Fabulous! Drama in the classroom!

Ceri (aka the Morrigan) writes:

This post is a little late, because I have been thinking about what we could do when work-shopping in a class.  I was impressed with the detail used in linking drama techniques to the book Fox, and the reflections which followed, but in some ways, I am more excited about the possibility of using drama techniques across other areas of teaching practice.

There seems to be a natural 'fit' between books and drama.  After all, narrative fiction is designed to excite the imagination, to place us into other people's shoes, to make us understand the motivation and lives of the characters.  But, I love the idea of linking drama to areas where we do not necessarily normally think of using it.

Drama in science, in maths, in history and in geography!  There is a challenge.

As with most teaching, the key would be high level preparation and familiarity with content and subject matter.  Making children familiar with their roles, with the ideas that they will be exploring, whether they are becoming an amoeba ready to reproduce by fission, a tomato plant, an insect or a footsoldier in the Trojan war.  In addition, some ground rules are necessary.  It needs to be clear that even hacking at other students with pretend swords, or name-calling while in character will not be acceptable.

Clear links between the material to be studied and the outcome of drama needs be made, and some form of follow up and de-briefing must be included.  While 'dress-ups' and  'let's pretend' have a definite place in all classrooms, when drama is used as a pedagogical tool, we need to be clear about how, why, what, where and when it is to be used, and build strong links back to material, curriculum and assessment.

To that end, here are some useful resources for using drama techniques in primary schools.

 Dramaresource.com
is a British site, which has ideas, techniques, lessons plans and activities, including a newsletter.

TES is a really useful British site for all sorts of resources, but some of the drama resources are available here.  One of our lecturers has already suggested we sign up to this site.

The NSW Department of Education has a swag of information and resources for arts education, which you can browse here.

And finally (for today at least), The Shropshire Star in the UK has a link to primary science resources, many of which use dram, linked to the key stages of the British National Curriculum, many of which are really useful.