Drama and Language Arts

    The expectations in the language curriculum are organized into four strands: Oral Communication, Reading, Writing, and Media Literacy. The program in all grades is designed to develop a range of essential skills in these four interrelated areas, built on a solid foundation of knowledge of the conventions of standard English and incorporating the use of analytical, critical, and metacognitive thinking skills. Students learn best when they are encouraged to consciously monitor their thinking as they learn, and each strand includes expectations that call for such reflection. (MOE, 2009, p.9)

Today we explored the connections between language, art and drama. Assessment as learning.

• Position Mapping
• Choral Reading
• Tableaux
• Writing in Role

Strategy #1: Position Mapping

The “Position Mapping” drama strategy is easy to use, and can be integrated into any subject area. Position mapping is when you put a chair in the middle of the classroom, you ask the students to stand up and join around the chair. Then, ask a question about anything (for example, "How comfortable do you feel about reading out loud to the class". The students will then have to position themselves from the chair on how much they feel connected or how well they know that particular concept. This drama strategy is great and I aim to make use of it in my placement this year because it is easy and effective. As the teacher, you can see how the students feel about a situation, or subject area, and how well a student may know about something. For modifications, have students sit in the chair, and be the facilitator for the activity.

Connection to curriculum / personal reflection

This strategy will help the teacher gain an understanding of where students are at and can thus be used as a diagnostic assessment tool, or be applied throughout a language unit. Although this is true, I personally see myself using this as a diagnostic tool at the beginning and end of lessons or units as it is a fun way for students to help me gauge if they are retaining the concepts taught.

Strategy #2: Choral Reading

Choral reading is reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students, which helps build students' fluency, self-confidence, and motivation. Because students are reading aloud together, students who may ordinarily feel self-conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built-in support.

In class we read a book called Gift Days. It was used throughout the lesson in order to apply various drama strategies, including “musical gist” a form of choral reading. We didn't get the chance to engage in this captivity fully as we were online, but I aim to make use of this strategy in order to further engage my students with different texts.

How to use it:

Choose a book or passage that works well for reading aloud as a group:

• Patterned or predictable (for beginning readers)
• Not too long
• At the independent reading level of most students
• Provide each student a copy of the text so they may follow along

 Note: You may wish to use an overhead projector or place students at a computer monitor with the text on the screen. 

• Read the passage or story aloud and model fluent reading for the students. Ask the students to use a marker or finger to follow along with the text as they read.
• Reread the passage and have all students in the group read the story or passage aloud in unison.

Features of Choral Work 

Feature	Descriptors
Number of Voices	Unison		Solo
Pitch	High	Medium	Low
Tempo	Fast	Medium	Slow
Dynamics	Loud	Medium	Soft
Rhythm	Repetitive		Isolated
Rhyme	Similar sounds	Slant rhyme	Dissimilar sounds

Connection to curriculum

• It can provide less skilled readers the opportunity to practice and receive support before being required to read on their own.
• It provides a model for fluent reading as students listen.
• It helps improve the ability to read sight word

Writing in Role is a drama strategy that asks students to write from a character’s perspective, typically in a familiar format like a diary entry; a letter, email, or text; a newspaper headline; or a letter to an editor. This reflective tool and performance-based assessment invites the student to make inferences about a character’s motivation and opinion, or to make predictions about what occurs within a narrative. Writing in role may also allow students to create alternative endings within a narrative, enabling students to engage in critical thinking, creativity and inference techniques that may otherwise be overlooked.

Strategy #3: Writing in Role

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The teacher can scaffold students thinking and facilitate discussion by asking the following

• What did you discover about your character through the writing activity? What did we discover, generally, about the characters in our story/this moment in history?How did it feel to write as your character from within the drama?
• What do you think will happen next to the characters in our drama? Why
• What type of language and/or writing form/structure is used in a diary/in an email/in a newspaper article/ in a letter to the editor?
• How does your writing match your character’s personality and reveal important information about who they are and what they believe or want?

I LOVE this strategy as it allows students to gain perspective while writing in a fun and engaging way!Other possible variations / modifications may include other documents that can be written by students to explore character: letters of complaint, an invitation or card, Dear Abby (advice) letter, a resume, a campaign speech, a newspaper headline, a personal ad, a will, a dream journal, a medical report, or a psychological profile.

Strategy #4: Tableaux

Tableaux is a group of silent, motionless figures used to represent a scene, theme, abstract idea, or an important moment in a narrative. Tableaux may be presented as stand-alone images to communicate one message or achieve particular effects, which can also be used in many subject areas. For example, while reading a book students may get into groups to create a tableaux on a specific event or situation within the chapter. Teachers, you can also use this strategy with a large group of students, and have them one-by-one represent a scene in a chapter book. The ideas are endless! If you need to modify this strategy, help those students who need assistance by giving them the scene, theme or idea to act out. Also, for those shy students, have them narrate the chapter or scene while the other students are in their positions.

Theory!

Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a world view, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained

Reflection 

After exploring the use of various drama strategies and applying each within various lessons throughout language and arts, I would argue that drama can be used to enhance student learning and understanding immensely. This being said, I believe that drama provides the experience of living the text while allowing participants to decipher text/words and question what they read. When using drama strategies within language and arts I could see that drama and language arts are deeply rooted in each other.