Week 5: Drama

This week we learned about combining visual arts into drama and I found that the presentation offered great strategies to incorporate into future drama lessons. The strategies that were discussed in today’s presentation were caption making, masks, soundscapes, connection webs, role playing and tableaux. We began by listening to a read aloud of the very popular story “The Paper Bag Princess” by Robert Munsch. Next in our groups we were provided with a “caption” and we each had to take on a role from the story that matched that caption. After reading out our caption we froze into tableaux.

For the mask activity we were each provided with a princess, prince or dragon mask. I really like how the presenters emphasized that we should turn around to go into character and turn around again to go out of character. In our groups we were asked to have a conversation while taking on the persona of the mask we were provided with. This is a really simple way to connect visual arts with drama because students can be encouraged to be creative with their own mask and then they can make a skit using their masks. Another activity that we did with this story was creating a soundscape that coincided with the beginning, middle and end of the story. This was also a very engaging activity because we had to try to use sound in order to emphasize the plot of the story. This activity provides a beneficial accommodation for blind students as they are encouraged to only use sound in order to bring the story to life.

Following the group presentation, we began to learn about a story called “Giraffes Can’t Dance.” This story is about a Giraffe that liked to dance but all of the other animals taunted and laughed at him for dancing. There were several activities tied into this story that we learned about. For example, Stefanie took on the role as the giraffe and she was placed into the hot seat. The class acted as her family and we asked her questions about what happened when the animals laughed at her. Another really enjoyable activity that we practiced was dancing like a specific animal. In groups of 3-4 we were given a type of dance and an animal. We were asked to dance across the classroom while portraying that specific animal. Chris, Vince and I were chimps that cha-cha and I think that students would really find this activity exciting.

Week 4: Drama

And we are back in business!

This week we looked at making drama cross-curricular with social studies and we uncovered really interesting teaching strategies. The group that presented discussed how to teach students about different types of families along with drama and incorporated tableaux into their activity. They began by showing us a picture of different types of families and they asked if we identified with any of the families or if we didn’t see ourselves in the families? I felt that this really opened up the discussion in the group and you can go very far with these questions. For their activity we were provided with a family scenario and we had to freeze into a position that explained the situation we were provided with. My group was acting out a grandmother giving her grandkids candy and the older

brother ate most of the candy so the younger sister was upset. I’ve included a picture of our tableaux pose for reference. The group also incorporated another strategy where the teacher taps one of the frozen students on the shoulder and the student has to use first person in order to explain how they are feeling.

We also read the story “Gift Days” which discusses a young girl named Nassali that lives in Uganda and wants to go to school but her culture does not allow the girls go to school as they have to stay home and do chores. During the read aloud of the story, we were provided with specific parts of the book that we would say out loud in a chorus. I really liked this activity as I found it brought the story to life and I think that students would be more engaged in the plot because they are involved in the character’s storyline. I edited together some of the parts of us reading out the story in a chorus as an example.

We also practiced the drama strategy called alter-ego which reminded me of an angel or devil sitting on your shoulder situation. One person sits in the “hot seat” and two people take on the alter ego positions and they discuss different sides of the story. In this case, Adrianna was discussing staying home and not going to school and Pooja was saying that girls should be able to go to school in order to find a profession that they love and to learn about new opportunities. I enjoyed this strategy and I think that you could apply it to several social studies topics for example First Nations vs. European Settlers in the grade five curriculum. Instructors can have the students read a story involving the two groups interactions and then have two students pose as either the First Nations or First Settlers and openly discuss the history behind their interactions.