How to Approach Speaking and Listening through Drama

Part One: How to Approach Speaking and Listening though Drama

1.    How to Begin with Teacher in Role

Why use teacher in role?

One of the best ways to do that in drama work is to be inside the drama. Therefore, at the centre of the dramas that we include in this book, is the key teaching technique that is used, namely teacher in role . Many times we have watched trainee teachers with a class of children struggling to get attention when giving instructions in traditional teacher mode. Yet, as soon as they move into role, they obtain that attention more effectively.

For example, a trainee was talking out of role to a class to explain that they were about to meet a girl who was having trouble with her father and needed their help . She picked up a ribbon with a ring threaded on it and put it round her neck as the role signifier. The trainee was not doing anything different apart from using role and committing to it very strongly. The trainee was using the simplest form of TiR, hot-seating the role, where the class meets the role sitting in front of them and can ask questions.

You are not effective as a teacher if you do not at some point engage fully with the drama yourself by using TiR. Remaining as teacher, intervening as teacher, side-coaching, structuring the drama from the outside, and/or sending the class off in groups to create their own drama must at best restrict and at worst negate any opportunity for the teacher to teach effectively. It is far more effective for the teacher to engage with the drama form as artist and be part of the creative act. It is very useful in a Literacy lesson for the teacher to use roles from the text.

The very fact that you take on a key role can provide important ways of defining and exploring the text. Let us look more closely at the Hermia role.

In both cases, when the class have speculated enough, they will have questions to ask Hermia and you have an interesting way to begin to tell them the basic situation at the beginning of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. You can then answer the questions by playing the role of Hermia based on the way that the character is in the play.

Teacher as storyteller

The teacher as a storyteller is something all primary school teachers will recognise. The teacher’s role will be to communicate the text in a lively and interesting manner, holding their attention and engaging their imagination. In making judgements about the quality of this method of teaching, the critical questions will be around whether the content of the story interests the class and holds their attention, whether the delivery of the teacher, i. The connection between the teacher as storyteller and the teacher using drama, lies in the fact that they both use the generation of imagined realities in order to teach.

The relationship between story and drama in education is a complex and dynamic one. It means a known narrative can still be used, the knowledge of the narrative is not a barrier to its usage. However, if the pupils are locked into the original narrative it is problematic. It is the negotiable and dynamic elements of the relationship between drama and narrative that liberate the pupils and the teacher from merely retelling the known story. A class can take part in a drama where all of them know the story, where none of them knows the story, or a mixture of both. As long as some fundamental planning strategies are observed, knowledge of the story is not a barrier to participation. Broadly these pre-requisites are:

1.       An awareness of those elements of the story that will not be changed – and agreements about these must be made with the class at the beginning or during the drama, in other words, the non-negotiable elements of the narrative.

2.      A willingness to move away from the fixed narrative to an exploration of the narrative. The use of drama strategies to explore events and their consequences, to look at alternatives and test them. In these periods the class develop hypotheses, test them and reflect upon them.

3.      If narrative consists of roles, fictional contexts, the use of symbols and events then the teacher needs to hold some of those elements true and consistent with the story so far. For example, roles and contexts may already be decided but new events may be introduced, the delivery of a letter. For example, how the class respond to this event is not known and it is at this point that they become the writers of the narrative.

You put the pupils in role as the townspeople making their way up the mountain when they meet TiR as a child coming in the opposite direction. This provides the background to a simple hot-seating of the child. Ask the pupils what would they like to ask the boy. They certainly will ask him why he is coming down the mountain and what has happened to the other children.

Preparation for the role

In preparing to be this kind of storyteller the teacher must have made particular decisions about this child.

Begin by asking the class out of role what they want to ask the child and the order of those questions. This not only provides the teacher with some security in knowing what is going to be asked, at least initially, but also allows some minutes to refine the planning, so that the teacher can be specific in answering their questions. The questions will, to a certain extent, be predictable because they are largely generated by the circumstances of the drama so far and the role the class has taken, which will be that of anxious parents.

You are going to be telling them a story but it will be as if they had just met you and it will not be the voice of the narrator re-telling someone else’s story but in the present tense as if it is happening now.

Of course, all these things are possible from the text of a book; however, the pupils will be defining what is important, which are the most important questions to be asked and how to handle the mood of the storyteller, whose views on the events may be very different from those of the audience whom he addresses. Be clear about his attitude towards being left behind, what has happened and how he feels about it.

Then run the hot-seating. The dialogue might go something like this:

Class member in role as parent: Where are the other children?

TiR as the boy left behind: It’s not fair!

Parent: What do you mean, it’s not fair?

The boy: Them! They get to go into the fairground and I don’t! Some friends I’ve got. So much for Joe and Kerry. Why couldn’t they wait? They could see I had a stone in my shoe and had to take it out. I couldn’t keep up.

Stop and come out of role and discuss what they have found out. Negotiate what they need to ask next. At this point some questions about what the little boy saw will emerge. Then go back into role.

The boy: You should have seen it! Lights, big dipper, toffee apples. Oh! the smell of the toffee apples … and all free. He was standing at the entrance shouting ‘It’s all free. Help yourself. Any ride, any food, anything you want you can have.’ It’s just not fair!

This interactive storytelling has an immediacy and urgency and is working at a different level of discourse from the read story, and yet it is still storytelling. It is essential that the teacher stops and comes out of role and reflects with the class on what has been said, but that is also true of the more traditional mode of reading from a book. It engages the class and gives them the opportunity to generate new questions and to make sense of what is happening in an interactive way. They are questioning from within the story, as if they were there. Next we consider this key skill of moving in and out of role.

Teaching from within

Moving in and out of role – managing the drama and reflecting on it

We are describing using role as ‘teaching from within’ because the teacher enters the drama world, but it is very important to step out of the fiction often and not let it run away with itself. When using TiR, the teacher is operating as a manager as well as participant and must spend as much time stopping the drama and moving out of role to reflect on what is happening and give the pupils a chance to think through what they know and what they want to do. This OoR working is as important as the role itself. Let us look at an example to see how you as the teacher have the opportunity to negotiate how the role behaves with the class. This also shows a step from hot-seating to role-playing as a demonstration with a small group. As with all of this section of the book, we are using an example from drama based upon ‘The Pied Piper’ . You set up going into role with one of the groups that you know will handle the situation well. The whole class is involved in defining the role and can use their imaginations, their ‘drama eyes’, to help create the appropriate appearance/behaviour and their own understanding. This is in contrast to an actor who has to use acting skills to create the role in its entirety for an audience. We are making a distinction between role behaviour and acting. Both depend on appropriate signing, but whereas the actor must give the non-participant audience the bulk of the signing, a teacher using role can get away with a committed minimum. The class will see the Rat-catcher as overworked and probably needing help to put his/her case to the Mayor. When you have discussed enough (this process helps the class believe in the role) you can move back into role and take their stories about the problems the rats are causing. You can do this with all of the class or each family in turn. Give the groups time to prepare their evidence before you go into role to receive the input. The Rat-catcher ‘writes down’ the points and then asks the class/family if they could come to the Mayor to help put the case. We will look at setting up that whole class event later in this chapter. For another example of using OoR to help establish a role see ‘The Governor’s Child’ drama for the entry of Maria, a travel-weary woman carrying a baby. OoR a blanket is openly rolled up to become the baby and the class describe how they will see the woman – possible answers are: tired, dusty, bowed-down, tear-stained. The person playing the role can then simply walk forward adopting a serious tone, holding the blanket, without having to pretend any of those outward signs an actor would have to portray if it were a play being performed to an audience. This is because the class will see it as they have described it themselves. The effect in this context can be more powerful. OoR is very important as a way of negotiating the intent and meaning of the role and is the way the teacher can best control and manage learning. For the class are both an audience and observers of their own activities. When the drama is stopped they can describe, recap, interpret, think through, consider next moves and understand what is the significance of their work. It is very important to get the participants to look at and interpret what is going on, frequently by stepping out of the drama. Depth in drama depends on the very clear and regular use of OoR negotiation so that the awareness of the co-existence of two worlds is effective at all times. Children commit to the fictional world of the drama but need always to be aware that it is fiction and to step outside it often to look at what they are doing. Contrary to some opinions, depth is not dependent upon maintaining the fiction all of the time, nor does it depend upon the children losing themselves in the drama. Learning depends upon awareness, not total immersion. In fact, if the latter takes over, children will get an experience but not understanding. In effective drama, children can actually feel the ‘as if’ world as real at certain points. The teacher must make sure that if the drama does engage in that way, the pupils know it is a fiction at all times, especially by stopping and coming out of role frequently. That is also a protection.

A class reflect together in order to draw conclusions and consequently can influence each other far more in their understanding. They are in the process of negotiating a group meaning, something that can be held true for all of them.

The relationship developed by the teacher with the class is dependent on the movement between these two worlds. TiR changes the nature of the contract entered into by the class. What is that contract? It is ‘the imaginative contract’:

● It is not, I will teach you by telling you what you need to know – the style of much classroom teaching.

● It is not, I will present a play before you and you will watch me, as the actor contracts with an audience.

● It is not, Listen and I will tell you a story. It is my story and you must not interrupt it.

● It is, You will become a playmaker, an author with me and will be a part of the story that I start and we create together. The result is to make the creative community.

Drama then teaches in the following way. Taking a moment in time, it uses the experiences of the participants, forcing them to confront their own actions and decisions and to go forward to a believable outcome in which they can gain satisfaction. (Johnson and O’Neill, 1984, p. 99)

The requirements of working in role

This will help us shape up the TiR elements particularly according to how the audience is seeing things. Here are two responses to considering the ‘audience’ position. In drama the pupils are making sense actively, knowing their meaning can be acted upon. They have to switch from operating as audience to participant and back again often and suddenly.

An example of responding to the critical incident occurred in a session on the drama based on Macbeth. When considering the way of showing the overthrow of Macbeth, one of the class of 10-year-olds said, I want to sit on the throne and stop him sitting on it. The teacher took this up and put two of the servants on the thrones of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, with the rest of the servants gathered behind the thrones. He then set up the entry of Macbeth to the throne room. TiR as Macbeth entered slowly and stopped as though taking in the situation. Of course, the pupils sat firm and outfaced him. He froze and one of the servants, picking up the idea of the situation, strode up to Macbeth, ordered him to kneel and took the crown from Macbeth to carefully and ceremoniously place it on the head of the usurping servant. The class cheered as Macbeth bowed his head and the two pupils stood up, triumphant. When they are given opportunities to influence the outcomes, to make decisions, the drama becomes partly theirs.

Disturbing the class productively

Discovery/uncovering – challenge and focus

The ownership also arises out of the way the teacher operates. The teacher’s function is to provide challenge and stimulus, to give problems and issues for the class to have to deal with. The drama is developed through a set of activities that build the class role, which is usually a corporate role.

We have to help them into the drama, making them comfortable, and then disturb that comfort productively. The fact that, as in any good play, the class discover things as they go along provides the possibility of productive tension.

In setting up the drama we are doing what Heathcote calls ‘trapping [them] within a life situation’ (Johnson and O’Neill, 1984, p. 119). The result of constructing the situation thus is that they can then discover what it all means. There, and in the resulting choices and decisions, lies the learning potential, borne out in an exciting challenge.

The key is how children are given information. They can be handed it on a plate or they can be given opportunities to uncover/discover/be surprised by information. In this last case there is much more involvement and ownership, especially if they have to work to get the information from someone who is reluctant to give it (as with Tim the Ostler in ‘The Highwayman’), someone who only gives clues as to what is really going on (the central TiR in the ‘Macbeth’ drama), someone who does not realise the importance of the information (Icarus in the ‘Daedalus and Icarus’ drama). Hence the skill of the teacher lies in the art of the unexpected.

If pupils acquire knowledge and understanding by working for it, stumbling upon it or having it sprung upon them such that their expectations are challenged, their learning experiences will be more dynamic than simply being told. An example of this occurs in ‘The Governor’s Child’, a drama based on Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle. The class are in role as a village community

helping a woman with a baby, who, unbeknownst to them, has fled a revolution. The villagers discover later who she really is and then have to deal with

the consequences.

It is important to withhold information early on, as any good playwright will do. Planning the ‘how’ and the ‘when’ of strategies is all-important here.

Responding to your class

The art of authentic dialogue – needing to listen – two-way responses

The class working as a community is the key to the use of drama as a teaching method. This is another reason that the class have more ownership.

This community is made most effective by the teacher participating in role. The art of teaching and learning should be a synthesis from a dialectical approach. If a teacher runs drama without using TiR there tends to be a lack of dialectic because the teacher produces the structure that the children engage with, but the teacher can only manipulate it from outside that structure. The teacher gives the impression of handing over the power and does so in a way that allows him or her to teach properly and yet empower the participants significantly. We are making the distinction here between the aesthetic actor and the social actor. The aesthetic actor will have learned skills related to voice, gesture and physicality that are not required by the teacher using TiR. The teacher in role will already have the skills of the social actor that are used in everyday life.

On the other hand, if the teacher participates through TiR then there can be a meeting point at which creation takes place because, in addition to planning the structure, the teacher's ideas can operate within the drama and challenge and engage with the children's ideas in a dialectic.

The second diagram shows the two inputs as equal, but that is not the case in practice. The teacher gives the impression of handing over the power and does so in a way that allows him or her to teach properly and yet empower the participants significantly. A TiR has to be properly planned and thought through so that the class are presented with an entity to respond to that embodies possibilities for learning. We are making the distinction here between the aesthetic actor and the social actor. The aesthetic actor will have learned skills related to voice, gesture and physicality that are not required by the teacher using TiR. The teacher in role will already have the skills of the social actor that are used in everyday life. These are skills that are learned in the presentation of self in every day life, the skills that demonstrate an awareness of the relationship between who we are, where we are and how we are feeling. The class will use their creativity to see the role in a particular way that has been indicated as long as it has been properly signed to them. Whereas the actor defines for the audience the message of the play within the circumstances of the plot, the teacher uses signing as an indication to the audience to join in the encounter, effecting and affecting the enterprise. (Heathcote and Bolton, 1995, p. 74) As a result of this difference, an actor, using lines written as a script, behaves in a very different way from a teacher improvising within a planned structure, who has to take account of what the class will say in response to the moves he or she makes. The audience in the theatre waits for something to happen, but the participants in a drama session make it happen. (O’Neill, 1989, p. 20) As the class feed back their responses and make possible development of the role’s importance the teacher must respond appropriately and therein lies the skill of the ‘subtle tongue’ and the possibility for authentic dialogue. The class must be made to work to achieve the aim they have been given in the drama. Let us look at handling an extended example from the ‘Pied Piper’ drama when the class as the villagers finally arrive at the mountain. At this point in the drama they have accepted the main aim as the villagers of getting their children back from the Piper. Mark the space in front of the class, where the children have been said to have entered the mountain, with two chairs.
OoR ask them to describe the mountain in front of them and whether there are any clues as to whether the children have, in fact, gone into the mountain as they have been told. When they are not aware of you, slip behind them and when they are carrying out their task ‘appear’ behind them as the Piper. This simple, theatrical surprise engages the children even more. The dialogue that transpires here is critical to the outcome of the drama. The burden placed on the class at this point is to offer some way of showing their thankfulness, their sincerity and their trustworthiness to the Piper so that he will accept the apology and return the children. Accept any imaginative offer as long as it is not materialistic but is related more to establishing a human relationship of trust and honour with the Piper. A different learning area would be to have a Piper who is too full of himself, someone who needs to be taught a lesson about justice and fairness.

The drama is set up as a framework and is not finished in the same way as a play written by a playwright. In fact, the secret of educational drama is to have the framework, even a tight framework, such that the class feel they have some ownership because of the parts that they are developing. A drama technique can be used to help them define possible reasons. The ‘play’ we are creating is a joint enterprise and, when the beginnings of a role are in place and we have established the givens, the class will know what we are creating and why and can develop that role by the way they respond and the way they see it.

The teacher–taught relationship

There are five basic types of role and mostly can be illustrated from the ‘The Dream’ drama.

The authority role This is a role like the Duke in the ‘The Dream’ drama, who is presented with Egeus’s problem and has to rule on it. This figure is usually in charge of an organisation and has the class in a role subordinate to him/her. The role is fair, applies rules and governs properly, but often does not know the full facts and issues and needs the class to investigate and enlighten him/her. It is very close to being teacher and can be reassuring for a class, but also has the negativity of not changing the teacher–taught relationship enough to allow more ownership for the class.

The opposer role This is a role that is often in authority but dangerous to and/or creating a problem for another role and, by extension, the class. Egeus is an opposer role who is against Hermia and therefore in opposition to the class role, as they take her side against his dictatorial treatment of her. This is a stimulating position for many pupils as the opposition of parents is something they have all experienced. The opposer role has to be used carefully because the response to it can be difficult to handle if it becomes too strong. We have to know what response to expect and be able to channel it productively.

The intermediate role This is often a messenger or go-between, as the servant role used in the ‘The Dream’ drama. This role is then caught between opposing sides and can appeal to the empathy in the class to help them out of the predicament. In the ‘The Dream’ it might be a servant to Egeus who is sympathetic to Hermia but does not know what best to do as she cannot just tell her employer what she thinks he should do. So she seeks the help of the class to solve her dilemma.

The needing help role This is a role like Hermia, who is in need of help to fight the injustice of her father’s decision. This role, like the servant described above, is the best way to get empathy from a class and most raises the status of the class, putting them in a position of responsibility and thus generating interest and learning possibility because the teacher is the one who does not know what to do for once.

The ordinary person This role is in the same position as the role given to the class. We do not have this sort of role in our ‘The Dream’ drama but the Steward in the ‘Macbeth’ drama is like this. He faces the same problem and danger as the other servants represented by the class. Even though he is in charge of them, he needs them to sort it out for him and make decisions. Therefore this is a lower status role, the teacher being ‘the one who does not know’, a very powerful position of ignorance that teachers cannot ordinarily occupy. It is powerful because it shifts responsibility more to the pupil roles.

Summary of points to consider

● Why we use teacher in role – pupils listen to teachers in role

● How we expand the possibilities of story and explore story

● Operating the two worlds of drama, inside and outside the fiction

● Moving in and out of role – managing the drama and reflecting on it

● Building the teacher role with the support of the class

● What, when and how to give information for maximum influence and effect

● How to dialogue with the class – teachers learning to listen well

● How we work with the class as collaborators

● Choosing the role – the low status roles offer more learning possibilities

● Handling drama – structuring for control – imposing shape and constraint

2 How to Begin Planning Drama

In this chapter we are going to describe and analyse the main components of planning in drama. On this journey we will visit a number of key planning decisions and approaches. These are:

● How to begin a plan

● The frame of a drama – first example ‘The Governor’s Child’

● The frame of a drama – second example ‘The Wild Thing’

● How did this drama evolve?

● The ingredients of planning

● Learning objectives

● Strong material

● Roles for the pupils

● Tension points – risks – theatre moments

● Building context and belief-building

● Challenges and decision-making

There is even an intermediate stage in planning and that is to take parts of different dramas and remake them as new ones. Clearly the teaching/learning objective will drive the shape of the drama, but the engine that drives the drama needs fuel and that fuel is a piece of strong material, a creative idea, and that is more inspirational than an objectives-led design. This material – a book, a piece of literature, a picture or some other subject matter, fiction or non-fiction – will give us one or more of the elements of a good drama, a role or roles, an interesting context or a dilemma.

The frame of a drama

Goffman uses ‘frame’ to refer, essentially, to the viewpoint individuals will have about their circumstances and which helps them to make sense of an event or situation and to assess its likely impact upon themselves as individuals. Translated into terms of process drama as a genre of theatre, we could say that Goffman’s frame constitutes a means of laying in the dramatic tension by situating the participants in relation to the unfolding action. In planning a drama we have to write the main frame, the scenario, in a way that indicates the relationship of the component parts and how the interactions provide tension and potential.

An example of thinking through a plan

How did the ‘The Wild Thing’ drama evolve from initial ideas?

Looking at Maurice Sendak’s book Where the Wild Things Are led to ideas about possible roles and situations to explore with the pupils.

Mother sends Max to bed without supper because he has been naughty. Mother finds him gone and seeks help to find him. The next stage was to develop some sense of his mother, her handling of Max and her attitude to him. Learning resides in this, the parent–child relationship, something all children know about but is infinitely variable in levels of success and quality.

We considered the mother’s possible ambiguous signals, embodying ideas of softness and indulgence towards Max at the same time as being irritated by Max’s wildness and wanting to control him. Found’, an agency expert in finding lost children. They need to be gathered round the role sheet and be looking at it. The aim of the drama is now clearly focused, to have the children explore and consider a boy’s unacceptable behaviour and look at a parent–child relationship, to give advice and solve problems. The resolution of the issues is the final stage of the drama. Usually we use forum theatre to set up the class taking over the wronged role, against the role who most needs to learn to change, to see and understand something important about themselves.

The ingredients of planning

Let us take the elements of a drama we have been referring to above and look at them separately with other examples. Creating a drama is very much like cooking.

Learning objectives

The learning can be in any of five areas:

● Language Development – the medium of drama and hence the key impetus to Speaking and Listening .

● Spiritual, Social, Moral, Cultural, Personal – there is usually this capability in any drama. The very reflective nature of the work, going out of role to examine the meaning of situations and events in the drama, promotes metacognition. If you look at the sample dramas we give you, you will see a range of objectives in these areas specifically related to the material of the drama, for example, in ‘Daedalus and Icarus’ the following are all possible

Objectives

Pupils will understand:

● the significance of legends as a focus for literacy work

● legend as part of historical understanding

PSHE

● consequences of actions (on taking the folder of drawings)

● father/child relationship and disobedience

● the consequences of keeping secrets

The first two could be further refined to:

● How the story of Daedalus and Icarus is related to Greek ideas about technology.

● Comparing the drama version of the story and the original myth.

Likewise, the first PSHE general objective could be focused more as the

consequences of:

● taking what is not yours and

● finding out about something that represents knowledge dangerous to yourself. Clearly the contact points have learning areas related to them. If we can refine an objective tightly it will help us make decisions about the structure and what it should do.

Strong material

Let us again look at our drama ‘The Wild Thing’ from Where the Wild Things Are. Sendak shows us Max, a boy who is very imaginative, but whose behaviour is very wild. In addition, no other family members appear in the story. This is a gift for drama because we have a number of PSHE issues implied through the story but not dealt with and we can add key roles to look at these issues and embody in them their attitudes to Max.

Roles for the teacher

We dealt with this in Chapter 1, ‘How to Begin with Teacher in Role’.

Roles for the pupils

The class need to be framed up as a community, where the class work together supporting each other and working for the same aims. This builds their ability to communicate with and understand each other, the best basis for all learning. They can be an expert community, the ‘Mantle of the Expert’ role. The ‘Mantle of the Expert’ role gives the pupils status and an objective viewpoint to consider situations often fraught with emotions and opposing attitudes. We use this sort of communal role as they also invest the pupils with the skills and attributes that we would want them to exhibit – they have to be analytical, compassionate, communicative, thoughtful, creative, listeners.

Tension points – risks – theatre moments

Tension provides the momentum that pushes the class, demands a response, engages them. This is a very demanding moment, but one that the children, after initial hesitation, tackled with great commitment. Tension can be planned in, but needs to be seized on according to how the class react. One theatre moment happened this way.

‘The Governor’s Child’ is planned with the possibility of searching the village and the teacher will be looking for a chance to create a moment of near discovery. The class choose how and where they hide Maria. With a class of 10-year-olds the tension was created on the spur of the moment by the teacher’s use of the potential of the planned situation itself. At his second return to look for Maria and the baby, the Soldier searched the village.

The tension rose even though, or maybe because of the theatricality of the moment. Tension here is produced by the collective imagination, what the consequence of discovery would be.

Building context

It started with the tomb and we planned to spend time creating it and its wall paintings as the early belief building activity. However, then the main role, Geb, was found praying at a temple separate from the tomb. There was no reason that Geb’s discovery should not happen in the tomb, and that gave us even more potential because he should not be there and we could raise the tension through that prohibition. The tomb could focus all the activity of the drama.

Building belief

What does this mean when related to drama? It is the need to get the class to trust in the teacher and what the teacher is creating. Why should they go along with the fiction? Only if you create the belief that there is something in it for them. How do you convince them that there is something worthwhile in it? This is done in a variety of ways. Use of TiR can interest and build belief. The right choice of pupil roles helps that, especially if meaningful activity can be given to them to establish the roles, or the situation and place is properly realised and created for the imagination, as indicated in the previous paragraph.

All of the ingredients contribute to building belief:

● choosing worthwhile material, engaging interest, as with the dramas here;

● having the right ‘hook’ at the beginning, a stimulus, a picture or artefact, a role or piece of material that raises expectations, like the street children photograph which never fails to pull the class in;

● planning in times to contract and re-contract with the group, asking them to accept specific conventions, e.g. taking the cloth that becomes the baby in ‘The Governor’s Child’ and deliberately rolling it up into the shape in front of them and asking what it is representing. We have never had a child challenge the credibility of Maria entering with the baby if contracting is done in setting up the moment;

● raising their status, genuinely, in the choice of role for them and in the way

● choosing the right strategies and the variety of strategies so that interest and involvement are maintained, like the thought-tracking where roles are built with their input;

● choosing the right task/activities – giving them something to do that makes sense and through which they contribute to the content and realisation of the drama, like the creation of the wall paintings in ‘The Egyptians’;

● planning to involve them in key decisions and the creation of the drama (see later in this chapter);

● planning to test belief and take calculated risks – and most importantly to provide tension, an unexpected moment or encounter, a role that behaves in a challenging way.

In delivering the drama we have to:

● talk to them positively ... accepting answers as far as possible and looking for elements within a suggestion that might hold possibilities even when the whole idea does not. We have to remove ideas that may get in the way of the drama working (magic solutions, violence, etc.), but doing it in such a way that the pupil offering the idea genuinely does not feel rejected in the process and is willing to continue to make suggestions. It is important to upgrade by repeating answers, commenting on them, acting on good suggestions;

● go slowly, stopping and reflecting and taking the time to do that;

● isolate any problem of non-belief and dealing with it in role or out of role.

Belief in the drama comes mostly from feeling a part of the drama and that requires that the class members contribute to the way the drama develops. As such we have to plan the key moments for critical decisions for the class.

Decision-making – key developments in the drama which provide the class with challenges

There are teacher decisions and pupil decisions and we have to be clear about the timing and nature of both, why one should be the teacher’s and why another should be the pupils’. Many teacher decisions are built into the plan as givens, otherwise there will be no clear direction for the learning. What we embed as non-negotiable in the planning of a drama tightens the focus and ensures a concentration on the particularity of the main event. When the plan is laid very close to expected responses, and even, in the worst case, when expected responses are laid on top of the plan, so that the plan is a predictor of the response, the correspondence of plan and responses leaves little or no room for a proper dialogue to develop. The success of the lesson will be how closely the pupils follow my plan and deliver what I have planned. It has to be recognised that in drama lessons the dynamic of teacher planning and pupil response must have fluidity. The teacher may plan for little space for pupils’ decisions in some parts of the lesson and more in other parts. Highly constrained planning is often a feature of the early phases of the drama lesson where common agreements are necessary in order to build the context.

In these early phases of the drama lesson the pupils do not have enough information to make key decisions. Later in the drama there can be more space and more possibilities for pupil contribution. It may be better to use a drama where tight planning is the norm throughout because the class are inexperienced and not ready to take on the responsibility of key decisions. Here are examples of the difference between a closed access and open access approach to drama.

‘The Governor’s Child’ drama.

Figure 2.4 The relationship between planning and delivery in drama – the space for dialogue situation, knowledge of their position and the understanding of the roles before they can properly make decisions. These three elements are directly influenced by the constraints or givens planned into the drama by the teacher.

The drama conventions, strategies and techniques

There are many techniques for structuring the stages of a drama. Variety of activity for the class is important but each chosen technique must fit the moment and do a particular job. They may:

● create context

● build belief in the roles and therefore the drama

● focus learning

● help explore a situation and deepen understanding

● help to reflect on the meaning of the event.

For details of using the drama techniques see the table in the Introduction p. 4.

Planning as a collaborative activity

We also recommend that you plan with at least one other person. Planning for true learning is a social activity and needs to have more than one mind brought in to develop its full potential. In our team, one member may have the beginning of an idea and sketch that idea out, but usually turns to another member of the team for feedback and a planning discussion. This functions as a means to bounce ideas, to see flaws and to provide insights into the potential for learning. The complexity of drama means a multiplicity of possible learning outcomes.

For example, when planning developments to the original ‘Macbeth’ drama, we wanted to add the ‘Witch’ section. We began with the idea of facing the class with the ambiguity and teasing language that the witches in the original demonstrate. How to do this? One of us, A had ideas about the Witch arriving at the castle door, a vagrant, carrying something. This was developed further by B with the suggestion that the bundle should contain a mirror. The symbolism of this became obvious, considering some of the imagery in the play, appearance and reality, what is truth?, etc. When searching out a mirror, A came across a cracked hand mirror and this was ideal. We can then use the mirror to get the class to look into the future for Macbeth. Another example happened with ‘The Wild Thing’. When sharing the planning so far with a group of trainee teachers and looking at the composition of Max’s room, it was suggested that Max would have a den, just like he’s making with a blanket hung over a rope in one of the pictures in the story. This not only parallels the storybook but also gives the teacher, as Max, a place to go and sulk when the class are trying to get him to see sense and gives a place for the Wild Thing, who comes to find Max, to hide and surprise the Lost & Found agents.

Road testing the first version

Once we have the beginnings of a drama we need to try ideas out. When a class are responding to strong moments in a drama they not only provide ideas for future use, but also show us the sections which are weak and need replanning. Their positive responses reveal new possibilities and can often become incorporated as ‘givens’ when the drama is used in future. He had to manage the situation carefully to avoid the drama deteriorating.

It was clear that whilst that attitude in Max might recreate ideas from the book, the entry needed to be more subtle and the context of Max’s adventure built more in order to work. Another example of the class offering new ideas as to what to do and the form to use when you run the drama occurred in a run of ‘Daedalus and This method of moving forward can then be taken as the planned possibility for exploring the issue in future use of the drama. The group even took the drama further themselves. They moved immediately to spontaneously suggesting ideas as to how to avoid telling the truth of Daedalus’s plans – evolving a substitution of a decoy set of plans and drawings instead of the ones for flight. Even the minority who had opted to tell Minos began to contribute ideas to the decoy approach and we had the next stage of the drama, a group to produce the decoy drawings and two groups to work on building the wings for Daedalus and Icarus.

The quality of the drama develops in these ways. You can choose to incorporate them in future versions of the drama. You will see other added ideas from work with classes highlighted in the dramas in Part Two, where the plans are outlined.

Types of drama

There are two main types of this sort of classroom drama that have evolved:

‘living through drama’, where the pupils face the events at a sort of life rate in the here and now, and ‘episodic drama’, or strategy-based drama, where the class are led by the teacher in creating situations and events through specific techniques or strategies and where chronology is more broken.

What about endings to dramas?

They need to have solved the problem. You, in role as Max, will feel the pressure if they apply it well and can begin to signal that you do see you might be wrong always to think of yourself, that you are listening for the first time. We look to the class tackling the problem, the issue, the difficult role, the wrong attitude. However, the ending is not always a happy ending where all people become friends and the problem goes away. If the issue is not easy to solve in reality then pupils will see through it if you give them too easy a change in the problem role and too soft a landing. The feeling was strong as the Soldier led Maria away; the comments of the villagers as she left were thoughtful and convincing. They then set up a very telling memorial to Maria with lines for the epitaph contributed by different group members:

Always remembered,

The stranger who entered this village.

She was the most loving, caring person.

Born, not of this world.

She changed all our lives from bad to good.

She wasn’t what we thought she was.

There is also the possibility of alternative endings, visions of the future that may be different and even contradictory. These enable individuals to share their understanding and open up further debate without being locked into one solution that they may not adhere to; it is almost the ‘minority report’ of a drama.

Finally – the key decisions

With all plans you need to ensure that a tension moment comes early to spur the interest of the group and that a TiR features early to model the commitment and seriousness of the drama.

Summary of points to consider:

● How to begin a plan – facing the problems of starting from scratch

● The frame – the way the elements link together to provide viewpoint for the class

● The elements of planning including: learning objectives, a stimulus to learning, roles for the teacher and for the children, how to create tension points, building context and belief in the drama, the decision-making for the class, the choice of strategies and techniques

● Planning with someone else

● Road testing the first version

Appendix: Drama starters

The ‘key moment later’ shows potential for further development.

1. An idea from ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Learning intention: Parental control over children.

Contact role: A teenage boy discovered writing a letter.

Context: The pupils are all in role as workers on a rich family’s estate. They have been ordered to patrol the estate and gardens for their employers, in advance of the important forthcoming wedding of the daughter to a cousin of the Prince’s. Their job is to ensure that all the area inside the estate walls is secure, all the gates locked and that there are no strangers around.

They question the boy about what he is doing and why he is here. He initially refuses to speak, but asks them to take the letter secretly to the daughter of the family.

Key moment later: Depending on what the pupils decide to do, the daughter of the family approaches them either to attack them for siding with her father or to thank them for the letter and seek their help to escape that night.

2. An idea from ‘Macbeth’

Learning intention: Confidentiality and dealing with a crime.

Contact role: A maidservant to the Queen.

Context: The pupils are in role as physicians to the King. The maidservant approaches them with a request for a confidential conversation. She reveals, I have found my mistress to be sleepwalking regularly, talking in her sleep about matters that disturb her. She refuses to say any more but asks them to come and observe that night.

Key moment later: The King calls the physicians to report on his wife’s condition.

3. An idea from ‘Danny Champion of the World’ by Roald Dahl

Learning intention: Responsibility and children.

Contact role: Danny is discovered upset on the steps of his gypsy caravan.

Context: The pupils are in role as estate workers on Lord Victor Hazell’s estate. They discover Danny but he is reluctant to speak. He doesn’t know where his Dad is, but he doesn’t want to get him into trouble. He knows his ‘special bag’ is missing.

Key moment later: Danny’s Dad returns – cannot say where he has been or what he was doing. He pleads with them not to tell Lord Victor Hazell.

4. An idea from ‘The Hobbit’

Learning intention: About riddles and dealing with a tricky opponent, who is a bully.

Contact role: Bilbo Baggins

Context: The pupils are all in role as map-makers for Gandalf the Wizard.

Key moment later The map-makers get a panicky message.

3 How to Generate Quality Speaking and Listening Authentic dialogue – teacher and pupil talk with a difference

What is speaking and listening ?

Speaking and listening is the most important communication form that human beings use. Really effective oracy, developmental speaking and listening, will help pupils build their language, their understanding, their ability to handle their own world, making sense of it and who they are in it. It has to be an interaction with others where both sides are contributing. When a pupil is speaking and listening properly, he or she is able to see how each contribution arises from what has already been said.

Reading and writing come later in language learning and should not come until the child’s head is full of the words that reading and writing will demand. True speaking and listening for learning is effective ‘talk’, not two separate activities, as the phrase ‘speaking and listening’ suggests; it is an oral language interaction, which, at its best, is complex, demanding and truly creative.

Learning is a social activity and thus talk is its real source. Writing is a solo activity,

which allows the individual to distil ideas already learned; it comes later. Teachers are encouraged to generate this sort of work:

We’re convinced that excellent teaching of speaking and listening enhances pupils’ learning and raises standards further. Giving a higher status to talk in the classroom offers motivating and purposeful ways of learning to many pupils, and enables them and their teachers to make more appropriate choices between the uses of spoken and written language. (QCA, 2003, p. 4)

We believe that to develop the most productive talk, we need to think about it as dialogue.

Dialogic teaching

This is one of the most interesting, potentially powerful and new concepts being promoted in educational circles in the UK. It is the result of extensive work by Robin Alexander and others (Alexander, 2000, Alexander, 2005). This approach to oracy in the classroom raises the profile of talk, speaking and listening, from the poor relation of English in the National Curriculum, to

become the central focus, the pivot of learning across the curriculum.

Too often talk is this ‘recitation’ (Alexander, 2005, p. 34) where teacher

speaks most and pupils listen or only answer questions. The resulting classroom

games include:

● guessing what is in the teacher’s head – pupils avoiding having to answer

the question

● linguistic tennis – where it is about getting rid of the ball quickly not about

developing an exchange of ideas

● point scoring – getting the answers right or getting them wrong and feeling

a failure.

Speaking does involve risk but pupils should be encouraged to take that risk knowing that making a mistake is not a problem but part of the learning process; classrooms must be supportive communities where pupils risk opening up and do not have the fear that shuts them down. We need to encourage a culture of ‘failing safely’, where not ‘getting it right’ first time is recognised as part of the process.

This lack of proper talk is all the more serious as it is clear that the primary

school years are critical in the development of the brain:

It is now recognised that the period between 3/4 and 10/11 – the primary

phase of schooling, more or less – is one in which the brain in effect restructures

itself, building cells, making new connections, developing a capacity for learning, memory, emotional response and language, all on a scale which decreases markedly thereafter. (Alexander, 2005, p. 12)

Talk, being central to the development of the brain, must be a priority for teachers. Alexander promotes dialogic teaching as the most powerful form of talk in the classroom. He identifies its key elements as:

● Collective: teachers and pupils address learning tasks together, as a group or as a class;

● Reciprocal: teachers and pupils listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints;

● Supportive: pupils articulate their ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over ‘wrong’ answers; and they help each other to reach common understandings;

● Cumulative: teachers and pupils build on their own and each other’s ideas and chain them into coherent lines of thinking and inquiry;

● Purposeful: teachers plan and steer classroom talk with specific educational goals.

(Alexander, 2005, pp. 26–7)

Alexander, in examining current research in the use of dialogical teaching, highlights three areas that are essential for the achievement of authentic dialogue but which are very demanding and more difficult for teachers to achieve in ordinary classroom settings. They are:

● Learning talk and teaching talk – the achievement of understanding what the child says matters at least as much as what the teacher says.

● Is extended talk dialogical teaching? – pupils’ answers and other contributions are becoming longer, but do these necessarily add up to a dialogue?

● Form and content – how can we best ensure that classroom talk is cumulative and purposeful as well as collective, reciprocal and supportive?

(Alexander, 2005, p. 44)

Drama produces greater motivation for the pupils, motivation because of their interest in the problem-solving of the drama. At the time that this chapter was being written the sort of excitement and interest that drama generates could be seen in a group of training teachers preparing roles for drama. Drama gives the pupils plenty of opportunities to think through speaking and listening. Mistakes can be made and looked at because any particular stage of the drama can be reworked to make it work better for us. In fact the making of mistakes is seen as part of the learning, a major part of helping to negotiate the meaning and to create the drama itself.

What does dialogic teaching demand of the teacher?

One of the key changes that drama brings is a different position for the teacher. If the teacher is the young boy, Daedalus, who has taken his father’s secret project design, without his permission, and the pupils are the family servants, then they have important decisions to make about what they do with this knowledge. They will talk to Daedalus in a way that they can never talk to a teacher. The teacher working through drama is intervening as teacher but also as other roles within the drama, roles that are models and anti-models to promote the pupils’ language in ways that teacher language cannot. They are framed within the drama context to oppose or sort out this behaviour, all the more motivated by the fact it is their teacher behaving in this way through the use of role. So the teacher is able to talk and interact with the pupils in many ways and with many purposes. The teacher engages with the class and their contributions help build the fictional world. The magical world of the fiction and the parallel real-world that we exist in can help each other, so that the language the pupils use in the drama can be looked at from the real world when we stop the drama. When dropping out of role, the teacher promotes a different form of language, reflecting on what has just happened, examining it and defining what it means before planning what to doMfurther. This reflective mode is special to drama. Experience in itself is neither productive nor unproductive; it is how you reflect on it that makes it significant or not. (Bolton, 1979, p. 126) It is possible to reflect in ordinary discussion but not as fully. It would be odd to stop a discussion and say, Let’s look at ourselves and what we said, how we were standing, what it meant. In drama we do that routinely and the learning from the elements of the drama becomes even more potent. Pupils become more reflective generally as a result; they are learning a new skill. This is particularly relevant to 7–11-year-olds, whose self-awareness is growing. In the dual world of drama, pupils find that they have to engage in a language where they are: responding, initiating, sharing, encouraging, questioning, speculating, probing, challenging, exploring, creating, arguing, examining viewpoints, enquiring, evaluating, interrogating.

How is listening of high quality taught through drama?

Drama is the creation of meanings in action and pupils have to struggle all the time to make sense of what is going on around them so that they can engage with it. They have to make sense of the fictional situation as it develops. Unless pupils listen they do not know what is going on. The teacher can provide surprises, challenges, interesting people to meet in the forms of teachers in role; pupils can provide models of language use for each other because lead pupils

begin to take initiative and provide input. In drama we can get new levels of listening because of the pupils’ interest in the problem-solving of the drama itself. The focus of the problem or dilemma that the pupils face embodies the nature of the language. In order to carry out all of these speaking activities they are, of course, inevitably developing their listening and we see this in all its powerful and active modes, listening that is: open, sensitive, reflective, receptive, supportive, attentive, collective, creative.

This is because each pupil has to make sense of what the teacher and the rest of the pupils are gradually building up around them. Pupils feel valued in drama and consequently have more confidence in what they want to say and show more respect to what other contributors to the

drama say. In order for drama to work the teacher has to listen very closely as well, to see where the pupils are, to pick up what the pupils are offering and use it within the drama. Let’s look at a class showing these skills as they engage in a dialogue in ‘Daedalus and Icarus’. This is the sort of dialogue that can be generated by a drama. We will take an actual extract from a lesson and consider what is being achieved. We will consider this in the light of dialogic teaching (DT) and the Speaking and Listening requirements of the English National Curriculum (EN1 S&L levels, National Curriculum, DfES, London.

Conclusions

Lucy, one of the brightest members of the class, who saw the implications of lying from the beginning, very shrewdly sees how the teacher is making the pupils face the consequences of Icarus’s taking of the folder. So we are exploring the meaning of the situation and the complex and demanding issues of truth or lies. Centrally, the idea of actions and consequences is brought into very sharp relief, the teacher and the class together exploring the consequences of taking the folder in the first place. We have the subtle language of Sally’s lie as Icarus to ‘her father’, with its clear brief denials accompanied by non-verbal commitment to the role. Then come the frank and bold statements of Lucy deciding to be honest and owning up to not only having taken the folder, but having shared it with her friends, the servants, servants of the King, Daedalus’s jailor and enemy. So the consequences for the father and son could be catastrophic as the plan to escape may be in jeopardy. Lucy has taken the drama on and helped the teacher explore this important area. The class have paid very close attention, listening not only to the teacher but also their peers, their representatives in the hot-seat. This forum theatre piece lasted all of 40 minutes and there was never any hint of a lack of concentration. Their feeling of involvement shows clearly by the way they shriek when Daedalus talks of having to speak to the servants about either the throwing away of the folder, or in version 2, their knowledge of the plan. Obviously the teacher stopped to talk this through with them after Lucy’s final pronouncement but they did not need the implications interpreting at the moment of revelation in the drama. All of them knew.

Summary of points to consider

● The importance of speaking and listening in the teaching/learning process

● How to dialogue with a class so that it is collective, reciprocal, supportive,

cumulative, purposeful

● The teacher intervening as teacher, but also as other roles within the drama

● How drama produces ilistening of high quality

● Do the Speaking and Listening levels in the National Curriculum do justice to the

levels of talk pupils can achieve here?

4 How to Use Drama for Inclusion

and Citizenship

Drama’s inclusion is embedded, first, in its dialogical approach to teaching

and learning. This is reflected in two contracts that form part of its rubric.

These are:

1. Everyone will take part, including the teacher both in and out of role.

2. We will treat members of the group with respect by listening to them and allowing them to express their views without fear of derision or humiliation.

Secondly, the subject content of dramas can have specific learning potential

to give a voice to groups whose ideas may not be heard easily in the real world.

More of this later. So inclusion will always be found in drama’s approach to

learning and it may also be part of its subject content.

What can drama offer in terms of inclusion?

● Drama offers ‘new opportunities to pupils who may have experienced previous

difficulties’ (Ofsted, 2006, p. 7).

● Drama takes account of pupils’ varied life experiences and needs by using

fictional contexts and roles which enable pupils to explore the underlying

issues safely.

● For some pupils drama may offer experiences that are different to those they

experience in the real world, for example taking the role of the outsider or

the role of the one in charge.

The concept of drama and keeping pupils safe

He suggests three ways to deal with a topic indirectly:

1. Enter the topic at an oblique angle to the main issue.

2. Put the pupils in a role that only obliquely connects them with the topic.

3. Use analogy for content.

It is prevented from becoming too threatening for them because:

● The angry Macbeth is fictionally in a different room so the oppression is distanced

and they can think what to do.

● The servants know they have knowledge about him at this point which gives

them power, unlike the powerless inmates of the Workhouse.

Having a voice in society

If we return to the central idea in drama of creating an ‘as if’ world we see that it is a world that is, at least in part, created by the participants through their ideas. As we have seen in the planning section, good planning creates gaps and spaces for pupils to input their ideas. If we plan for pupils’ ideas to be part of the drama lesson and we are creating a safe environment for this to happen, we are in effect giving them a voice to express their understandings and perspective on the world in which they live. Figure 4.1 describes the pupils who have the confidence to express an opinion in the drama lesson.

Having no voice in society                        

We cannot leave our real-world selves outside the door of the classroom and consequently there is a dynamic relationship between how we think and behave in the fictional world of the drama and how we think and behave in the real world.

Let us examine this more closely. In the drama lesson the individual’s

responses have three components:

● What we think (thoughts)

● What we say (utterances)

● What we do (actions)

It can do this by shifting pupils into a fictional world where they are no longer speaking as themselves but through the fictional context the teacher has structured for them and the class. The safe distance enables them to say and do the things they may not say or do in the real world. The dialectic that exists between the real world and the drama fictitious.

The relationship between inclusion and citizenship

If drama by its very operational values is an inclusive way of working and if the contents of some dramas are in themselves examining the nature of the outsider, then Citizenship and PSHE are an integral part of the drama experience.

The QCA booklet on Citizenship for the primary age groups defines the area

as follows:

The PSHE and Citizenship framework comprises four interrelated strands

which support children’s personal and social development. The strands are:

● developing confidence and responsibility and making the most of their

abilities;

● preparing to play an active role as citizens;

● developing a healthy, safer lifestyle; and

● developing good relationships and respecting the differences between

people.

(QCA, 2002, p. 4)

How to approach Citizenship and PSHE through drama:

practising being part of a society

They can make trips out or relevant visitors can be brought in to make pupils aware of the important structures and ideas that community involves. Indeed, if children get very committed to a real-world project there is a dilemma for the school. Drama’s relationship to citizenship works on two levels, as a methodology that demonstrates aspects of citizenship in action and when the content is specifically focused upon issues of citizenship. When we consider that drama can link citizenship with personal and social education, and spiritual, moral, social and cultural education, then we can begin to understand the importance of drama as a teaching method.

Drama as citizenship in action

How does the drama method promote this learning? The process of drama

itself is democratic in nature. The underlying rules of drama embody key democratic

values. These are:

● that the class work as a whole group, dividing into sub-groups for some tasks, but experiencing their class as a democratic community;

● that every member of the group may speak and contribute to the development of the drama;

● that all members of the group must respect the other members – their opinions and viewpoints;

● that we stop the drama at any point to consider and discuss what is happening and what it means so that everyone may clarify their understanding and therefore have a greater chance to make a contribution;

● that when group decisions are to be made, debate may happen, but it is the majority view of the group that will be taken;

● that we reflect together on the meanings we are forging and that together we are stronger in that creative act. So any whole class drama carried out in the methodology represented in this

book is strong on the model of democracy, corporate learning, responsibility

and tolerance.

A drama for teaching about citizenship

If we want the pupils to experience a particular political idea or social situation, the fictional world of drama can provide that situation efficiently and with an immediacy that reality cannot provide. As one example let us consider the use of ‘The Governor’s Child’ drama as a vehicle for uniting these areas. The drama builds the pupils’ roles as citizens of a mountain village and places them in the situation where the community is under threat. The drama opens up the issues of justice and revenge as sought by a revolutionary soldier, the idea of what you undertake when you give someone hospitality and ultimately the question of the worth of the single life against the community.
We can see from a summary of the drama that a number of citizenship issues are immediately contextualised and presented to the children. Drama ensures that they have to explore them and get involved in them, to challenge and seek solutions in a number of ways. Here is a list of the issues and ideas that were identified as present in this drama by a group of teacher trainees when they examined it:

Giving the children something they can relate to.

They have their say – they have ownership of the key decisions in the drama.

The villagers assert their point of view.

Negotiation – what we want/what he demands.

Moral and citizenship issues – implications for RE

● Caring

● Trusting

● Respect for privacy

● Acceptance of a stranger

● Putting yourself at risk for others

● Judging others

● Lies – excused by the pressure of the context

● Protection of the community. Empathy – the way different people feel – a fictional representation of:

● The feeling of being tricked by the woman as she did not tell them the truth when she came to the village

● That is set against empathy for the woman in her love to protect the child

● Dealing with the soldier and outwitting him. (See the following chapter on the meaning and use of empathy – often misrepresented in drama.)

Summary of points to consider

● Drama is an inclusive way of working because it is structured on the principle of

‘respect for persons’

● It makes demands upon the teacher to adopt a teaching and learning style that

generates positive social health in the group

● The teacher models an attitude that protects pupils from humiliation and

derision

● Dramas themselves may examine the concept of the outsider and the inclusive

solutions to problems

● Drama protects pupils through the roles they are given, the roles teachers take

and its analogous way of working

● Drama is a method of delivering the Citizenship curriculum that embodies an

inclusive approach

5 How to Generate Empathy in a

Drama

● Empathy is often misconstrued

● The components of empathy

Component One – the cognitive component

Component Two – the affective component

● How to structure drama for empathetic response

Building the cognitive component

Framing the affective component

● Planning the role of the teacher and of the pupils for generating empathy

6 How to Link History and Drama

● There are tensions between history and drama but they can be resolved by adopting a conceptual framework that is clear about the learning intentions

● Research is a key element in planning roles from history

● Using a variety of sources helps to support the validity of the work

● It is important to be clear about what you mean when you use the word empathy in relation to drama and history teaching

● Using signifiers, not full costume, when taking on a role allows you to come in and out of role

● Reference to modern day parallels allows you to make the connections between then and now

7 How to Begin Using Assessment of Speaking and Listening (and Other English Skills) through Drama

● The nature of assessment of Speaking and Listening

● Taking account of the context and the interactions

● The purpose of the assessment

● Formative assessment – feeding back to the pupils

● Recording and analysing what we see

● Talk as the basis for writing