Summary

Today we started where we left off last day. We brought with us some extra texts and materials to aid in the process of devising. We began to stage parts of our performance by playing off popular themes from last class — the interview panel — and recognized our goals as a group in a line-up.

Rehearse and Develop

A lot of structure was created today. We started with very little, only a rough idea of direction, and wound up with the first stages of a performance.

* Details pending. *

Reflection/Applications

I’m finding it hard to find applications for this material, since the material is unique to our performance. I would not use, for example, an interview panel in my drama class. I would use whatever arose. When it comes to devised theatre, I am going to have to have some reference materials, as opposed to a journal. I have my log of what we did for our performance, and that is really all I can say about it.

Summary

Today we discussed devised theatre so that we could all become more familiar with the theory and methods behind it. Then we experimented with the feel of the room by moving things around, feeling the space, and positioning ourselves in the room. We then showed off what we brought with us that has some special meaning (from last day’s discussion).

Structures

As we dig deeper into devised theatre and plan our performance, there are less structures involved. The only thing I could think to mention here would be the Devising of Theatre, but that is clearly far too broad. I will leave this section and focus more on the process of devising.

Development

So today we started things off by navigating and becoming familiar with our space. This was interesting… we were all instructed to move about the space, wherever we chose, however we chose, whenever we chose. We could stop and think, move things, examine things, walk around, hide in places, go places we normally wouldn’t… everything. But not only did we do this, we were also asked to think about what relationship the spaces had with the rest of the room.

Once we found a place we really liked, we sat down and stayed there. The space that I liked was on a stage piece platform in the corner-ish of the room. The feeling that I got from that space was what I can only describe as removed and observational. The space really looked interesting at the end!

Once we had all found our place, we brought out our treasured items for some show and tell. I brought some magic items, my Rubik’s cube, and my unicycle. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I was unable to learn to idle on the unicycle, so it is getting scrapped. But the magic and the Rubik’s cube are still alive and representin’.

It is something I’ve always wanted to do but never have the opportunity — I’m playing myself in the performance! Mia said in class (which applies to everyone): “I would much rather see Jared be Jared.” I like this idea. I have discussed this idea previously as well. Acting in this sense is simply the repositioning of myself into another self. It’s like I copy and pasted me into a new me, and now I’m making minor edits… I’m not creating a character from the ground up. This is both easier and more comforting for me. I am me, and certain aspects of me may be exaggerated or underplayed in the performance, but the essence of me underlies my character.

Looking forward to see where this goes!

Reflection/Applications

These are pending. There is not much to reflect on yet: the process is not yet complete! I have no context.

Summary

Today we had three warmup activities involving miming, sound, and scene building. Then we began discussions surrounding our final performance, and sat down to understand what “devised theatre” actually means and involves. Out of our discussions came that idea that the performance could involve in some way things that we own and love but rarely if ever get the opportunity to use.

Structures

Mime Telephone

Students sit in a line, each looking at the back of the person seated in front of them. The person at the back of the line is given an action that they are to mime. Once they have settled on their course of action, the person in front of them turns around and watches them mime the action. Once they feel that they understand the action, they turn back around and the person in front of them then watches. This continues to the far end of the line, when the final action is performed for everyone to see.

Emotion Orchestra

Different groups are placed around the room and each is given an emotion. The groups are asked to think about the sounds that this emotion might invoke. The conductor (facilitator) points to the various groups in whatever manner they see fit, and when a group is pointed at they are to make their sound. Ideally, the sounds should be continuous and then the groups are also signalled when to stop. The conductor can also give the directions to increase and decrease volume, or speed up or slow down.

Speedy Scenes (Set Edition)

Similar to the previously describe warmup “Speedy Scenes”, except no characters are allowed. Every person adding to the scene must be an item that might be found in the scene, such as a lamp, a clock, a bench, a mosquito, a sleeping dog, etc.

Devising Discussion

The particular discussion we had is clearly not a structure in itself, but discussion certainly is. As discussed by many theorists and practitioners, discussion is a central element in drama education. ‘Nuff said.

Reflection

Mime Telephone is a very simple warmup, unless the action to be mimed is not something well-defined. Simple problem to solve… make the action something well-defined! However, the difficulty with this game is solidifying the movements. If the first person performing the action has not established in their mind exactly how the action is performed, it will come off as choppy and hard to follow. The action must be recognizable and well thought out.

I enjoyed the emotion orchestra, but it would be even better if we could have had more than two groups going at any given time. Also, if we could have experimented with volume, etc.

Finally, we redid the speedy scenes warmup, but this time it was dedicated to contextualizing the scene. I definitely liked this warmup, because it forces you to think about location and set pieces. If, in the future, I was in a scene that took place on the road, this warmup would help me visualize the set (ie. lights, road lines, storm drains, fire hydrants, etc.).

I like this whole “devised theatre” idea. The whole process seems very natural, and it reminds me of my early days in drama education. In Drama 20, three friends and myself essentially sat down and created a piece of devised theatre. Being part of a performance project, we did have to eventually come up with a script and perform the scene the same way every time, but the creation process itself was very reminiscent of devised theatre. We had no idea to begin with, and then sat down and talked. We picked up various objects and started to create characters and pieces. If someone liked the idea, we would develop it. We tweaked here and there, sometimes starting over entirely. We had no conventional plot, and by the time we had something we were happy with it didn’t even make sense to us.

It was one of the most memorable experiences of my high school drama career. I still converse with these three friends on occassion, and inevitably this scene comes up in conversation. We have our laughs, then we become inspired to create another piece. We never wind up doing it, because we don’t see each other that often anymore. But we always have fun playing around with the idea and experimenting with possibilities.

The process seems natural to me, and I think that many people have had similar experiences. Many times in drama people know they want to do a scene together, but they have no ideas for what that scene could be. People will start making suggestions, and everyone will roll with it.

I think what I like best about it is how much fun it is for everyone involved. Especially with the idea of a collective creation, where many small groups can each create their own disjoint pieces with the people they enjoy working with.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much more to reflect on here!

Applications

I would like to use this process. In fact, this should be a primary process in drama education. I have expressed my concerns previously with the relationship shared between theatre and drama education, because the idea of performance inevitably becomes unnecessarily enforced. With devised theatre, everyone owns the production equally, an audience is not required (but most people would enjoy having one!), and people don’t have scripts to memorize, blocking to meticulously work out, or the like. It feels more like a creation and performance than it does a piece of theatre. And rightfully so. In fact, this is one of the things we discussed in class, how devised theatre is so closely related to performance art.

I wish I were more of an expert on devised theatre. It is certainly something I want to learn more about, specifically with regard to facillitation and direction. If the process is to be as rewarding for my students as it currently is for me, I need to know what I’m doing. I think I will soon be Googling some devised theatre books…

Summary

Today Bill Hales from the theatre department came in to tell us about his new class and help us structure large school performances, like the fall musical.

Reflections/Applications

One of the key ideas in this discussion is one that scares me the most — teaching a student to be a stage manager. From my limited theatre experience, stage manager seems like it would be the most difficult job. While I have never played that role myself, I have studied it (THEA 140) and I explored it and worked with theatre tech students during my internship.

If you drew a hierarchical list of all of the various positions within a theatre cast and crew, sure, director would be at the top, but the stage manager is the one trying to keep track of the most information. The SM also has the most responsibility and must be extremely organized.

Teachers that attempt to direct and stage manage at the same time are taking on quite a task, and many can’t handle the strain. On the other hand, asking a student to be the stage manager — well, that requires a very special type of student. My sister was the SM for the production in her grade twelve year. But she is the most organized and perfection-oriented person I have ever met.

If I were going to teach one of my students to be a stage manager, I would have to have an extreme level of trust in that student. They must have proven themselves to be reliable and efficient in and out of class. For this reason, I would probably choose a grade eleven or twelve student for the job. Also, I would have to work closely with that student. Not to direct them, but to ensure due dates are kept on top of, etc.

In fact, this topic came up in the discussion — the idea of production meetings, where responsibilities are delegated to various students or student groups and I and the students meet regularly to discuss the goings on of the production teams.

As I can surely sympathize, most high school students audition for the play to act, not to be part of the crew. The stigma attached to the production is that the actors are the important people, and most don’t even think about the technical side of things. One solution to this problem that we discussed was holding tech rehearsals prior to auditions. This would encourage more people who would not have otherwise auditioned to take part, plus make the tech side more visible to people who try out to act but do not make it in as part of the main cast. This helps us move away from the idea that the star of the show is the lead actor. We need to recognize and appreciate as a group that every role — on stage, backstage, upstairs, or even pre-production — are all equally important to the production.

But, with tech beefed up a bit, how does one work with teams of 8? or 10? or 30? or 100?! How does one keep track of all of those involved as well as maintain some sort of oversight of the project. If I am placed in charge of the production, I have responsibilities I need to live up to. I can’t just delegate and let everyone take over. If they neglect their duties, I suffer for it as well. This is something for me to consider, as I don’t have an answer for this yet…

Some other interesting points in mind that don’t necessitate reflection:

• delegate, delegate, delegate!
• hold regular production meetings
• use neighbourhood resources when money is low
• farmers are smart people!
• recycle
• don’t reinvent the wheel
• keep a library of resources
• do not force community involvement — invite it
• question the “star model”
• don’t forget your learning objectives

Summary

Today we did physical and character building warmups, along with an improv activity. For the remainder of the class, we explored monologues and character building within that context.

Structures

Body Warmup

Rotate every joint in your body in succession, starting from the toes and working up to the neck. Afterwards, flop over to a rag-doll position and slowly straighten your vertebrae from bottom to top, the neck being the last thing to straighten.

Phonebook Characters

Pick a name from the phone book. Repeat the name over and over, using different forms of speech. Use this to help you decide on a character. Settle on a character and how that character speaks, then deliver a line of dialog as that character. Do this one at a time, all explore the characters together and then separately deliver the lines.

Dating Game

A contestant is questioning three bachelors, each assigned a random character. The contestant must ask each bachelor two questions, and then figure out what character each bachelor is playing the role of.

Monologue Character Development

In this class we looked specifically at the use of literal aids to force out character traits, as opposed to using some philosophical “method” to pull them out. If a character should be frustrated, use a literal obstacle to frustrate them. If they should be happy, have an aid that makes the speaker happy while they deliver their monologue.

Reflection

I found the Phonebook game to be a little awkward. I tried my various ideas, but I quickly ran out of them and wound up settling on one of the first ideas I tried. I think that this was due to the fact that hearing the name said (by me) for the first time caused me to get an instant mental image. Obviously, since there are several different possibilities for the character, my mind picked the one that made the most sense to me first. When I tried other possibilities, some of them seamed forced, some seemed awkward, and some seemed wrong. The one I ultimately settled on was one of the ones that I figured made sense, which was one of the first options I tought of. I think that this would be better suited to my style if I allowed students to play with characters on their own or in small groups, rather than making an explicit activity of it.

The Dating Game has a different but equally detrimental downside to it. First off, I love this game. It is an excellent exercise for the exploration of a character for the contestants, and it is also useful for the bachelor as an exercise in non-blocking, creativity, and problem solving. However, the game, like several improv games, has the tendancy to turn into something it wasn’t meant to be. The purpose, fun, and skill-builder of the game is supposed to be in asking creative questions and getting creative answers. It should be a puzzle both for the bachelor and for the contestants. What tends to happen with improv games like this one (including this one) are that the contestants feel like their acting skills are being challenged, and the game turns into the contestants interrupting, changing the subject, and otherwise taking the focus off the game itself. While this is all fine and good in its own way, I find that it defeats the purpose. And unfortunately in a high school class of extroverts, this is likely what the game becomes. A matter I have yet to answer is: How can this be prevented/discouraged?

As for the monologues, I found that the literal imposing of obstacles made the character development easy and natural. When explored in this sense, acting was clarified as being a repositioning of the self, rather than pretending to be someone else. When writing the monologue, I was aware of how my character would be feeling for the most part. When performing it, I felt that it was genuine and interesting. However, upon hearing the questions posed by my colleagues, I understood that there were things missing from who I thought my character was and what my character was feeling.

When they asked me what I was feeling, I had to think about it for a second before I told them. When I then had this answer, they suggested literal obstacles that would cause me as my own person to feel the same feeling. For example, I was annoyed, so Kaleigh sat behind me kicking the back of my chair every time I said something that I found annoying. I did find it annoying to have the back of my seat kicked, and I began to associate the feeling of being annoyed with the words I was saying. Naturally, and without much effort, I conveyed being annoyed much more sincerely and accurately.

However, one specific obstacle imposed was meant to get me to feel love for my family. To improvise, I played cards (as I was doing in my monologue) with Kaleigh. While I did find that I was able to connect with the feelings of happiness and sentimentality, I found that playing cards was distracting me from remembering the words and performing my monologue. Some might say this is ok, since the words not need come off the page, but I found it frustrating, which counteracted what I was supposed to be feeling at that time.

Applications

Given how natural and easy this process is in character development, I would be very comfortable using this with children of all ages. In the case where people had to get physical, I would be cautious. I wouldn’t be comfortable (nor should I be) touching the students, as that could easily be misconstrued. Also, the students may not be comfortable touching each other, and that could also be misconstrued depending on what happened during the contact. In my positions as educator and school board employee, I have to hats to wear simultaneously. The beliefs, values, ethics, and morals of the society in which I am employeed need to be considered in any decision.

Also, for students who were not comfortable writing their own monologues I would allow them to choose their favourite monologues from movies or the Internet. I would ask that they had seen the monologue performed at some point, though, so that they would have an idea of the context behind the character speaking.

Monologues are usually a main event in high school drama classes, and I would certainly like to use this character building method there. In any high school grade, I would likely start with students writing their own monologues and then using literal obstacles or encouragements to develop the emotional responses of their characters.

Connections

Unless I wrote something here just for the sake of writing something… I’m not sure that I can think of any meaningful connections to the rest of my life here.

Introduction

Today’s class had no warmups. Instead we watched about ten minutes of Spectacular. Then we discussed character in relation to the piece. We focused on character building in relation to our selves and to a new character. We looked at positioning as a method of developing a character by making a list of positions about ourselves. We then compiled our lists and picked out two qualities to build a new character on. We wrote a paragraph introducing our new characters to ourselves and then played Hot Seat to develop our new characters.

Drama Structures

Positioning Exercise

In order to discover our characters, we placed ourselves in relation to various positions. Every person has various positions that apply to them — you are a mother, father, brother, sister, spouse, workaholic, etc. In order to explore a new character outside of our own positions, we all compiled a list of things that were important to each of us, then we picked two items from the list to be main positions for a new character. For example, I picked the ideas of family and health. I then explored a person that would hold these two ideas to high importance, with respect to various positions (father, husband, heart attack sufferer, etc.).

Hot Seat

Have one student sit in a chair at the front, in traditional performer/audience style. In order to develop the character of the student in the “hot seat”, the audience will ask relevant questions, forcing the seated to either recall or invent the answers with respect to their character.

Reflection

This has been something I’ve been interested in for a while (see Connections), so I found the positioning exercise very interesting. For once, ideas were flowing with outrageous speed! It also helped me become more aquainted with myself, as my mind went whipping around all the various roles I have in the complex communities in which I live.

I like what Lee said, but I would change it a bit. He said that we have to be aware of our flaws before we can accept them, and we have to accept them before we can be the best person we can be. I would instead look at it not as flaw-based, but plain characteristic based. In order to be the best person that I can be, I have to operate within the framework that my biology neurology give me. That doesn’t mean you have to be apathetic about your traits, but rather using your strengths and using your weaknesses to your advantage. I like to spend time by myself, so I make use of that by reading and learning, since those are two activities that I value. Therefore, what some would call a weakness I have turned into a more positive light for myself.

In order for us drama participants to be comfortable around each other, we must be comfortable with ourselves, and I found this activity to accomplish exactly that goal. I listed several things that I was able to look at and think: “Cool! I am that!” There were also some that I looked at and thought: “Yeah… I guess I am that. BUT I am also this!” I got to know myself a little better, which allowed me to be a little more comfortable in the group. Overall, I am very happy we did this activity and I think I would definitely use this in the future.

Applications

Not only does this exercise apply to the development of new characters, it is also useful for the reason I alluded to earlier: increasing the confidence of the individuals within a group. I think, though, that it would be more beneficial to perform the exercise in that context if it were under a guise of some other activity. Asking people to put themselves on the spot tends to put them on the spot, and that doesn’t necessarily create a safe environment. However, giving people the opportunity to showcase themselves would use similar structures, have a similar outcome, but remove the pressure and the “on-the-spot-ness” of the situation. Fortunately for my clever ploy, we have already explored one such guise! Making a list of everybody’s ideas could be shared, and characters developed. While this doesn’t exactly allow one to explore themselves, it does allow them to think about who they are and reflect on those attributes. They then only have to share what they are comfortable with. All in all, I found this exercise very useful and would be more than willing to employ this in my future classroom.

Connections

Words in any human language do not themselves have any meaning, but are merely signifiers or abstract concepts. A coffee mug is not actually a mug, but it embodies the ideas of “mugness”. When I refer to it as a mug, I am simply suggesting that its measureable qualities resemble objects I have seen in my experience and have refered to as mugs. In the same way, a human being is not his or her behavious, but rather the behaviours that others are able to perceive are symbols meant to convey ideas inside my head that are otherwise completely immaterial.

If I say I am hungry, that doesn’t actually tell you exactly what I am feeling. Rather, it compares what I am experiencing mentally to previous experiences. The classic debate in this respect is colour — how do I know that you and I both see the colour red as the same colour? When I see an apple, I tell you it is red, because every time I have previously seen this colour I was told it was red. Perhaps red and blue are reversed for me, and if you could see through my eyes you would call the apple blue. But that doesn’t ultimately matter, because the word red is simply conveying the aspect of “redness”, and as long as I always refer to red things as red and non-red things as non-red, we will be able to agree on the colour of objects.

I find this an interesting branch of philosophy, and it is where most people get their start. I remember debating this idea and similar ideas in my early teens with friends. It is like these that lead to my ever-increasing interest in philosophy.

Introduction

Today we had our collaboration warmups and then focused on assessment evaluation as outlined in the curriculum, and then applied this knowledge to create and test a sample rubric.

Drama Structures

Names & Dance

Everyone stands in a circle. The person designated to be first makes a motion and says their name. The motion can be anything. The next person in line then repeats the previous person’s motion and says their name, and then adds on their own motion and name. The third person repeats the previous two, then does their own. This process continues all the way to the end. Then, after everyone has gone, everyone now goes at the same time, doing all of them!

Scene Building

Someone creates a scene by going on the “stage” and claiming to be something (ie. I am a bench in a park, I am a dog in the livingroom, etc.). Then, someone else joins the scene, adding to it (ie. I am a lamp beside the bench, I am a cat harrassing the dog, etc.). This continues until everyone is on stage.

Pulsing

Here I did two separate activities. Pulse Telephone and Coin Toss Pulse Race. In pulse telephone, everyone stands in a circle and holds hands. Everyone except the leader closes their eyes. The leader sends out pulses in either or both directions and they are passed around the circle. Ideally, the same number as was sent come back to the leader. Coin Toss Pulse Race involved two lines of students facing each other, with their hands joined and eyes closed. The first people in both lines open their eyes and so do the last people. There is an object at the end of the line, and the leader stands at the front. The leader flips a coin. If the coin lands heads, the lines send pulses down the line. If the coin lands tails, nobody pulses. The first person to grab the object at the end of the line receives a point for their team. If tails was flipped and no pulse is to be sent, a point is subtracted from the team if their end player grabs the object. Rotate the lines and repeat.

Reflection

I think a lot of what I could say about the class material today was said yesterday, with regards to equality in assessment. So I will discuss the structures first, then tackle practical assessment.

It is no secret that I do not enjoy most performance, but I find the warmups today quite fun. This is partially due to my increasing level of comfort with my peers, but I am sure that there are some obstacles that I could not overcome in that regard.

Riley’s warmup, Names & Dance, would be quite useful in classes of certain sizes, but if the class was too small or too large the challenge involved in the activity would be too low or too high, respectively. I think I would also use it on the first day, where there is low pressure for students to remember others’ names. If the pressure is too high, students may feel bad when they forget, or feel bad when they get forgotten.

The Scene Building warmup was a lot of fun. There is a lot of room for a wide range of ideas, so it is a low-stakes game. Students are less likely to showboat, since their action only applies to them, and they understand that they have to hold their position relatively still until the end of the game. As more things are incorporated into the scene, there are more restrictions on available additions, and so the pressure increases. Thus, I would probably avoid this with groups much larger than the average 25-student class.

The Pulse games have been a favourite of mine since I first played them. Unfortunately, since the focus is collaboration, the students must be willing to participate wholeheartedly. I have never played this game with a group and succeeded in getting the correct number of pulses through, because there were always people in my groups who were unwilling to collaborate appropriately. I always felt partially responsible for this, probably because one person neglecting the rules affects the entire group. I can focus an collaborate exactly as expected, but if my neighbour doesn’t, the game will fail. While the stakes are low, I would like to only use this with a very trustworthy and trusting group.

Now to discuss a practical example of assessment and evaluation.

As I discussed last day with the purple fruit-picking parable, we must decide whether we want to grade children or to pick purple fruit. Assessment for, as, and of learning are one thing, but evaluation is an entirely different ball game. I am a huge proponent of assessment as learning, because I feel that children learn best when they take control of their own learning. I mean this in a very serious way — when you let students decide what they want to learn, let them learn it, and then let them reflect on their learning, the whole process becomes more meaningful.

It is interesting to note that I am turning to the dark side as well… I used to be very against words like “meaningful”, “knowledge”, and other abstract words that can be defined in a thousand possible ways. I am still not even sure what I mean when I use these words. What is knowledge? What is meaning? But I suppose the fact of the matter is that since there are no agreed upon definitions, I must use a definition that I agree with and then assess according to those definitions.

Rubrics are very useful for this exact reason — they definite what learning means with respect to what is being marked. Rubrics are a way of qualifying and quantifying the different stages of knowledge. However, they are still a bit arbitrary. The top achievement in a rubric category is usually something like “demonstrates a clear and thorough understanding of the subject,” while the second is something like “demonstrates an accurate understanding of the subject.” So, between these two, how clearly are the differences in “clarity” and “understanding” defined? Furthermore, what should be the difference in numerical evaluations and how is this justified?

It seems that I am only answering questions with more questions, and I fear that there never will be a final answer — if there was, it would probably have been discovered by now.

Applications

I think all this worrying is for naught, however. I can think and debate all I want, but ultimately it can’t be that hard to assign a numerical grade. After all, teachers have been doing it for years, and many of them never encounter many problems. They reflect on their own practices to further their understanding of what assessment and evaluation are, sure. But what it really comes down to is being willing to accept feedback from various sources, and reflecting upon it.

For example, it should be clear to my students that marking is not objective. There are biases that I bring to the marking table, and there are biases in their interpretations of the marks as well. But if a student disagrees with their mark, they should feel comfortable presenting it to me and we can re-evaluate the mark through discussion (not negotiation).

That is really all I can say with respect to applications. Theory can only take you so far when it comes to assessment and evaluation. Ultimately, teachers need to assign grades (rather than picking purple fruit?) and those grades will be fairly well accepted by the students. (This can present a whole host of questions about teacher authority…) If there is ever a dispute about the grades, I should be sure that I can back up my decision, but be prepared to discuss it open-mindedly and be willing to change the grades. But also, don’t be a pushover!

Connections

I think this can be related to any sort of decision, if only in an abstract way. Logical and introverted people such as myself often weigh pros and cons of any decision. When faced with a fairly large decision, there are many variables that need to be taken into account, and then options need to be assessed and assigned evaluations.

For example, I don’t really like my current job. Let’s say that the decision is whether or not to quit. Some things I need to take into consideration are:

• I only plan to be working any job for another 10 months, as then I will have my first teaching job.
• This is, of course, assuming I find a teaching job for September 2012.
• I don’t get paid what I believe is fair.
• I will receive a lump sum bonus payment of $200, which would be kind of a big deal.
• The company may attempt to deny me this payment, as they have in the past.
• I will receive a lot of hours over Christmas break.

And there are many more. Not only must I assess these statements, but assign values to their importance. This is how I operate a lot of the time, and is an interesting matter of discussion and debate for me!

Summary

We did two warm-ups today, both surrounding Focus. We then discussed the conference (from October 14), and then ethics in assessment and evaluation, in small groups. We finished with a larger class discussion about ethics in the classroom, what makes an ethical teacher, and addressing some example ethical issues.

Drama Strategies

Twenty-One

Students sit in a circle and count from 1 to 21. The catch? They cannot count around the circle! No cues can be given about who will count when. If two people say the same number at the same time, the game is over and you have to start over! To add extra difficulty, have students turn their backs to the circle or lay down on their backs.

Mill and Point

Students walk around the room in a milling fashion. They are to make eye contact with everyone they pass as they pass them. They should focus on remembering who they pass and when, and where that person goes. Then, on the call of FREEZE, students stop where they are and close their eyes. Name a person in the room, and everyone should try to point to that person with their eyes closed. Repeat.

Atom Grouping

Want to make groups of a particular size? Have students mill around the room and then shout ATOM 3, or any other number. The students gather into groups of that many with the people nearest them.

Reflection

A major theme in the groups I participated in was equality, and I would like to reflect largely on that. There are two main types of equality, equal rights and equal product, and typically what we see around us today is a combination of the two.

1) Equal Rights – Every person in a group has access to the same materials, resources, tools, information, etc. and every person in the group is responsible for using these provisions to create products, which will not be of equal value, and are then assessed and evaluated on a set of criteria.

2) Equal Product – Every person in a group has access to a different set of materials, decided upon by the person, a supervisor, or an administrative group, so that any products created using the provisions will be of equal value.

I would argue that equal rights is the more common version of equality. In a math exam, we may choose to let students use calculators, or not. They are usually not allowed any notes or textbooks, although there are occasions when “cheat sheets” are allowed. However, when this sheet is allowed, the entire class is allowed to have one. This seems like a very fair way to regulate provisions, since each child has an equal opportunity to write and succeed on the exam.

At this point, I recall a project from back in my EMTH 350 days. We looked at a story called “The Purple Fruit-Picking Parable”. I love it so much, I have included it here:

Statureland is an island nation with one major industry: purple fruit. Since purple-fruit picking is essential to the welfare of the whole society, the Statureland schools’ basic curriculum is intended to train effective purple fruit pickers.

Because purple fruit grows only at the top of eight-foot trees, the most important and critical course within the curriculum has been Growing. All children are required to take Growing, and they are expected to complete six feet of growth—the minimum criterion for graduation as purple-fruit pickers and the average height of Staturelandians, based upon standardized growing tests.

The course content of Growing includes stretching, reaching, jumping, tiptoeing, and thinking tall.

Each year, each child’s skill and abilities in growing are assessed, and each child assigned a grade. Those children who achieve average scores on the standardized growing test are assigned B and C grades. Students, who, through their commitment to growing, exceed expected levels, receive As.

Slow growing students receive Fs and are regularly and publicly admonished for their lack of effort and inattention to the primary task. These latter children often develop poor self-images and antisocial behaviour that disrupts the school program and interferes with children who really want to grow.

“This will never do!” said the people. “We must call a wise man to consider our problem and tell us how to help the children grow better and faster and become happy purple fruit pickers.”

So a wise man was sent for and he studied the problem. At last, he suggested two solutions:

1. Plant pink fruit trees that grow only five feet tall, so that even four-foot students may be successful pickers.
2. Provide ladders so that all students who wish to pick purple fruit can reach the tops of the trees.

“No, no, no!” said the people. “This will never work. How can we then give grades if eight-foot trees are goals for some students and five-foot trees are goals for other students? How can it be fair to the naturally tall students if children on ladders can also stand six feet tall and reach the purple fruit! However shall we give grades?”

“Ah,” said the wise man, “you can’t. You must decide whether you want to grade children or have fruit picked.”

Taken from http://bit.ly/un1vxr.

This story is incredibly relevant. It points out that if equal rights are taken to be the definition of equality, this could indeed be harmful to society. What we see from this story is that while each student may have approached the problem in a different way, they way that they felt best for them, the end result was the same. Most of the children in Statureland would be excellent pickers of purple fruit. Also, what if there were an insufficient number of ladders? Should they be distributed amongst those who needed them most, or ignored?

If the teachers in Statureland were able to accomplish this perfectly, every student would receive the same grade: 100%. Obviously this is a problem. It’s not a problem for society, it’s a problem with the education system. What would happen if a teacher handed in his or her grades at the end of the semester and each child had received 100%? Let’s envision a conversation between the teacher and the administration:

Administration: How could every child receive 100% in your class?
Teacher: They all completed the exam and they all answered all the questions perfectly.
Administration: So you are a perfect teacher then?
Teacher: No, they are perfect students.
Administration: Not all students can be perfect. What about Billy in your class, who can’t even understand how to add and multiply fractions?
Teacher: We’re working on it, but I let him use a calculator on the exam.
Administration: Did the other students get to use calculators?
Teacher: None of the other students needed calculators.
Administration: Well how is that fair?

It is only fair if we accept that the definition of equality is equal product. Now, I’m not saying this should be the case, but it should be a mixture of the two. The question that remains to be answered, though, is: What is the optimal mixture of the two definitions of equality to achieve the strongest learning? That is assuming, of course, that the goal of the school system is produce students that have learned (curriculum outcomes) and have learned how to learn.

Applications

I think it is clear from my reflections that my goal as a teacher of drama (or any subject, but I’ll come back to drama) should be to guide, in whatever ways possible, my students to achieve learning by understanding and applying the curriculum outcomes.

It is important that equality be addressed in the classroom, discussed or otherwise. However, we are limited in what tools we can use to create equal and productive learning environments. A great man, Sir Ken Robinson, spoke about this relatively recently. Here is a great video of his talk:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U]

Something I took from this video is the question: Why do we group children based on age? Why is it that we start kindergarten at the same time, and move through the grades one at a time? If a student in grade two is spelling at a grade five level, why must he or she stay in grade two? Why not let that student take grade four spelling?

So many times we see students who excel in a particular subject but then get bored due to lack of challenge. I understood math very well in school, and I got bored too. However, I was always able to challenge myself where my teachers did not. In grade three, I came across a grade five math textbook and taught myself grade five math. I understood calculus before I completed Math C30. It is not that I am any smarter than any other student, it is just that I continued to challenge myself where no one else did. What about the students who had even more potential, but did not take it upon themselves to provide challenges? If their teachers did not, then they likely got bored and the interest was lost.

In my classrooms, it must be important for me to challenge those who are succeeding. But who do I challenge, who do I cater, what does this say about my authority, and what does this say about equality? On what do I base my decisions?

Let’s take an example outcome from the Arts Education 9 curriculum, CP9.4:

Demonstrate how roles may be developed and how dramatic characters communicate meaning to an audience.

Two indicators for this outcome are: Assume and develop different kinds of roles in drama work; and Use language and drama strategies to achieve dramatic purpose and communicate meaning to an audience. These are performative indicators in that in order to observe the indicator, the student being assessed must perform, in front of an audience in the latter case. However, this outcome can be indicated without a performance of any kind. Observe the following indicators:

• Analyze how the various roles assumed interact with others and help to further the drama work.
• Investigate ways that dramatic characters communicate meaning to others.
• Recognize how research contributes to the authenticity and significance of role and character work.

Neither of these indicators requires performance, but can instead of achieved by essays, interviews, projects, journals, etc. This outcome could be achieved without any performance being necessary. However, “demonstrate,” the first word in the outcome, signals that there should be some form of active participation, although it need not necessarily be performance-based.

I think, after all of this, that my idea of drama education is different from the majority viewpoint. Perhaps this arises from my math/science background, or perhaps it arises from my introversion (which recent studies suggest is GENETIC!), but reasons aside, I have a clear idea of what drama education is not to me. Drama education is not theatre. It is not theatre education. If drama were preparing students for careers in theatre, directorship would be prevalent. Take a single acting class in university, and it is clear that it is different from the drama classroom. Rather, drama education is about exploring society, nay, existing and possible societies. While I do not plan to ban performance from my classroom, I do understand if a student would prefer not to perform. And I can let them decide not to perform, as long as they can still demonstrate an understanding of the outcomes.

Connections

What I have discussed here is much farther stretching than education. Equality is a political issue, and a richly philosophical issue. As it so happens, politics, philosophy, and political philosophy are all of great interest to me. If there were any sort of jobs and job security as a philosopher, I may have decided on a different degree. In the public education system, political philosophy and educational philosophy are almost equivalent terms. Private education, however, steps away from this paradigm and educational philosophy becomes an entirely different, but infinitely more interesting, area of study. I think my philosophy of education right now applies more to a private system. It will be a challenge in my very near future to decide either to teach in a private school, or to prune my beliefs and values to fit within the public system. The latter seems safer, but the former is more fulfilling. I think I could survive in either case, but my internship definitely helped me find out what I believed and what I was allowed to believe.

Until next time.

Warm Ups

We did our warm up at the end of class today. There really IS a lot you can do with juggling balls! We began by passing them around, as usual. Then, we said names before we threw them. Then we said adjectives describing our favourite teachers. Then we said verbs describing our favourite teachers. Then we did combinations of the aforementioned. The idea was at the spur of the moment, but it worked.

Advantages of making up new rules on the spot: GREATLY improves (or at least, demands) concentration. Disadvantages: GREATLY reduces fluency.

I would use this in my classroom whenever the students are having difficulty focusing. It would certainly activate the areas of the brain associated with maintaining focus on one or a few ideas.

Class Material

Today we quickly finished up our technology projects (not much to say here that was not said last day) and then presented them. It was interesting to see the variety of presentation methods and goals. For example, there was another group that had the same goal as us — that is, saying the same thing about human interconnection — yet they approached it in an entirely different way and had a different mood behind it.

A key thing that came up in the discussion that I focused greatly on was the subtext with the technological medium and the various literacies. For example, we used the song Creep in our slideshow, sung by a Belgian women’s choir. The performance meant something different to two classmates, one of whom knew the song already and one of whom did not. In keeping this idea as abstract as possible, rather than discuss particular examples, I will leave it at that.

It is certainly something worth discussing with your students, either before or after — or perhaps after the first time, then do it a second time — that the medium and literacies within a performance, specifically a technological performance, may help shape completely the messages interpreted by your audience.

Until next time.

Warm-Ups

We only did one warm-up today, which was guided by Elora at the spur of the moment. It was simply musical chairs, with each next person eliminated being sent off to the next group in the progression. It served two purposes — a warm-up and a method of putting everyone into groups.

I personally would never use this in a classroom as it takes too long and is entirely unnecessary. I would much prefer a different warm-up and a different method of grouping students.

Class Material

Today we began looking at the relationship between technology and performance creation. My group — Heather, Kaleigh, and I — chose to use still pictures along with music in a slideshow as a performance.

We discovered something major today: technology causes problems. It causes problems because it can be a huge problem when it wants to be. We had issues with battery life, difficulty figuring out the camera, and having to use a Mac, with which neither of us were familiar.

Until next time.

Warm Ups

Slice and Dice

Two rows of students face each other with their arms creating an impassible barrier. As a student walks toward the arms, the people lift there arms out of the way, creating a safe passage. The arms should be lifted in a wave formation, so that they are in the way until the walker is within a very short distance. This is a trust exercise because the walker has to trust the arms to move out of the way in time, and also not slap him or her!

I really liked this warm up. I was the facilitator for this exercise, and it went really well. I had a chance to participate as well, and it was more intense than I thought! The others seemed to enjoy it as well, so it is definitely something I will keep in mind. When I was the walker, I certainly found it daunting. And well I thought explaining it was hard, the others caught on quickly and they were able to organize themselves appropriately. The only thing I might want to keep in mind for next time is to stick myself in the line right away to more easily explain what the arms in the middle should look like.

Precarious Poles

Lee’s exercise was excellent. Students got into pairs and each pair held to sticks between their palms, only keeping them in place by putting pressure on them. We were not allowed to grab them. The idea was that the leader would begin to move his or her hands, and the follower had to mirror the movements so as to not drop the sticks.

I think everyone really liked this one. Myself included. Very quickly the movements got very elaborate, and the more complex we got the more fun it was. I need to remember to incorporate levels, movement around the room, and interactions with other groups. Going underneath some other group’s sticks was not overly difficult, but extremely fun. I think the strength of this exercise lies in its incredible fun while being incredibly basic in operation. Things I should keep in mind would be performing movements to music and using light sticks (ours were a bit heavy and hard to control).

Blindfolded Obstacle Course

Heather’s exercise was also quite fun. We had an obstacle course laid out about the room. People got into partners and one person was the leader and the other was the follower. The follower wore a blindfold and the leader had to lead the blindfolded follower around the room by only touching their palms and giving them verbal instructions.

This is an excellent trust exercise because the follower is blindfolded — they really are handing over their safety to their partner. It is also quite fun to take a complicated path. My partner lead me to step over benches, and another in the class had his partner step lightly (cued verbally) on a skateboard and made her guess what she was stepping on. With a creative obstacle course, it is an extremely fun warm up. Things to keep in mind: rearrange the obstacles once the follower has their blindfold on, so they can’t remember what the course looked like.

Class Material

The goal of today’s class was to plan a sound-based scene. It could be a sound scape, interpretive sound, or adding sound to an existing scene. My group decided on interpretive sound. Considering that the classroom was already a mess, our scene was about how the classroom got so chaotic. We sat motionless, only making the noises you would hear in a slowly degrading classroom.

I learned from this activity that sound, like everything else (why am I not surprised?), helps to shape a scene. I found it a quite useful activity! If I were to plan setting a scene in a classroom, I may have had students in desks, a teacher at the front of the room, etc. But forcing myself to think of classroom sounds really helped me dive in and find what makes a classroom. We thought about crumpling paper, backpacks, pencil cases, intercoms, coughing, as well as various activities that students may be taking part in. These things would have slipped right by me if I did not force myself to think about them. This process came naturally by planning the scene around the sounds.

Until next time.

Warm Ups

Word Association

Pair students and have them alternate words, each one relating to the one before it. Pretty straight forward.

I like this warm up, because it involves very little pressure and most people enjoy doing it. It can be challenging at times, but you are never put on display in front of more than one person, and that person will usually struggle as well. I feel very comfortable participating in this warm up, and I believe others do as well.

Story Time

Students gather in a circle. One person begins a story, and the next person to the left caries it on. The next person to the left continues. The story should end with the last person in the circle.

I felt that each person’s contribution to the story in our class was a little excessive, and should probably be limited to one or two sentences. This will stop one person from being able to completely control or redirect the story. I enjoy this warm up more when each person’s contribution is short, but found it quite difficult and less productive the way it was done in class.

Watching the Audience

This was an excellent activity! This was lots of fun. A group of volunteers came to the front of the room and were secretly given a location or activity. They then had to mime it out and the audience had to guess where they were. Topics were, for example: horror movie, sports game, strip club, etc.

This was a lot of fun because the volunteers wanted the audience to guess, so they had more of a motivation to overact (by which I mean “not underact”). I can’t think of too many particulars that I would be sure to keep or add. It was very straight forward and there is a lot of room to play around with scenes (easy or hard, remember to scaffold)!

Class Material

Today we became familiar with the relationship between props and performance. We revisited our previous dramatic texts which we had performed without props, and added props. During the performance, we were given props to add to the scene, at which point we could either carry on or start over.

It was very clear to me, the relationship between props and performance. As we discussed in class, once props are added, character and scene development become extremely easier. My original character was not very well defined, but once I had a prop in my hands it helped me solidify my character in my mind and I was more able to connect with others and with the scene. Then, in the future, with or without that prop, I would be able to access those feelings.

Doing scene work in my future classroom, I think that it will be helpful to develop scenes without props and then discover the relationship between props and performance. I hope to have a prop room, though which I will let students explore and connect with their texts. I enjoyed the activity we did in class — incorporating props on the fly — so I may be interested in trying that with my class as well. Of course, if I was going to do that I would have to keep scaffolding in mind. Give them simple, contextual props to begin with, and slowly get more obscure.

Until next time.

Pentatonic Scale Vocal Warmup

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3StSVz2oV7s]

Found Texts

Great examples: Receipt, shopping list, Fisherman’s Friend.

Turning a found text into a performance piece is best accomplished by brainstorming related ideas to the text. Have students make a list of ten ideas derived from the text, and then have them focus on one of these ideas at a time, trying to create the outline of a performance.

With their freedom to script and block their performance completely, this process is not usually as long as others.

Until next time.

Today we worked with staging dramatic text. We ignored stage directions and context and developed a scene using only the text. There are a few key things to remember about this process. In no particular order, they are:

1. Tasking – This is a beautiful way to establish a scene. If you want to set your scene in a specific location or time period, but the text does not grant you the set, you can take on tasks that are outside the text to indicate such. For example, one group set their scene on a plane, so they arranged chairs to look like a middle aisle, and walked up and down it as if it were one.
2. Choice – There will never be a dramatic work that works perfectly with your students, so allow them to look through the text to find a piece that works for them. For example, the scene my group had to work with had several characters, but there were only three of us. So, we searched through and found a piece of the scene with only three characters. We then used this as our full piece.
3. Critique – As the teacher-director, it is important not to give your students directions, but the directed opportunity for self-improvement. Rather than telling them what you want to see, ask them questions that might get them to arrive at their own corrections. And one must always keep in mind that they are not the lord of drama, and understand that students may take things in different — but excellent — directions!

Building Focus

Throwing juggling balls around the room has a great ability to get students focused after their arrival. Naturally students are easily excited and distracted after their break, and throwing the juggling balls around can quickly turn off-task students into drama-ready students.

Scaffolding

Always start with something that is more easily identifiable to the students. Then, use similar strategies to introduce less familiar notions.

Recognizing Differences

A good example of scaffolding, and also a very fun project in class is ordering people in a line. Easy examples to start with are by height, birthday, hair length, etc. Ideas to stay away from in class would be by weight, social status, etc.

Right vs. Wrong

A good quote worth remembering: “The more you try to say that something is right, the more you are implying that something else is wrong.”

Until next time.

So today we watched everyone’s performance of their history with theatre. I really liked what Lee was getting at — theatre creates connections. I really think it was a good idea, but it doesn’t apply to my history all that much. I just really liked what he said and found it very artistic and aesthetic.

Also, we did some warm-ups with juggling balls. We got some advice from Mia: you would be amazed how many things you can do with juggling balls! I should consider keeping mine in my drama-bag-of-tricks. Also, we discussed an important aspect of the classroom, namely, clapping after performances. As claps can change in their dynamic per presentation, it is useful to establish some other, simple way to show appreciation.

Until next time.

Today in class we mainly just became familiar with each other. I don’t know anyone in the class with the exception of Elora and Andrew: Elora because I took EDRA 101 with her two years ago, and Andrew because I sometimes buy coffee from him at Tim Horton’s.

Our assignment for next class is to give a short presentation on our history with theatre and drama. So I ask myself: what does drama mean to me? If you are curious, I have made a page out of it! Please read up on my Philosophy of Drama Education, which is a continual work in progress as I learn and teach.

Until next time.