Storytelling: Selkie Myth

I walked away from today’s drama workshop with ONE message that struck me.
I felt really motivated to BE a teacher who has the gift of storytelling. I want to take up the challenge that Egan (1997) suggests – which is to “reconceive the curriculum as a set of great stories we have to tell children and recognise… school teachers as the storytellers of our culture” (p. 64).
I experienced the enchanting and engaging effect that storytelling had not only just as listeners but also as storytellers. I absolutely loved how we could all get creative with the storytelling process. Students would be given free reign to imagine their own stories as the story can undergo several changes and hence differ with each re-telling. The workshop fleshed out this idea focusing on the use of storytelling as a way of connecting (meanings, subject matter, ourselves) to the listener.
I’m really keen to do the story-telling activity in class with Stages 2 and 3 in the future.

Steps:
1. Teacher provides the bare bones of The Selkie Myth by acting and dramatizing the story.
2. Have a chat about how they felt as listeners. Were they engaged? What hooked them?
3. In pairs, the students retell the story. One student does the telling and the pair can either say to advance or ask for more detail.
For example, when students ask for detail, it would mean that the teller should create as much detail for that moment in story. “There was a fisherman, who had ginger curly hair falling to his shoulders. He was middle aged and had yellow teeth. He had a big beard that is long and wispy.”
For advance, move the story forward.

Further related activities could be getting students to bring a story from their home to tell.
At the end of the session, time permitting, teachers could do a ‘Conscience alley’ to decide what the Selkie does when she gets her skin back. Should she leave her family? Yes or No.
A great link to literacy would be to write new ending.
References:
Egan, K. (1997). The educated mind: How cognitive tools shape our understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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.

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.