Drama at the Secondary Level
Planning Collective Creations
The drama strand is designed to provide students with opportunities to:
Students in the Drama strand will extend the knowledge and abilities they gained at the grade nine level in the following areas: drama in context, collective creation, theatre studies, and film and video drama. Although drama in context and collective creation still form the core of the drama program, the other areas provide opportunities for teachers to incorporate the cultural/historical and critical/responsive components.
Drama in Context and Collective Creation
Drama in context means, as it suggests, that dramas are structured to provide a context, a situation, or a metaphoric framework in which students and teacher work together. Drama in context is also referred to as role drama, drama for understanding and whole group drama. Within the dramas students and teachers assume roles and, taking with them their own unique set of experiences and perceptions, enter into a fictional world prepared to accept and "live through" an imagined situation.
The collective creation is a play or a collection of episodes or scenes which is developed by a group and intended for an audience. Each collective creation is unique to the group who creates it. There may be as many ways of developing a collective creation as there are collective creations themselves.
The collective creation process:
At the Secondary Level, contextual drama and collective creation continue to be the main focus of the drama strand. In most cases, the students' collective creations will grow from contextual dramas. Teachers have the option, at any time during the process, of incorporating relevant experiences in such areas as theatre history, playwriting, Canadian theatre studies, or other related topics.
Students at the Secondary Level should become familiar with several forms and styles of drama and theatre, examining factors that influenced their development throughout the ages.
Students at the Secondary Level should be introduced to a variety of theatre traditions and developments, become familiar with some outstanding individuals and groups, and explore related historical and cultural influences. Their studies and experiences may include some of the following: Greek drama; medieval drama; the renaissance; drama in England, Europe, Asia, North America (early and modern) regional and repertory theatre; amateur theatre; children's theatre; puppet theatre; theatre of the absurd; performance art and other types of contemporary theatre. The choice of which of these to incorporate is dependent on available resources, connection to the students' own dramas, and connection to studies in other strands.
Students at the Secondary Level should continue to view and respond to dramatic presentations using a process such as "Responding to Arts Expressions", included in this Planning Guide. They should also continue to develop their understanding of how plays are created. At this level, the whole class, groups or individual students may select a particular area for more indepth study. Some possibilities include:
A wide variety of strategies could be employed including research, writing, interviews, case studies, presentations, visits to the classroom by playwrights or dramaturges, etc
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By studying theatre production, students at the
Secondary Level can learn about the artistic and technical aspects of play production.
They can explore the work of the following people:
Studies in theatre production could involve students in producing a play themselves; however, that is by no means the only way to learn about theatre production. Studies in this area could be co-ordinated with a production of a play in the school or community, and could include such instructional strategies as interviews, case studies, apprenticeships and work study programs.
Many film and video dramas can offer students at the Secondary Level opportunities to study dramatic elements. Although film and video are inherently different from theatre, there is much overlap. Topics for study can include the following:
The selection of which scripts, videos and film dramas are to be studied will depend on availability and applicability to the drama program. Use could be made of film and video dramas on television and in the community. However, teachers should keep in mind that not all films and videos are dramatic in their intentions. To help them select, teachers could keep in mind the definition of drama presented in this curriculum guide: characters, their actions and the consequences of their actions.
In the middle years, students worked towards the development of a collective creation by exploring situations and ideas in one of their contextual dramas. Few other approaches to the collective creation are as effective at tapping into student's thinking and feeling. By beginning with contextual dramas, students explore and express ideas using the widest possible range of drama (and other) strategies. Carefully structured dramatic contexts allow students to make critical choices among the available strategies and processes to shape each episode of their work. Those episodes that the students determine have most effectively communicated their ideas and insights are those which could be refined, polished and, perhaps, performed for others.
The Planning Process At A Glance
The following section offers teachers a brief guide to planning dramatic situations and collective creations with their drama students. It summarizes the six recommended steps. Following this section is a detailed description of each of the steps.
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By the time they reach the Secondary Level, students will know that topics for dramas can arise from a number of different sources. They will have interests and concerns that they want to explore in their drama work. It is important for teachers to provide avenues by which students may contribute their ideas to the choice of topics for their dramas. Participation in choosing topics for drama work contributes significantly to the sense of ownership and level of commitment as the work unfolds. Teachers must also have the opportunity to propose topics and to help identify the focus for topics which are chosen by the group. Whether teachers use negotiation and consensus- building, brainstorming sessions or suggestion boxes, they will soon discover that their students are their best "idea bank"! |
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Step Two: Structuring the Drama Contextual dramas do require planning and it is important for teachers to become familiar with and use the process for structuring a drama as they approach drama teaching. This process is described in the following section, entitled "The Planning Process in Detail". It is recommended that teachers begin by structuring a short drama (three or four episodes) which enables them to work in role and allows the students to work in roles of their own choosing, through different strategies and in a range of groupings. This will provide all teachers with knowledge about their students' ability to work within dramatic contexts. It will give teachers who may not be experienced with this way of working a sense of how dramas "work". |
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Step Three: Working Within the Drama Within dramatic contexts, teachers are challenged to undertake some unique functions and responsibilities. This Planning Guide offers some tips on how dramas "work" and suggests a number of ways in which teachers may be required to function within the dramas. Only experience, however, will provide answers to most of the questions that arise out of studying the Planning Guide, reading recommended resources, structuring a drama and attempting to anticipate students' responses. Students at the Secondary Level should be able to contribute readily to the shape and direction of the work as it unfolds. |
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Step Four: Shaping and Refining the Collective Creation Not all dramas will be developed into collective creations. However, when a class decides to extend the work from one of its dramas into a collective creation, the students must be prepared to engage in a process of purposeful decision making toward that end. They will be required to reflect carefully upon the drama through which they have worked, re-examine the focus of the work, articulate clearly what it is they wish to communicate, and identify those episodes of the drama which they believe best support their intention. They will then have to commit themselves to refining and sequencing the episodes (and perhaps some new episodes) into their collective creation. The teacher's responsibility as director of the collective creation begins here. A concept for the development of the play must be established by consideration of such questions as the following: What is this play about? How can it be structured so that our intention will be clear? What is the "glue" or the "central thread" that will hold our play together? |
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Step Five: Rehearsing and Performing the Collective Creation If the students commit themselves to performing their collective creation, their work must be rehearsed and polished, whether the audience is to be another class of their peers, younger students, the whole student body, their parents, the entire community or a video camera. A collective creation may be as short as ten minutes in length. In the middle years it was recommended that collective creations be rehearsed as improvisational pieces (works which are not scripted) with the teacher functioning as director. It was also recommended that the play be produced using simple staging techniques; that is, without elaborate sets, costumes, lighting, etc. In the Drama 10, 20, 30 program, students and teacher could develop collective creations more fully. However, because the Secondary Level Arts Education program has fewer hours available for drama, teachers may wish to continue with less elaborate productions. |
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It is very important that students are provided with frequent opportunities (both in and out of role) to recall, react to and describe their drama experiences. Reflection can take a variety of public and personal forms. Whole group discussion, tableaux, prepared improvisation, drawing, writing in role, journal writing and other strategies can tap into students' thinking about their work. Times for reflection should be structured into each drama and will be required spontaneously as the work unfolds. Reflection must also occur as a summative or final experience for each drama and, when one is developed, for each collective creation. |
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Teacher Note:
At the Secondary Level, students should continue to have an opportunity to celebrate their drama work by refining, polishing and communicating it to a wider audience. The emphasis of this program, however, continues to be on "work in progress"; that is, on students learning to explore and express ideas within dramatic contexts, articulate the shape and direction of their dramas, and make progressively more purposeful use of the elements of theatre form in all of their drama work. |
The Planning Process in Detail
The foundational objectives are the teacher's first consideration when planning collective creations. They embody the required content of the curriculum. Teachers should select appropriate learning objectives from those suggested in the foundational objectives section of this guide and incorporate others, which they will be able to derive from the foundational objectives. Once the teacher has set appropriate objectives, he or she can then proceed through the following steps.
Topics for drama work can arise out of any source which will capture the attention of the students, allow them to bring what they already know and understand to the work, and inspire them to pursue ideas embodied in the topic.
Teachers who closely observe and listen to their students will easily be able to identify interesting and relevant topics for exploration. Brainstorming sessions, in which all ideas are accepted and recorded on chart paper, and an on-going suggestion box will provide a class with more than enough ideas for a year's work in drama. Nevertheless, it is important for students and teacher to reach consensus on the choice of topics for their dramas, as all members of the class must be willing to make a commitment to the work.
Topics suitable for drama work with Secondary Level students are ones that spark discussion, trigger personal connections and response, and lead to questions about the motivation, intentions and consequences of the actions of people. In short, good topics for dramas are ones that readily inspire consideration and suggest compelling avenues for exploration. Following are possible topics for drama work with Secondary Level students.
General Themes
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| Gatherings, Celebrations and Ceremonies
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Locales Social Issues Natural and Human-made Disasters |
Once the class has agreed upon a topic for its drama, students must next suggest various aspects of the topic for exploration. To do this, students could be asked to explore the topic from different points of view or to pose "what if ..." questions that are sparked by their consideration of the topic. Individual, or small, large or whole group brainstorming will generate more ideas than can be structured into one drama, but it will reveal valuable ideas which might not otherwise have been considered. A webbing, which organizes the thinking of the group, might also be helpful as the teacher moves toward identifying the focus; that is, one particular aspect of the topic for exploration.
Identifying the Focus
If a class chooses to do a drama about the environment, for example, the focus might be on the question, "What would the effect on a particular community be when fire damages a toxic waste storage site nearby?" The drama could begin with people (students in role) recently evacuated from their homes questioning a government official (teacher in role) who has been assigned to meet with them.
During the course of a drama the focus can shift, as can the roles taken by the teacher and the students. This allows the topic to be approached from other points of view. For example, in the environment drama the focus could shift to the question, "What measures can be taken to safely dispose of toxic wastes?"
In this case, a government official (teacher in role) could call together a panel of experts (students in role) who have knowledge of and previous experience with the disposal of toxic wastes.
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Teacher Note:
The teacher's role in each case is that of government official. However, the function of the role changes. In the first case, the teacher is in role as someone who represents others who have power to change the situation. In the second case, the teacher is in role as someone who is seeking information from the experts. Please see "Teacher in Role" for more about the function of role. |
Step Two: Structuring the Drama
The information in this section is intended to help teachers discover a comfortable and productive way into working in dramatic situations. The following reflects a way of working that may be new for some. It offers unique challenges to the traditional roles of students and teachers in the classroom. Teachers are, at times, called on to shift from the "natural authority" role and become one member of a group that seeks to discover and communicate new meaning through a process of negotiation. This is a way of working which, while presenting teachers with some new risks, provides valuable rewards for both teachers and students. Through this way of working, teachers will guide their students toward a deeper understanding of themselves, others, their world and dramatic art form.
The structuring of a drama is the "pre-planning phase" of drama work. Before structuring the work, teachers will:
The Strategies
Following is a list of drama strategies from which teachers may choose as they structure the work:
Role is the basic ingredient of work in drama. When the students and teacher assume roles in a drama, they are acting "as if" they are someone else. They are exploring what it is like to be in someone else's shoes and developing empathy with these other lives. Students and teacher in role are called upon to spontaneously "adopt a set of attitudes, take a stance" (O'Neill, Lambert, Linnell and Warr-Wood, 1976).
Actors are required to develop and deliberately portray a keen understanding of character by weaving together motivation and the physical, social, psychological, emotional and moral facets of a whole individual. The task of fully developing a character need not be undertaken in contextual dramas. Secondary Level students may want to explore character development more fully in dramas intended for performance.
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Teacher Note:
In drama, students are required to assume and demonstrate belief in role. Each drama will provide students with the opportunity to work in one or more roles. It is recommended that students be able to spontaneously choose and assume roles which arise out of the drama. This enables them to express genuine responses to each dramatic situation and contributes positively to their ownership of the work. |
Teacher in role is the most effective way for teachers to work in drama. By taking on roles, the teacher is able to provide the students with a model for working in role through the use of appropriate language and apparent commitment to the process and the work. Role enables the teacher to work with the students close to what is happening and facilitate the shaping of the work from within. If teachers have established a non-threatening, accepting environment in which the students can participate comfortably in role, they have also established an environment in which they may safely do the same.
The role that the teacher chooses will depend upon what she or he hopes to achieve within the work. The following describe some basic types of role available to the teacher (Neelands, 1984):
Leader
This is an authority role very much like the natural teacher role and is, therefore, where the teacher inexperienced with working in role might most comfortably begin. Roles such as mayor, chairperson, king or queen, editor in chief, etc. are examples of this type.
Opposer
This is also an authority role but one which can function to cause the class as a whole to unite and challenge that authority. Examples include an evil magician who threatens to rob people of their ability to think independently, or a property developer who is going to turn a lake-front into a mega-mall.
Intermediate role
This most flexible type of role is one which provides the teacher with opportunities to be both authoritarian and sympathetic. A teacher in the intermediate role usually represents someone who has ultimate authority. In such cases, the students take responsibility to organize and frame responses to whatever the "emissary" might propose. Examples of this role are the government official who answers questions of citizens near whose community a federal prison is to be built, or a messenger who brings news to baseball fans that ticket prices must double in order to end a players' strike.
Needing help/victim role
The teacher works in role, in this case, as someone who needs help and appeals to the expertise and/or the humanity of the group. The teacher assumes such roles as that of a person who requires help on a mission to investigate a newly discovered undersea city, or of a refugee who seeks protection while fleeing a conflict.
The lowest status role
This role allows the teacher to be one member of the group; for example, one of many city councillors or one of a general's vast troops. Students, then, may be required to take on the authority roles. For this reason, this type of teacher role might best be undertaken with students who are experienced working within dramas and are therefore able to take on this responsibility.
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Teacher Note:
It would be unusual for a teacher to work constantly in one role for the duration of a drama. Within a drama teachers may shift in and out of role, into different roles, and out of role altogether to work in more familiar ways, such as side-coaching, narrating and facilitating. What teachers want to accomplish will determine what role they choose. As they become more experienced and more comfortable working in role, they will become more proficient at choosing roles. |
Narration can be used to establish mood, bridge gaps in time, and register decisions made by the students within the drama. Bits of narration can be prepared or created spontaneously by the teacher, or can be chosen from prose, poetry or song lyrics.
Imaging is a technique that allows the students to slow down and focus individually on an issue. The students, sitting quietly with eyes closed, allow pictures to form in their minds. These images may be motivated by bits of narration, music, sounds, smells, etc.
Votingis a familiar strategy not necessarily associated with the arts. However, one of the basic processes used within dramas is negotiation. Through negotiation, the teacher and students strive toward, and will often achieve, consensus. At times, when consensus is not achieved, voting is the next best option.
A tableau is a still image, a frozen moment, or "a photograph". It is created by posing still bodies and communicates a living representation of an event, an idea or a feeling. This valuable drama strategy can be used to encourage discussion and reflection. It offers students an effective technique to express clearly ideas that they might not be otherwise skilled enough to communicate dramatically.
Tapping-in is a means by which those individuals represented in a tableau may be prompted to express their response to the particular moment that is captured in time and space by the tableau. The teacher places a hand on the shoulder of one of the students in role in the tableau and poses questions that are designed to reveal the actor's thinking about the situation represented by the tableau.
Mimecan be a highly sophisticated silent art form in which the body is used as the instrument of communication. In drama, mime enables the students to explore and represent ideas and events through movement and gesture. For example, the students can recreate a theft as it was recorded by a hidden video camera, or they can go silently, as merchants, about their tasks at the village market.
Dance dramais expressive movement through which ideas, stories, sounds and music can be interpreted. It can be used by students who are experienced and comfortable with dance to express such episodes as dream sequences, flashbacks and flashforwards, and parts of celebrations. Sensitive use of dance drama can allow for valuable contrasts within a drama; for example, when battles are fought in slow motion or when explorers return from space with adventures to share.
Parallel play describes a situation in which all of the students work simultaneously but separately in their own space. It allows students time to "try on" their roles before they are required to work in role in a larger grouping. For example, using parallel play each of the survivors of a nuclear accident works to build a new community, or modern-day pirates individually prepare to raid an ocean salvage operation.
Storytelling is a means of creating (or re-creating) and sharing stories. The stories may be familiar or unfamiliar, the stories of others or the students' own. In drama, storytelling is a means of sharing and reflecting on each other's experiences and the experiences of the group.
Story theatretechniques may be used in drama as stories are told. This means that as the story is told by a narrator, others act it out. They can do this while speaking the dialogue or through mime, or the narration may be provided by those who are acting out the characters, animals or inanimate objects.
Flashbacks and flashforwards can be used effectively to help build belief, challenge the students to consider the consequences of their decisions and support periods of reflection. For example, in a drama about newcomers to the west, the students might be asked to work in pairs, one in role as a settler and one as someone who was left behind. They could improvise the most difficult goodbye they had to say before their departure. As another example, students might assume roles as citizens concerned about the hazardous level of pollutants pouring out of a local factory. They could improvise, in small groups, the impact of the pollution on a particular family fifty years from now. Tension and a varying of pace and focus can also be injected into the work through the use of flashbacks and flashforwards.
Interviews are not particularly a drama strategy but they work well to encourage seriousness, reveal a variety of perspectives and aid reflection. As well, if the questions are skillful, interviews can encourage fine, spontaneous storytelling. The interview strategy may provide students with insights into the media, but interviews need not be media-related. Some other examples are lawyer and client, coach and player, fisherman and fish. Nor are all interviews one-to-one; examples of large group interviews are a board of inquiry and a witness, a panel of experts and a small group of returned space or time travellers, a town council and a planning expert. Large group interviews are effectively used within dramas; this particular strategy has become known in its several variations as the hot seat.
Journeys can provide not only a strategy but, if focused, contexts for dramas. Students can explore different kinds of journeys ranging from journeys into space, to journeys to new lands, to journeys into battle. They can be challenged by such problems as deciding whether to go, planning the journey and preparing to go, saying goodbye and departing, anticipating their arrival at their destination, coping with the unknown along the way, etc.
Meetings have become a familiar ritual of the twentieth century. Students can learn to function productively in real meetings by first experiencing them through drama. The meeting strategy is an effective one by which the whole group can establish focus and begin to build belief. Because meetings are so familiar, they may also offer the teacher a comfortable way into drama. At first the teacher would assume the familiar leader-type role, but as the students and teacher become more experienced in drama, the teacher could become one of the group and the students could become the authority.
Ritual is a technique in which one action is repeated by many individuals to formalize or provide specific significance to a situation. For example, members of a top secret undercover mission (students in role) are each given a computerized tracking bracelet. As they accept the bracelet they are required to state why they have committed themselves to the mission.
The drawing and painting of treasure maps, maps of the town, blueprints of haunted houses, floor plans of factories, wanted posters, royal proclamations, posters announcing museum openings, symbols, bits of costume, etc. can be used within a drama. Such work can help the students build belief. It can be invaluable, both as the drama unfolds and after it is over, in providing the teacher with glimpses into the students' thinking and commitment. However, the work is time-consuming and should be used judiciously.
The writing of résumés, family records, articles, headlines, diaries, letters, journal entries, case histories, news stories, ledgers, stories, poetry, chants, myths and legends can be used within a drama, as can drawing and painting. Events in a drama will provoke reflection and will often invite research. Writing, which can slow down and deepen the students' thinking about the work, will give them an opportunity to respond to and record their feelings and their findings. Again, though, writing should be used judiciously as it is time-consuming.
Choral speakingis a means by which poetry, chants, raps, scripts, short stories, fairy tales, fables and legends can be interpreted and communicated vocally by a group. Choral speaking may be effectively used in a drama. For example, a drama might be inspired by a particular poem. The students and teacher could decide that group-speaking of the piece would provide ideal closure for the work. Alternatively, a group of students in or out of role, might wish to present poetry, chants or raps which they have created in response to events in the drama.
Games, exercises and warm-ups have been used as classroom drama activities to support the development of personal and social skills, imagination, concentration, characterization and vocal skills. Many of these familiar activities can be organized around themes and used purposefully and imaginatively within a dramatic context. Games, exercises and warm-ups will prove useful at the rehearsal stage of the collective creation.
Improvisation is any unscripted drama work. A distinction must be made between spontaneous improvisation, which is immediate and unrehearsed, and prepared improvisation, which is shaped and rehearsed. Spontaneous improvisation is characteristic of much of the work done within contextual dramas. As students shape and refine their work toward the development of a collective creation, they engage more in prepared improvisation.
Understanding the Processes and Choosing the Strategies
As well as having a grasp of the foundational objectives and the available strategies, the teacher should be aware that:
Dramas take shape episode by episode. They are not structured along plot lines as stories and plays often are. The episodes are most effectively linked by responding to "if" or "what if," rather than to "and" or "and then". Within each episode, the concern should be what is happening now, not what will happen next.
The strategies that the teacher structures into the work must provide a variety of means to encourage the students to stretch their thinking and extend their use of language. Opportunities for problem solving, decision making and reflection must underlie the basic process of negotiation and, therefore, must be built into the structure.
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Teacher Note:
Time for reflection (that is, time for recalling, reacting to, and describing one's experience both in and out of role) is very important in a drama of any length. During periods of reflection, students have the opportunity to pause, consider their actions and the consequences of their actions (individually and collectively), and clarify and share their understanding of the experience. By so doing, they are evaluating their work. This deepens their understanding of their work and enables them to contribute to the course of the work. It may well be that the most valuable learning occurs during these periods of reflection. Reflection can take a variety of forms. Discussion, writing, drawing, tableaux and other strategies can function effectively to tap into the students' responses to their experience. |
Groupings
Within a drama students must be provided with opportunities to work in a variety of groupings:
A variety of groupings provides students with an essential variety of interaction and experience which will contribute to different kinds of learning and levels of understanding. Also, when a drama extends over several weeks a variety of groupings may be an important factor in maintaining the students' commitment to the work.
Elements of Theatre Form
Drama is an art form that is concerned with the representation of people in time and space, their actions and the consequences of their actions. Dramatic art form is symbolic representation of experience. It seeks (as do all art forms) to uncover meaning. It strives to help us make sense of experience.
This curriculum is concerned with teaching and learning through dramatic art form. Teachers must, therefore, be aware of and apply the elements of theatre form when structuring, living through, shaping and refining drama work with their students.
The inclusion of these elements into drama lessons provides the aesthetic dimension; that which Cecily O'Neill (1983) refers to as the "intrinsic educational value that the process of art can have -- the quality of thinking and feeling that it can bring to children's understanding" (p. 29).
The following elements of theatre form are ones that teachers should be familiar with:
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Tension |
Contrasts |
Symbol |
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Teacher Note:
The Elements of Theatre Form included in this section of the curriculum guide apply particularly to student-created dramas, where emphasis is on learning through participation in an organic, ever-evolving process. Character and action are not included as elements here because, in contextual dramas, the focus is not ordinarily on fully-developed characters with complex sets of motivations, as in the play Hamlet, for example. The student is not required to analyse and understand a character in order to "act" a set role. However, at the Secondary Level students might be involved in play studies or play productions in which character and action are elemental. Please see "Dramatic Elements" in this Planning Guide (page 412) for information on character, action and movement. |
Questioning
Within dramatic situations, teachers must use questioning in a variety of ways and provide opportunities for students to pose questions both in and out of role through such strategies as meetings, interviews and the hot seat.
In drama, questions go beyond those which are used to check facts or elicit "correct" or "yes/no" answers. In drama there is no single right answer. Questions are used within the work to seek and contain information, involve the students, assess students' belief and commitment, assist with control and encourage reflection. Neither the teacher nor the students should be asking questions to which there is a single appropriate answer.
An essential characteristic of good teaching is the ability to use questions skillfully. The following grid [ Adapted from Making Sense of Drama by Jonathon Neelands (1984) and used with permission of Heinemann Educational Books] organizes a variety of questioning approaches a teacher can use in structuring the work and also during the drama itself.
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Mode of Question |
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Seeking Information | What shall we do a play about? What sort of a place is this? How many of us should go? Where will we go for help? Does this happen at night or in the day? What would we look like? etc. | To establish that this is our drama (our play). |
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Containing Information |
Are you sure we have everything we need? How long will it take us to travel by horseback? What will we carry with us? |
To suggest what is needed, rather than to tell. |
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Provoking Research |
What did ships look like in those days? How does a nuclear reactor work? Do we know enough about the Middle Ages to start? How did the Vikings manage to make boats without using nails? What would happen if we mixed these chemicals together? |
To establish that we need to know more about this before we continue. |
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Controlling |
Are we prepared to listen to each other? Is this the way foreign diplomats would behave? Can the editor-in-chief hear us if we all talk at once? What's the best way of organizing ourselves to overcome this problem? |
To develop the realization that drama is a controlled, demanding activity, not playing around. |
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Branching |
Shall we be in the past, present or future? Are we all men, all women, or mixed? Do you want to work as individuals, or in families? Are we rich or poor? Do you want to be frightened by this stranger, or do we trust her? Are we going to stop here or go a bit further? | To foster decision making between alternative courses of action. |
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Seeking Opinions | What did you feel about the teacher in role as the labour organizer? What other ways might there be of looking at that situation? Do you feel comfortable with this way of working? What do you think of when you think of rock stars? How much choice do you want in what we do? |
To discover what the students, individually, are thinking about the work. |
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Encouraging Reflection |
I wonder what makes a person want to go on the space shuttle? What sort of leader will we need? How would you act under this pressure? What do you find you must have, and you cannot live without? Can you find the words to express what you are thinking at this moment? As we stand here, I wonder what each of us might be thinking. |
To establish that it is important for us to think about what this means to us. |
At this point in planning a drama, the teacher plans the lesson much as she or he would any lesson. It is now a case of determining which strategies will best facilitate the students' exploration of the topic and their achievement of the foundational objectives.
Step Three: Working Within The Drama
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Teacher Note:
When you structure the work you are organizing your thinking and "creating in advance circumstances in which reflection, interpretation and exploration are going to be possible" (Neelands, 1984). A most critical feature of your structure is the underlying flexibility that is necessary if the students are to be allowed to shape their own drama. You may use a good structure again and again, but if students are able to create their own meaning out of the work and shape it, no structure will work the same way twice. When you structure a drama you are in effect drawing a map. But you must always remember that the map is not the journey, that the course of the journey must be determined by the students, and finally, that no two journeys are ever exactly the same. |
When the structuring of the work is complete, the teacher is prepared to begin the drama with the students. Students who have previous experience working in dramas will readily agree to suspend their disbelief, accept the "as if" (the fiction) and assume roles comfortably within the work. Most students will accept the conventions of the drama and will agree to participate in the imagined situation.
It is not necessary for students to play "drama games" or "warm-up" before beginning work in a drama. Carefully structured dramatic situations provide the tension necessary for students to engage in the work. If they choose to rehearse and perform a collective creation for an audience, warm-up exercises will then be valuable to focus their concentration and to prepare them physically and mentally.
If the teacher and students approach the work seriously and if the students are provided with a situation in which they can do the talking, responding and decision making, it soon becomes clear that the students bring their real-life experiences and perspectives to the situation. In fact, although the dramatic situation is always clearly imaginary, the students' responses, as revealed through the ideas and feelings that they express, are usually real ones.
As the drama unfolds the teacher must ease ownership of the work into the students' hands. The idea of a carefully planned lesson being allowed to take on a life of its own might be somewhat disquieting. However, there are a number of available means by which the teacher, who is ultimately responsible for the whole work, can and must control the quality of the experience while relinquishing to the students control of the drama's direction, shape and meaning.
A class which has had experience working in drama will have begun to understand how dramas "work". It is a bit like understanding the rules of a new game. Most students will enjoy the dramas, sense their value, and want them to work. Figure 1 illustrates the functions and responsibilities of teacher and students in working through a drama together.
In order to be comfortable and participate with ease in dramatic situations, teachers and students must work within them. Teachers who have experience working in dramas will have learned that a drama cannot fail. This is not to say that control in a drama cannot be lost. For example, the following can happen:
If any one of these happens, it may be that the drama requires new life or perhaps closure. In such cases, the teacher can do the following:
If, at any time during a work, the teacher is unable to think quickly enough to accommodate unexpected responses and events which signal a change of direction for the work (a daunting situation that can befall even the most experienced drama teacher), the teacher may "buy time" in a number of ways:
Any one of these strategies and others can provide the teacher with time to re-think and re-focus the work, ensuring that the students' suggestions are honoured and that the objectives continue to be met.
At any point in a drama, the work can challenge the teacher and students to choose among several possible strategies and processes. In this way, new questions and new discoveries that arise out of the students' responses and actions can be absorbed into the work. In drama there are no single right choices. Each possibility carries a unique set of challenges and experiences. As the teacher and the students become more experienced working in drama, however, they will discover first-hand the strengths and limitations of each of the strategies. They will be able to make more skillful choices among them, and manipulate and respond more readily to use of the elements of theatre form. These abilities will enable them to express their thinking and feeling more clearly and imaginatively and to derive greater significance and enjoyment from their drama work.
This completes the description of the two steps "Structuring the Drama" and "Working within the Drama". As teachers approach the prospect of structuring a drama along with their students, the following summary might be helpful.
Carefully study the foundational objectives for each grade. Become familiar with model modules in the drama strand of the middle years Arts Education curriculum guides. Although developed for use with Middle Level students, they will be valuable in providing a sense of how dramas can be structured and how they "work". Determine a topic for the drama. Initially, it may be advantageous to closely model a drama on an existing example. Teachers wishing to begin a new idea should consult their students on a choice of topic and focus. Decide what length of drama to structure. At first, structure short dramas (two or three episodes) which enable you to work in the more familiar "leader-type" role (or in any of the role types which seem most comfortable to you). Allow the students to work in roles of their choosing through different strategies in a variety of groupings. Also, ensure that the structure provides you with some opportunity to observe and listen to the students at work. Trust in the teacher-student relationship and the negotiation process (both in and out of role) to provide you with a boost of confidence which may at times be necessary to keep the drama alive. If you and your students are inexperienced working in dramatic situations, consider discussing that with them before you begin. Explain that together you will be exploring a new way of working and that the drama may be stopped at any time in order for you all to be able to discuss what is happening. Remember that you can stop the drama any time. If the drama feels uncomfortable or out of control, or simply doesn't seem to be working for whatever reason, slow the pace of the work and provide for extra periods of reflection that may be necessary from time to time. During these times, you and your students will usually be able to identify reasons for the lack of success of a particular episode of the work and propose solutions to remedy it. Occasionally, you may decide to end a drama at this point and agree to begin a new one next drama period. Remember that dramas have no specified length. A drama can be as short as one lesson or as long as one semester! Keep an up-to-date log book of the drama in progress. It will provide information to support student assessment, assessment of the work itself and the effectiveness of the teacher's roles in it. It can offer insights into how the dramas are working with your students, facilitate and strengthen your future structuring of dramas, and provide an essential resource for a possible collective creation.
Step Four: Shaping and Refining the Collective Creation
In earlier years of the drama program, students have been developing their appreciation of dramatic art form by working through many different dramatic situations. Students have learned that drama and the theatre are social events. As students gain confidence in their ability to express their ideas through dramatic form, they should have the opportunity to celebrate their work with some level of public recognition.
It is important for the students to understand that, when they decide to extend their work in the drama to the development of a collective creation, the purpose of their work shifts from an exploration of situation and ideas to a synthesis and communication of those ideas to a wider audience. This necessitates some shift in emphasis within the work itself. As always, the primary concern is the quality of thinking and feeling evoked by the dramatic situation. But once the decision is made to communicate that thinking and feeling to a wider audience, the abilities necessary to communicate those intended ideas effectively become an added concern.
When a class decides to develop a collective creation for performance, a further commitment to the work by both students and teacher is required. Even a short collective creation (ten or fifteen minutes long) will demand hours of rehearsal that may well extend beyond the class time allotted for drama.
A careful reflection of the whole work by the whole class is also now required. This will include:
As teacher and students approach the development of a collective creation, they will realize the value of the various forms of record keeping that have become an essential ingredient of every drama class. The following will prove invaluable as the collective creation takes shape: writing created by the students in role, information students offer from their journals, written records that have been kept by the teacher and students throughout the process, brainstorming charts, webbings, maps of the fictional community in which the drama was set, floor plans, posters, other visual records that were created and displayed as the drama unfolded, and the collective memory and insights of the group about its work.
Initially, the amount of material through which a class has to sift may well seem overwhelming. One effective way to guide the students' consideration of this information is to create a rough storyboard. This means that the teacher and students identify working titles for each of the episodes. Each working title is then printed separately on a large index card. The roles, strategies and elements that were incorporated into each of the episodes are also noted on each card. Moving around the index cards facilitates the choice, elimination and sequencing of the episodes and creates a visual representation of the collective creation. The completed storyboard can be displayed in the classroom and frequently referred to as the collective creation undergoes refining and rehearsal.
As the collective creation is shaped and refined the class may decide to create a rough script to guide their rehearsals, or small groups may feel more secure if the particular episode in which they are involved is written down. It is recommended that the collective creations usually be rehearsed as improvisational pieces; that is, as works that are not formally scripted. The nature of collective creations is that they are in a constant state of change; they grow and redefine themselves even as they are performed. Their development is influenced by the variables of improvisation, including motivation, contrasts, presentational style, status, setting, time, focus, tension and structure.
It is also recommended that the teacher function as the director of the collective creation. In the theatre, the director is the individual who assumes overall responsibility for the artistic interpretation and the presentation of a dramatic work. The responsibilities of the teacher/director include:
Step Five: Rehearsing and Performing the Collective Creation
Formal rehearsals may begin with a range of warm-up exercises that help to focus the concentration of the students/actors and prepare them mentally and physically for the rehearsal period. A number of drama resources suggested in the bibliography describe appropriate warm-up exercises.
During early in-class rehearsals, if the level of experience of the class and the structure of the collective creation permit, the students may work in small groups, with the teacher moving from group to group providing direction as necessary. Rehearsals will begin with the polishing of individual episodes and eventually progress to "run through" of the whole play. Inevitably, extra rehearsals will be called to work through rough spots in blocking, help strengthen individual work on role and incorporate new ideas that emerge as the rehearsals proceed.
The collective creations may be easily staged. A space on the classroom floor can be defined as a playing area. Simple sets and costumes which are student inspired and created (or gathered) are all that is required. If the school happens to own lights, some of the students may choose to learn to operate them and to design a simple lighting plot. Similarly, if some of the students are particularly keen on producing or taping music and sound effects for the play, they can be encouraged to do so. Elaborate sets, costumes, lighting and sound are not, however, essential ingredients of a successful performance.
Unfortunately, it is often the reality of drama classes that time simply runs out before an opportunity to reflect upon the work achieved in the class has been realized. All dramas must be structured so that times for reflection are provided frequently as the work unfolds. Reflection must also occur as a final or summative experience for each drama, including collective creations.
Periods of reflection enable students, in and out of role, to pause and distance themselves from the work so that they may examine meaning and clarify their thinking about the development of the drama. Periods of reflection provide students with opportunities to examine the sources of their ideas, discover what makes the drama meaningful for them, and understand how their individual responses and choices influence the responses and choices of others and help shape the work. Frequent opportunities to reflect critically upon their drama work helps students learn to express their ideas in dramatic form.
Teachers should provide opportunities for both public and private reflection and response. A variety of strategies should be used to encourage student reflection within and outside of dramatic situations. Whole group discussion, one-on-one interviews with the teacher, tableaux, prepared improvisation, drawing, writing in role, journal writing, and other strategies are effective in motivating students' critical consideration of both the form and the content of their work.
In order to ensure that students' reflection on their drama work results in clear articulation of the learning that has occurred, teachers must pose well-crafted questions. The nature of the questions will vary depending upon which strategies the teacher employs, whether the response will be public or personal, and when the reflection occurs. For example, a question such as "When did you realize that it was more important to save the jobs than to save the forest?" might motivate personal writing in role, which may evolve into publicly spoken monologues as the work unfolds. A question such as "What was the immediate effect of this decision on the lives of individual families in the community?" could prompt the development of small group improvisations that are prepared and shown to the whole group. Questions that request the expression of more personal experiences and attitudes (such as "Have you ever had to make a decision which was as difficult for you as this one was for each of these townspeople?" or "Which part of the drama was most challenging for you and why?") might best be used to guide a summative personal journal entry. Teachers should also keep in mind that the meaning derived from drama work may not always be immediately realized and expressed by the students. Often, significant tacit understandings will rise to the surface following a lengthy lapse of time.
Drama work can and should reflect the students' experience and their insights. Dramas and collective creations which are carefully structured so that ownership is gradually eased over into the hands of the students can mirror and influence the communities in which they are formed. Whether the audience consists of the teacher and students (within their dramas they will function simultaneously as actor and audience), a class of peers or the entire community, the links between the work and the world in which they live should be clear to everyone.
As they progress through the drama program, students will gain knowledge of the connections between their own drama work and their own place and time. This, in turn, will increase their understanding of dramatic art, past and present, and the places and times in which it was created. As well, their perceptions of their own drama work as worthy artistic endeavour will be strengthened.
