Drama

Situation Cards and Telling Stories 

     In our first drama class, we were presented with a great warm up activity to get students telling stories. Our task was to think of something that nobody else in the room might know about us and write it out on a piece of paper. We were to then fold this up and toss it into the middle of the circle we were sitting in. One by one a volunteer would go up and choose a paper at random. That student’s task was to then read what the card said and tell a story about the scenario as if it was theirs. This activity uses the drama element of role and character. Each student had to create a story based off what their card said by getting into role and putting themselves in the shoes of that character being described on the paper. They were imagining and generating stories based off of a few words to present to the class, one of the stages in the creative process. The great thing about this activity was that every knew that the story you were presenting was not their own so each student had freedom to take the story any way that they wanted without being self conscious with what they were sharing. This was a great activity to start generating quick improvised stories with words that will help gain student confidence and experience for future drama lessons.

Integrating the Curriculum

     Integrating subjects into one lesson makes for a unique and interesting experience for the students to share their knowledge.  Integrating drama with science makes for a fun experience that does not necessarily have to involve writing that makes some subjects dry. In the last activity of class we were to portray the digestive system using actions and sounds. At first I was sceptical of how each part of the digestive system was going to be portrayed, but by collaborating and scaffolding through previous activities, I think it turned out great. I think this provided a great opportunity for gaining understanding of the system by providing a visual of how the digestive system works.  By acting out the function through role of each part of the system, you were able to match a written description with a visual action and sound to help make a connection and better understanding of the order and purpose of the digestive system. Combining science and drama in this creative way would allow for the more creative students to learn and demonstrate their knowledge in a unique way.

Masks

     One of the group presenters today used the drama strategy of using masks, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  The purpose of using a blank mask in drama is to cover and hide the face of the presenter, obscuring all emotion and facial expression. It is then up to the presenter to use their body instead of their face and voice to express the emotion they want to portray. All group members were assigned the same character from the text and we were all able to portray how that character felt using our bodies without the use of our face. The mask allows for students who are shyer to still get up and present without having to show their face. The mask can allow for more confidence in these shy students to still express emotion another way asides from their face. As a student in elementary school, I was very shy when it came to expressing emotions in drama class and I feel that starting off by using a mask would have allowed me to gain my confidence and helped me greatly.

A Game Everyone Knows through Drama

 The purpose of this lesson was to get students active in their 2 minutes of daily physical activity using various drama strategies. Students were able to work collaboratively and individually in order to portray character and role in an active manner. The activity flowed using a warm up, action and a cool down. This followed the structure of any physical activity, allowing students to get warmed up and the blood flowing by doing simple movements that also incorporated getting into character and role through drama. The action portion of the activity allowed for a more sustained movement where students were constantly moving around, getting in their physical education in addition to playing and adapting into different roles through the rock, paper, scissor, evolution game. During the cool down portion, students were still moving, but getting their heart rate back down. The concept of tableau was used in this section to allow for students to reflect on the evolution process that they went through during the game. Students were engaged and actively participated in a wide variety of activities that included a warm-up and cool-down activity while also engaging actively in drama exploration and role play. I would use this activity in my future classroom because  like how it incorporates both physical activity and drama in a fun and engaging way for students.

News Reporting 

     Both groups in todays presentations used the drama method of news reporting as one of the activities throughout their presentations. I really enjoyed this method and the context in which both groups presented them in. The integrated units combined with drama that the groups did were history and geography. I feel that a news reporting method of communication greatly allows for the deliverance of information and provides for a connectedness for the student to the content. In both scenarios, students were able to take historical and geographical concepts and display it in a fun and entertaining way that made the information more relatable to them. Students were able to get creative in the manner of presenting the news report and able to adapt different roles and characters and put on a performance. I would definitely use this drama method in my future classroom for it is one that I feel everyone can relate to and excel at. This drama method allows for easy connections to be made throughout the other strands of the curriculum and can be used for a variety of functions.