Drama and Theatre with Children

International perspectives

Charru Sharma

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138859746
• eBook ISBN: 9781317508625
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

Drama as a process-centred form is a popular and valued methodology used to develop thinking and learning in children, while theatre provides a greater focus on the element of performance. In recent years, offering drama and theatre as a shared experience is increasingly used to engage children and to facilitate learning in a drama classroom. Using drama and theatre as a central component with children, this book is an amalgamation of theory, research and practice from across the globe offering insights into differing educational contexts.

Chapters provide an exploration of the methodologies and techniques used to improve drama in the curriculum, and highlight the beneficial impact drama has in a variety of classrooms, enriching learning and communication. Contributions from 17 authors, ranging from teachers in schools or universities, to researchers and drama practitioners, examine a variety of perspectives related to drama and children in an attempt to bridge gaps and move ahead collectively as educators, practitioners and researchers in drama and theatre. Divided into two parts, Part I reflects on the use of drama in its varied forms with children, while Part II focuses on projects and experiments with children using theatre in order to draw links between drama, theatre and pedagogy.

Drama and Theatre with Children will be key reading for researchers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of drama education, theatre education, curriculum studies and child development. The book will also be of interest to drama practitioners, school teachers and teacher training leaders.

Part I
Drama in school settings

1
Drama as a creative aesthetic learning process to improve reading competence

Aud Berggraf Sæbø

Norwegian teacher’s challenge – to motivate students to academic work

The Norwegian Student Surveys 2009 and 2012 showed that one out of five students in primary school and every four students in secondary school express that they are not motivated, or only to a limited extent are motivated, to work in the academic subjects at school (Danielsen et al., 2009, p. 85; Wendelborg et al., 2013). Students say that they receive little feedback and guidance about what they can do to improve their professional work and that the teachers’ teaching and students’ ways of working are not varied or stimulating enough (Furre et al., 2006). Norwegian educational research has found that the qualities of the processes that go on in the classroom need to be questioned and new knowledge created about the teaching and learning process (Haug, 2003; KD, 2011). The action-based project “Drama, creativity and aesthetic learning processes” aims at researching this (Sæbø, 2012, 2013). Critical voices argue that theoretical, practical and aesthetic subjects must be dialectically related to each other in a form where theory and aesthetic practice are integrated into an education in which students’ formation of experience is at the centre (Fjord Jensen, 1987; Ziehe, 2004). Ziehe sees this as the teacher’s need to build a bridge between the subject matter content and the student’s experiences. For the teacher to succeed in the teaching and learning process, she must ensure that students make experiences in a dense and structured setting and that they recognize what is different and strange compared to their everyday culture; she must increase students’ symbolising and communication skills and use the aesthetic and formative stage herself in her professional teaching performance (Ziehe, 2004).

About exploratory and reflective reading

The national reading tests in 2012 showed that Norwegian students have the biggest problems with reading when they have to reflect upon and discuss the text (Solheim et al., 2012; Eriksen & Roe, 2012). The exploratory and reflective aspect of students’ education in reading is emphasized in the latest Norwegian school reform (KD, 2006). For the teacher to be successful in this work, research points at the importance of the teacher’s reading instruction, which must create a mutual interaction between the text and the student (Rosenblatt, 2002), and further on suggests that a reflective dialogical interaction between the text, the teacher and the students is needed (Molloy, 2008). Rosenblatt calls the mutual interaction transaction to stress that the understanding and interpretation of a text depends on both the reader and the text and on the reader’s more or less emotional, creative and interpreting attitude in the reading process. She also finds that both cognitive and affective aspects are included in all reading, but that these are emphasized differently based on whether the goal for the reading is more practical or literary (Rosenblatt, 2002). Henning (2010) says that if students experience that the text has relevance for them, the transaction between the reader and the text goes easier. When working with literary texts, it is therefore a challenge for the teacher to create an emotional and creative attitude to the text as a basis for students’ empathy, understanding, interpretation and reflection. Molloy (2008) also emphasizes that, in order for a text to create meaning for the students, the reading must be active, meaning that the students must understand the language of the text.

Drama as an aesthetic learning process

When a drama-based aesthetic learning process is integrated into other subjects, research finds that the quality of the students’ learning process is influenced by the quality of both the academic teaching and of the drama teaching that is integrated (Bamford, 2006; Sæbø, 2009). Process drama, the main learning form in this project, is a teacher-structured, creative, student-active and group-based learning form, where the students, through various drama techniques and working in the role, explore and develop knowledge in the discipline that integrates drama (Bolton, 1984, 1992; Bowell & Heap, 2001; O’Toole, 1992; Sæbø, 1998). Process drama is not about creating drama performances, but about how teachers can engage students in a creative and active learning process in any subject in the regular class instruction. In process drama, it is the teacher’s responsibility to structure the teaching and learning process to ensure that all students are included and motivated to work with the actual subject matter content, and to take care of the needed differentiation and individual challenges of the students (Bowell & Heap, 2001; Sæbø, 2010).

The research question and methodology

In the part of the action-based project presented here, I worked with three teachers in grade six. The teachers had no formal drama education, but had previously taken part in some short drama courses. They wanted to learn how to teach reading through process drama since this school had too many students with average scores in the annual national reading tests.

We agreed on the following research question for the project: How can drama and aesthetic learning processes stimulate reading and help to develop students’ reading comprehension?

Although I have over the years developed much process drama to encourage reading (Sæbø, 1998), it was a new challenge to rethink how the teaching and learning activities had to be structured when stimulation of students’ reading skills were to be the focus for the teaching and research question. A given fictional text about love from the textbook was to be the starting point for the process drama, and the focus of the process drama must engage students and inspire a close reading of the text. This close reading is necessary because the students have to read the text over and over again to find information, to understand and interpret the text and to reflect on its content, if they are to develop their reading skills (Molloy, 2008). I started my planning by reading and analysing the text in terms of the three aspects of reading comprehension that are measured through the national tests: 1) to find information, 2) to understand and interpret this information, and 3) to reflect on and evaluate the text’s content and form (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2008). One important question I asked myself while planning was what kind of teacher-in-role I could play that would naturally be concerned with the three aspects of reading comprehension in relation to the selected text. The answer was a detective, and the character Detective Audrey was “born”!

The teachers wanted primarily to observe my teaching and participate as practical “assistant” when needed. I did not know or meet the students in advance. The research methods in this action-based project were observation and qualitative questionnaire for the teachers. In addition I did an in-depth analysis and reflection based on the process drama and my observation of the teaching and learning process (Rendtorff, 2004).

Framing and the starting point for the process drama

“Which scarf do you want Detective Audrey to use?” I ask the students, holding up a yellow wool scarf in one hand and a black-and-gold scarf in the other. This first student activity is simple, but important to create interest in participating in the upcoming learning activities. The election is decided by a student poll. “Are you ready for a visit by teacher-in-role as a detective?” I ask these students in grade six. The students look at me with expectation, they smile, nod their heads, and many answer a clear and loud “Yes”. I have already told the students that I will be in role as Detective Audrey, a detective who needs their help. I have thus stimulated the students’ interest in meeting me in the role as a detective. I will, by playing the role of Detective Audrey, take care of one of Ziehe’s recommendations to the teacher for successful teaching: that the teacher herself adopts the aesthetic-formative aspect in the teaching and learning process (Ziehe, 2004).

“Okay! I will go outside in the hall, put on this scarf, knock on the door and come back in the role of Detective Audrey, as though I have never been in this class before, and then the play will start,” I say. The students look at me with expectant and excited faces, they nod and smile and clearly want the improvised play to begin. I go out into the hallway and shut the door. Detective Audrey knocks and enters: “Good morning. Is this 6a?” The students are nodding. “Oh, that is good! I was a little late, because I had some problems with the parking.” I breathe and puff a bit, to play the role truthfully, say hello to them all and thank the teacher and the students for their willingness to help me to solve this special case.

“I got a letter. Look here!” I say, holding up an envelope and reading: “To The Detective Agency Love Safer, Lapwing Road 28, 4323 Ganddal, Norway,” before taking out the letter. The letter is a copy of the text “Jørgen + Anne = true” from the textbook. “But before we can begin, there are three qualifications each of you should be able to satisfy in order to help me. These are: Can you read? Have you been in love? Are you interested in mysteries?” All students raise their hands and answer a loud and clear “Yes” to the first and last question, while some are smiling and others are a bit shy and embarrassed when I ask the second question. But the big majority raises their hands and nods, and says that they have been in love. “Great! Then you are well qualified to be my detective assistants”, I say. This “qualification test” acts as a contract between Audrey and the students. Through their positive response, the students show that they are ready to take on a role and enter the fictional frame that is settled: Detective Audrey, who needs help from the students because she has too much to do. All dialogue between Audrey and the students as detective assistants is in the continuation truthfully in relation to this established fiction. This fictional frame is deliberately chosen in relation to the process drama’s starting point, which is to be close reading of the text, something research in drama finds is essential to the success of drama in education (Heggstad, 2008).

The process drama must motivate close reading

“The mystery we have to solve is in this letter. I shall read and explain to you.” Detective Audrey reads aloud the first paragraph of the text. It starts by saying that Anne has never been so much in love since she was in grade four and ends up saying that she is so upset because she is not Jørgen’s girlfriend any more. “This is a mystery. The text says that ‘Anne + Jørgen = true’. It is clearly said here that Anne is in love with Jørgen. Why shall they suddenly no more love friends? This is a mystery, and I hope you can help me to solve it,” I continued in the role of Audrey. The students nod their heads; they want to help. The students’ roles are chosen to give them a true and real reason to explore the text through close reading, and at the same time their role as assistants opens up for training in the appropriate and necessary skills during the process. This is about framing the reading into a situated fictional context in which the students’ roles create meaning to the reading of the text over and over again, so that the students’ reading skills and understanding and reflection of the text develop.

The students are to work in groups. Each group gets a copy of a small section from the first part of the text, pasted on red sheets – the colour of love! The students are to find all the given facts and information in their excerpts and then make a short improvised play that brings out as many of these facts as possible. The groups present their improvisations in correct text order under the leadership of Audrey. The rest of the class are watching and listening and are asked to interpret and explain what facts they have seen and heard in the group’s improvised plays. Detective Audrey introduces and justifies the presentations by saying that a detective must be able to see, listen and interpret what happens in a case. Thus the learning activity presentation is inserted into the process drama’s context to provide a holistic learning process. At the same time, the students can gain knowledge of factual understanding from the sections that the rest of the class are presenting. This way of working in drama is especially helpful for those students who struggle with reading and would never be able to read a long text themselves, while it is an exciting challenge for all students to find and interpret the “facts” in the other groups’ improvised plays. To communicate through roles and improvised play and to understand and interpret the groups’ presentations is to fulfil Ziehe’s recommendation to the teacher to stimulate and increase students’ symbolizing and communication skills (Ziehe, 2004).

To find all the information in a text

When the groups have shown their improvised role plays, Audrey asks her detective assistants to create drawings with the given facts from the text. Audrey stresses that they must read thoroughly, and only use the facts that are mentioned in the text about what the characters look like, what they do and the colour of their clothing and objects. The students get started, but Audrey discovers that some students colour more than the text tells. She tells her assistants that if they colour something that is not specified in the text, they have to write a question mark within the colour, since this is something we do not know. She argues that, if they are to solve this mystery, correct information is needed. The result is that several students discover that they must adjust their drawings in relation to the text, and consequently she gives these students several concrete learning experiences about what it means to find facts in a text. In an indirect way, Audrey corrects the students through her role and the process drama’s context. This advantage of teacher-in-role is something the drama literature also underlines is a major educational advantage in the teaching and learning process (O’Toole & ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Drama in school settings
• 1 Drama as a creative aesthetic learning process to improve reading competence
• 2 Putting the EI into drama It's not as tricky as you might think
• 3 What did you make of that? More than just a figure of speech
• 4 Role of creative drama in fostering developmental skills of primary school children
• 5 Tales from an Irish primary teacher
• 6 Developing social skills in children through creative drama in education
• 7 Drama, the New Zealand curriculum, and valuing difference
• 8 Thinking on your feet A model for teaching teachers to use process drama
• 9 Lab coats, test tubes and the drama pedagogue
• 10 Learning through drama in the Scottish curriculum Teachers and learners in collaboration
• 11 The History Centre A community model of drama
• Part II Theatre experiences with children
• 12 Shakespeare, citizenry, and Socratic discourse Transdisciplinary pedagogy – the use of Shakespeare's stories to stimulate personal and social development
• 13 ‘The play's the thing' Performance and pedagogy
• 14 ‘You are responsible for the whole show, every one of us' Shame, pride and progress in theatrical productions in two Hong Kong secondary schools
• 15 Make our children their own heroes “The right fighters!”
• 16 Drama and theatre experiences with young people in the Israeli context
• 17 Trans-performative theatre Sharpening skills and knowledge in schools
• 18 Conclusion
• Index