The Process in Detail

If this happens, it may be that the drama requires new life or, perhaps, closure. In such cases, the teacher can:

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 which 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, assuring 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 which arise out of the students' responses and actions can be absorbed into the work. In drama there are no right choices. Each possibility carries a unique set of challenges and experiences for the actors. 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 to both manipulate and respond more readily to use of the elements of theatre form within their dramas. 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.

Review of Steps 2 and 3

This completes the description of the two steps "Structuring the Drama" and "Working within the Drama". As you now approach the prospect of structuring your own work and introducing it to your students, the following summary might be helpful.

Now that you are familiar with the steps involved in working through dramas, you are ready to move on to the additional steps in working on a collective creation. Remember, however, that not all dramas will become collective creations to be performed for an audience.

Step Four
Shaping and Refining the Collective Creation

During the middle years drama program students will develop their appreciation of dramatic art form by working through many different dramatic situations. Students will learn that drama and the theatre are social events. As they 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 that the students 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 within a dramatic context to a synthesis and communication of those ideas to a wider audience. This necessitates some shift in the 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 effectively communicate those intended ideas become an added concern.

Only occasionally will a drama be extended into a collective creation. When that occasion arises, perhaps as a culminating experience to a year's work in drama, 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 which 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:

• re-examining the focus and intention of the selected drama
• recalling the content of each of the episodes which the students worked on as the drama unfolded
• identifying roles and strategies which emerged as particularly effective in communicating the intended ideas of both individuals and the whole group
• group decision-making to choose which episodes of the drama will be refined and polished, which will require changing or reworking, and which should be eliminated
• group problem-solving to facilitate the articulation of the "central thread" of the collective creation, to determine whether new episodes must be developed and to decide what form the "bridge" that will mark the transitions between each of the episodes will take ("Bridges" can take almost any form, from passages spoken by a narrator, to news headlines, to excerpts from monologues or letters which have been created by students in role, to chants by a Greek-like chorus, to lines from student-written or other poetry, to music, to tableaux, to vaudevillian-like placards, etc.)
• examining the consensus which is reached regarding each of the above to ensure that focus, tension, contrasts and symbol are evident in the work
• identifying the intended audience, setting a performance date and posting a rehearsal schedule for in and, perhaps, out of class time.

Initially, the amount of material through which a class has to sift may well seem overwhelming. One effective way to guide the class's 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 of middle years students be rehearsed as improvisational pieces; that is, as works which 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 -- 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:

• assuring that suggestions and decisions about the content and form of the collective creation are focused and honoured.
• encouraging students to stretch their ideas through incorporation and manipulation of the ingredients of improvisation and the elements of theatre form
• blocking the play (directing the movement of students around the playing area)
• clarifying the students' understanding of the intention and "central thread" of the evolving work by asking such questions as "What is it that you are trying to say?", "Why do you think that this way of expressing that is more clear than the other way?", "What is it that connects this idea to the "central thread" of this collective creation?"
• facilitating, as the work demands, the students' abilities to effectively communicate their intended ideas to the audience
• co-ordinating technical and other aspects of the collective creation
• assuring that the performance will be ready as scheduled.

Step Five
Rehearsing and Performing the Collective Creation

Formal rehearsals usually begin with a range of warm-up exercises that help to focus the concentration of the student 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 progress to "run throughs" of the whole play. Inevitably, extra rehearsals will be called to work through rough spots in blocking, to help strengthen individual work on role and to incorporate new ideas which emerge as the rehearsals proceed.

The collective creations of middle years students are 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 and costumes, lighting and sound are not, however, essential ingredients of a successful performance.

Step Six
Reflection

Teacher Note Unfortunately, it is often the reality of drama classes that time simply runs out before students get an opportunity to reflect upon the work achieved in the class. 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 and for each collective creation. Reflection is included here as the final step in the process, not only to emphasize that summative reflection is very important, but also to remind teachers that both formative and summative reflection play a crucial role in all drama work.

Periods of reflection enable students, in and out of role, to pause and to distance themselves from the work so that they may uncover and 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 to shape the work. Frequent opportunities to reflect critically upon their drama work facilitates the students' ability to realize the expression of their intended ideas in dramatic form.

In tapping into students' thinking about the direction of the work, their individual contributions to it and their observations about the work of the whole group, teachers should provide opportunities for both public and private responses. A variety of strategies can and should be used to encourage student reflection, both 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 that is structured so that an ongoing dialogue occurs between the teacher and each student, 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 some of the learning that has occurred, teachers must pose well-crafted questions for student response. 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. Or, "What was the immediate affect of this decision on the lives of individual families in the community?" could prompt the development of small group improvisations which are prepared and shown to the whole group. Questions which request the expression of more personal experiences and attitudes might best be used to guide a summative, personal journal entry. The following are examples: "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? Why?" or "What advice would you give to another class undertaking a similar project?" 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.

Summary

The drama work of middle years students can and should reflect their experience and their insights. Dramas and collective creations which are carefully structured and worked through so that ownership is gradually eased over into the hands of the students will mirror and can influence both the community and society in which they are formed. Whether the audience consists of the teacher and students (within their dramas, as in real life, 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 middle years drama program, students' first-hand knowledge of the cultural, historical and social connections between their own drama work and their own place and time will increase their understanding of all dramatic art. As well, their perceptions of their own drama work as worthy artistic endeavour will be strengthened.

Planning and Assessing

The following pages provide a planning sheet that may be used for daily or unit planning. Lists of some instructional strategies and assessment techniques to which teachers may refer are also provided.

Click here to view arts education planning sheet. You must have Acrobat Reader.

CELs, Instructional Strategies and Methods and Assessment Techniques are listed on the following page.

The Adaptive Dimension, Gender Equity, Indian and Métis Content, and Resource-based Learning are initiatives which should be included when planning. The following information is also intended to assist teachers in their planning.

Common Essential Learnings
Communication (C) Creative and Critical Thinking (CCT) Independent Learning (IL)	Numeracy (N) Technological Literacy (TL) Personal and Social Values and Skills (PSVS)
For objectives specific to the CELs see: Instructional Approaches: A Framework for Professional Practice, Staff Development Program Binder, 1991, or the Bulletin Board System in the conference area Teacher Information and Support.

Instructional Strategies and Methods: For detailed information see Instructional Approaches: A Framework for Professional Practice, 1991
Direct Instruction: Structured Overview Explicit Teaching Mastery Lecture Practice Compare and Contrast Didactic Questions Demonstrations Indirect Instruction: Problem-solving Case Studies Inquiry Reading for Meaning Reflective Discussion Concept Formation Concept Mapping Concept Attainment	Independent Learning: Essays Computer Assisted Instruction Reports Learning Activity Package Learning Contracts Home Work Research Projects Assigned Questions Learning Centres Experiential Learning: Field Trips Experiments and Exploring Games Focused Imaging Field Observations Synectics Model Building Surveys	Interactive Instruction: Debates Brainstorming Discussion Co-operative Learning Groups Problem-solving Circle of Knowledge Interviewing Responding Processes (see individual strands) Teacher in Role * Role * Parallel Play * Tableau * Improvisation * * Key Drama Strategies. See page 227 for a complete listing.

Assessment Techniques: For detailed information on many of these techniques see Student Evaluation: A Teacher Handbook, 1991.
Methods of Organization: Individual Assessments Group Assessments Contracts Peer and Self-Assessments Portfolios Conference Audio and visual recordings Methods of Data Recording: Anecdotal Records Observation Checklists Rating Scales	Ongoing Student Activities: Written Assignments Presentations (assessment of process and product) Performance Assessments (ongoing assessment of process and student participation) Homework Journal Writing Projects