The Process in Detail

The Strategies

Following is a list of drama strategies from which teachers may choose as they structure the work. Many of these are incorporated in the model units.

role teacher in role narration imaging voting tableau tapping in mime journeys

dance drama parallel play storytelling story theatre flashbacks and flashforwards interviews the hot seat

meetings ritual drawing and painting writing choral speaking games, exercises and warm-ups improvisation

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. While the assuming of role may be an initial stage in the process of characterization, the task of fully developing a character is not required of middle years students.

Teacher Note In middle years 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 to their ownership of the work. If the students decide to polish and perform a collective creation, the work may require them to explore the rudiments of character development.

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.

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 close to what is happening and to facilitate the shaping of the work from within.

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, 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. An evil magician who threatens to rob all of the magi in the land of their powers or a property developer who is going to turn a lake-front into a mega-mall are examples.

• 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 that the peasants must forfeit half of their crops so that the king can equip his army for an invasion.

• 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 is about to embark on a mission to investigate a newly discovered undersea city and requires help, 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 the king'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.

Narration can be used to establish mood, to bridge gaps in time, and to 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 which 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.

Voting is 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 clearly express 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 that particular moment which 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 which are designed to reveal the actor's thinking about the situation represented by the tableau.

Mime can 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 recreate an art theft as it was recorded by a hidden video camera, or they could, as merchants, go silently about their tasks at the village market.

Dance drama is expressive movement through which ideas, stories, sounds and music can be interpreted. It can be used effectively 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, each of the survivors of a nuclear accident works to build a new community or pirates individually prepare for their long voyage.

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 student's own. In drama, storytelling is a means of sharing and reflecting on each others' experiences and the experiences of the group.

Story theatre techniques may be used in drama as stories are told. This means that as the story is told by a narrator, others act it out either while speaking the dialogue or through mime. Alternatively, 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, to challenge the children to consider the consequences of their decisions, and to support periods of reflection. For example, in a drama about newcomers to the west, the students are asked to work in pairs, one in role as a newcomer and one as someone who was left behind. They are asked to improvise the most difficult goodbye they had to say before their departure. As another example, students assume roles as citizens challenging the hazardous level of pollutants pouring out of a local factory. They are asked to improvise, in small groups, the impact of the pollution on a particular family fifty years from now. Tension and variation in pace and focus can also be injected into the work by using 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. Used often, the interview strategy may provide students with insights into the media, but not all interviews are media-related. Some other examples are lawyer and client, coach and player, fisherman and fish. Not all interviews are 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 troll 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, a context in itself. 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. It might help children to learn to function in "real" meetings by first being able to "play" in them. 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 students take on the authority role.

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 space mission (students in role) board their spacecraft one by one, prior to launch. As they do so, they are given a computerized identification bracelet and 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, this work is time-consuming and should be used judiciously.

Writing of resumés, 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 can rob the students of precious drama time. Of course, should the teacher choose to incorporate writing objectives into a segment of the dramatic context and overlap with language arts, the time factor needn't cause concern.

Choral speaking is a means by which literature (including poetry, chants and raps, scripts, short stories, fairy tales, fables and legends) is interpreted and communicated vocally by a group. It 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 which is done within contextual dramas. As students shape and refine their work toward the development of a collective creation, they engage more in prepared improvisation.

Teacher Note Many of the strategies described here will be familiar to teachers. Working within a context may be new. In middle years drama, the primary concern is not the quality of the presentation. What is important is the quality of the experience and the students' achievement of new understanding.

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 though, the concern should be what is happening now, not what will happen next.

The strategies which 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, most importantly, reflection must underlie the basic process of negotiation and, therefore, must be built into the structure.

Teacher Note Time for reflection (that is, time for recalling, reacting to, and describing one's experience both in and out of role, within a drama of any length) is very important. During these periods of reflection, students have the opportunity to pause, consider their actions and the consequences of their actions (individually and collectively) and to clarify and share their understanding of that experience. By so doing, they are exercising a process for evaluating their work which deepens their understanding of it and, at the same time, 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, tableau and other strategies can function effectively to tap into the students' responses to their experience.

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 different levels of understanding. Also, when a drama extends over several weeks a variety of groupings may be an important factor in the students' ability to sustain commitment to the work.

The elements of theatre form were outlined early in this guide. As the work is being structured (and as the students and teacher "live through it") the teacher must plan for the incorporation of focus, tension, contrasts and symbol.

Within dramatic situations teachers will use questioning in a variety of ways and will 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*, which organizes a variety of question approaches a teacher can use in structuring the work and also during the drama itself, will support teachers in framing more skillful, appropriate and productive questions. * Adapted from Making Sense of Drama by Jonathon Neelands (1984) and used with permission of Heinemann Educational Books

Mode of Question	Examples	Purpose
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).
Containing Information	Are you sure we have everything we need? How long will it take us on horses? What else will we carry, apart from our weapons?	To suggest what is needed, rather than to tell.
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 go on.
Controlling	Are we prepared to listen to each other? Is this the way detectives would behave? Can the king hear us if we all talk at once? What is the best way of organizing ourselves to overcome this problem?	To develop the realization that drama is a controlled, demanding activity, not playing around.
Branching	Shall we be in the past, present or future? Are we a mixed group of men and women? 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 camp here or go a bit further?	To foster decision-making between alternative courses of action.
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.
Encouraging Reflection	I wonder what makes a person want to go to space? I wonder what sort of leader we will need? How would you act under this pressure? What do you find you must have and 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.

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 which 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.

The Process in Detail Continues