student can create the story of what happened to the bear after the final page of the book. This takes its form as a still picture or tableaux, to compliment the other illustrations in the book.

Game – A good warm up game might be something like cat and mouse. This games has a student (mouse) trapped inside the circle of students who is trying to find its way out of the circle without another student (cat) catching them. This game can evoke feelings of entrapment. This could be a theme that can be further explored from the book.

Meeting – There are several towns folk shown in the book. The citizens (students) could conduct a meeting about the circus coming to town. This could involve people discussing the use of animals in the circus and the moral issues associated with it. This activity may have to be set in the modern times as the ‘animal activist’ may not have existed in medieval times.

Art / Writing – Students could write an article or design a poster that relates to animals performing in the circus. Students can choose to take a side in the issue, or be neutral in their approach.

Interview - Students can pair up and conduct a hot seat type interview with the bear itself. One student is a reporter hot on the scene, and the other is the bear hanging from the pole. The purpose of the interview is to evoke an emotion from the bear – one that may or may not have been seen in the illustrations of the book.

Movement – Students could display the thoughts of the bear through an expressive action or piece of movement.

I was trying to think of some other children’s literacy books that would be good as a pretext, and I suddenly realised that I didn’t actually know a whole lot of children’s books. I definitely think I need to do a bit of research in to Children’s literacy’s and what is out there these days. I’m sure there are 1000’s of books however I can’t manage to think of one. I’m certainly going to have to pull up my sock if I’m going to be a primary school student. Either that, or get down to the library asap!

OK, So Jenny Simons
When looking at the Jenny Simons article I can’t help but find parallels between her ways of teaching and ‘Inquiry based’ learning as a pedagogy. For me, the whole basis is that the students take responsibility for their own learning and development of knowledge, through a creative and explorative way. I realise that Simons ‘craft knowledge’ refers to the use of drama for learning however I feel if an inquiry unit was heavily drama based, they would be of almost the same structure.

Moving on, I’m very excited that teachers (especially non drama specialist) are open to the idea of Drama as a learning tool. The activities set out by Simons for the three different groups were a great example of how drama can explore different things not seen in an original text. It also goes to show how if you are a willing teacher and opened to ideas and offers from the class, the drama can be taken in a direction not predicted by the teacher. I guess too, the teacher’s intentions for the learning still need to be acknowledged and not taken too far beyond.

When asked to think about another literacy text with a particular historical context that would be good to explore prior to learning I kept thinking about my ‘Learning through Drama’ assignment on the stolen generation. I think an issue of this nature would really benefit from a literacy pre-text just because the content is rather deep for students to take in. Again, without specifically thinking of a book or song, my focus for the pretext would have something to do with ‘missing you’ or ‘something lost’. I would try and have the pretext connect to the student’s current worlds as a way of paralleling the history to them losing their favourite gadget or something equivalent. When I think about it, many songs would be great for unit as a pretext.

Also when I think of the stolen generation, I can’t help but think of “Stolen” the play, and “Rabbit Proof Fence” the movie. These literacy’s could actually be units themselves, but if you look at the unit as a learning through drama task (of which I am for the purpose of the assignment) I think it needs to be dealt with differently. Actually, I think these two literacy’s serve more as a ‘post text’, if there’s such a thing, so as students don’t take on these dramatic roles and stories whilst exploring the unit.

On that note, I’m off to the library…….. Kiddies section of course!

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