Readers’ Theatre

This week, we explored yet another form of drama: Readers’ Theatre. “Readers theatre involves a rehearsed reading for an audience. Through gesture and language, participants build, sustain and resolve dramatic tension within the context of the drama. Drama conventions include reading aloud, vocal expression, silent pauses and a direct actor-audience relationship” (NSW DET, 2006, p.97).

Readers Theatre this week was on the shaping of dramatic scenarios around Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are”. We learnt about verbal expression which is basically how we would speak our part, taking into consideration our tone, volume and pace.

There was much room for creativity in terms of this activity. It was a bit difficult for us to decide as a large group how we wanted to perform this particular script. In the end, we settled on having 3 people be Max, and the rest got into 2 groups and split the narration lines. We had little time to rehearse, but it turned out to be a great performance.

In a Primary classroom, there needs to be a lot of guidance and scaffold by teacher. Even as Masters students, we had a difficult time in the beginning getting into groups and deciding how we wanted to perform the script. It really helped that we had the elements of Drama such as Tension, Space, Focus and Contrast to fall back on.

At the end of the session, we discussed assessment and reporting in drama and how to structure a lesson plan on it. We discussed that work samples can be one of several things such as photographs or video taken during the drama lesson. They can be material developed as part of the drama, interviews with students about their dramatic presentations and involvement in activities, extracts from their drama journals, or even a student’s written reflection from the end of a drama lesson or unit of study.

Thumb print & Lino Printing

I loved the idea of how a thumb print can actually engage a child’s (mine as well!) creativity! In Art workshop this week, we discovered print making using ordinary acrylic paint.

We did 2 things today- a thumb print activity and a lino printing activity.

The thumb print activity involved using a thumb print on paper as the stimulus. We were told to put a thumb print on half a page and from there, improve on it. It worked as a stimulus for further drawing of an object, person, or other living things, place and space, or event. Half my class created an animal from that single thumb print, the other half drew plants from that single print. I used the thumb print as a balloon, and continued to draw a girl stick figure holding up the balloon. 

Creating a picture from a single thumbprint.

Following that, we had to make two thumb prints on the other half of the page and turn them into something involving a skeleton. I admit, I had to do a quick google search on the iPhone to get a rough idea of what a skeleton looks like. I used the thumb prints as two eyes, and drew a “cartoonish” skull, with a triangular nose and a smiling face showing teeth.

 
Turning 2 thumb prints into a skeleton.

The last activity was to create 4 to 5 prints. It was a really fun activity. We were first given a square piece of scratch foam and were told to create any pattern on it – with the reminder that drawing a picture would be less complicated than having written words as worlds would have to be written backwards to be printed the right side up.

The next step was for us to use rollers and roll black paint (not too much, not too little) over our scratch foam tile and then use another roller to “print” it on.

Step-by-step Lino Printing process.

Even though we were to only use one side of the scratch foam, I used both sides. The butterfly print was the first one I did, but it seems that 1/4 had too much paint. 2/4 was about the same. 3/4 was the best, however, I felt that I should have drew harder into the scratch foam so that the pattern would be more prominent. I decided to flip the scratch foam over and do another pattern (it’s supposed to be a ‘thumb print’). I think it worked out much better than my butterfly print. By then, I was familiar with the amount of paint and force needed to have a good lino print.

I really enjoyed these printing activities! However, this could turn out to be messy with primary students, so smocks or art T-shirts would be a good idea to keep their uniforms clean.

Artistic Development

The lecture and workshop enabled me to understand why I became so uncomfortable with art. I remember becoming disillusioned when I wasn’t able to draw “real” pictures. Till today, I believe that m art is bad and that I’m unable to draw. I guess this bows down to how my art work was graded when I was in primary and secondary school. My drawings were always given a “C” grade, and I never had high hopes of getting any “A” grade drawings. To me, I was just thankful that Art wasn’t “important” and it wouldn’t count toward an overall academic grade.

In this week’s workshop, we learned how to draw a portrait. I was blown away. Robyn scaffolded the class very well. I felt very “safe” and guided as I started drawing out facial positions of a human face. I never knew that the eyeballs aligned the mouth, nor observed that our ears bridged the sides of our eyes! I loved how I can actually link Math (proportions and fractions) to portrait drawing!

My best attempt drawing Kimberly.

Kim’s better attempt at drawing me.

I also want to remember Wilson’s 7 Graphic Principles – Why children’s drawings look the way they do. (My little comments in italics).

1. Simplicity Principle – Stick figures

2. Perpendicular Principle – defy laws of gravity / birds eye view

3. Territorial Imperative Principle – drawings don’t touch or overlap

4. Fill-the-format Principle –fill in entire page

5. Conservative ad Multiple Application Principle – use same symbol over and over again

6. Draw everything Principle – draws both interior and exterior

7. Plastic Principle – “I” am most important

I found this site extremely useful in explaining in greater detail Wilson’s 7 principles!

Writing in role

In this week’s workshop, my main takeaway was the consideration of writing in role.

“Drama is a method for instruction and learning that involves students in imaginary, unscripted, and spontaneous scenes (Schneider & Jackson, 2000). Through process drama, students can "write in role" (O'Neill, 1995; Tarlington, 1985), enabling them to think differently about the forms and exploring a point of view. This is also a great assessment strategy to get students involved in the story and various points-of-view.

This week’s drama journal is dedicated to writing a 5th voice from the text “Voices in the Park” by Anthony Browne.

Victoria’s Point of View:

Madam decided to take Charles and I to the park this evening. I wagged my tail in excitement to gain her favour, and perhaps she’ll give me an extra treat. I nudged Charles to quickly get dressed. I can’t wait to run around in the park and breathe in some fresh air. I sometimes feel the air at home is a little too stiff. I really want to see Charles smile. Every time he goes to the park, he seems a little more at ease. When we reach the park, I sniffed the air. Another dog asks me to play with her. I readily agree, hoping to set a good example for Charles to make new friends and have fun! I see a girl talking to him! I give a bark of approval. Go for it, Charles!

 

References:

O'Neill, C. (1995). Drama worlds. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Schneider, J.J., & Jackson, S.A.W. (2000). Process drama: A special space and place for writing. The Reading Teacher, 54(1), 38–51.

Tarlington, C. (1985). Dear Mr. Piper...: Using drama to create context for children writing. Theory Into Practice, 24, 199–204.

Drama devices/strategies

I'm amazed how the first drama class has changed my whole attitude towards drama. I've never had the opportunity to do drama of any sort throughout my entire primary and secondary schooling career. Just as well, because I'm no actress nor am I dramatic enough to play a role. However, the first workshop allowed me to get a different perspective of how a one drama workshop has the possibility of linking KLAs together. Geography (from mapping activity), Literacy (from writing, reading and coming up with ideas from The Green Children pretext.

I can definitely see myself making use of several strategies such as the warm up (high/low/medium positions), role walking and tapping-in. I am encouraged to learn more strategies on how to scaffold a classroom surrounding drama, and would love to delve a bit deeper into the inclusion of children with disabilities as well.

The particular pretext chosen, The Green Children, allowed me to see the varying degrees of creativity and ideas that sparked from that pretext alone. I loved that Drama allows for us to as the NSW Syllabus states, "explore personal, cultural and social worlds". There was a great amount of freedom to think out-of-the-box and role playing anything your minds thinks of without fear of a right or wrong "answer".

I absolutely love this still image. The varying degrees of expression and thoughts of each individual in their creatively thought-up roles speaks for itself. We had all come away from the original script and all had a different interpretation of the story.

Incorporating Art into other KLAs

I've never been good at art. When I was growing up in Singapore, art wasn't of much importance as a subject in schools and even then, it was all very rigid. My artworks in school were graded. I mean, how does a teacher give a grade to a piece of artwork? I never want to give my students a grade in art. I simply want them to enjoy the process of creating and imagining.

The first Arts workshop was a really wonderful experience. I loved the idea of getting my students to do a Name Montage at the beginning of the year. Rather than having them write about themselves, I thought that giving them the leeway to describe themselves by creating a montage for themselves is an excellent and fun way to get to know my future students. I will definitely be keeping this activity in mind.

My brainstorm for the Name Montage

It turned out a little different from my brainstorm. As I started on this project, the ideas just grew.

I really enjoyed the Pictionary game as well. Rules can be changed and this activity can be easily scaffolded to suit students of different age groups! I felt that limiting each person to a letter while drawing an attribute of an Art teacher would be a greater challenge for the Upper Primary levels. As it turned out, though no prizes were given, we all had fun and it was an enjoyable task. This activity can be used in any other KLA. Not just visual arts. It can definitely be tweaked to fulfill a literacy (thinking of vocabulary beginning with the given alphabet) or numeracy (keeping score) outcome.

An attribute of an arts teacher starting with "N".