Getting Started with Drama
Drama on ARTS:LIVE
These resources will help give you the confidence to teach Drama in your classroom. Give it a go! Don't be afraid to take some creative risks. By incorporating Drama you offer students a rich and stimulating learning environment to make, imagine and explore. You don't need many resources to get started either
Starting points
All you really need to teach Drama is a safe space and the imagination and ideas of the teacher and students.
Where to start? Here are a few ideas on how to begin:
Find out what's happening in your local area - is there a community theatre group, a high school performance or a performance at a local festival?
Organise an excursion to see a drama performance, or invite a company to perform at your school, or watch a recording online or on video, so that students see quality drama performances.
Use the experience of being an audience as a springboard for creating your own work. Reflect on and analyse what you saw, how it was acted, what the performance was about and which parts you liked.
Refer to your school curriculum - this is a great way to focus ideas. For example, if you had an integrated topic of "The environment", students could act out watering the garden or being a flower unfolding, or make up a story and script about a forest that was cut down and the animals that were left without a home.
Dramatise a known story or play. This can be as simple as putting actions to the 'Five little ducks' song, or pretending to be giants from
The BFG
, all the way to staging a full production of
Romeo and Juliet.
Improvise, using a stimulus such as an image, a scenario or a character. Students don't need to improvise a whole play - you can start with a body shape, an animal or imagining you are somewhere else. You and your students can then pick out what parts you like from the short improvisations and build on them for a performance.
Maximising outcomes
Warm up
Make sure that the students warm up their bodies and their voices with games or activities to avoid strain or injury. A warm-up also forms a creative space for play. You can borrow warm-up ideas from physical education, dance or music, or look up some of the many drama warm-ups online. Improvisation Starters on ARTS:LIVE is a great place to begin.
Try starting out in a circle so that there's no hierarchy and everyone can see everyone else. You can run a number of activities in a circle where you ask students to work alone or in pairs and then perform to the group. When they are in a circle, students might not even realise that they are performing!
Create a "safe space"
The most important thing you can do to make a Drama class successful is to create a "safe space". This means making the Drama classroom a trusting environment where students are able to try new things without being negatively judged by teachers or other students.
Be aware that dramatic roles and situations can tap into students' feelings, memories and experiences. It can be daunting for someone to put himself or herself "out there" and it is important that that person feels respected and supported. If students feel like they can take a risk and have a go, they will thrive and be inspired to have fun with Drama.
Ask the right questions
A central part of the process of drama is developing the ability to review and reflect on your work. It also serves as a way to shape and hone performance. Ask questions that promote a critical response and refer to 'Considering viewpoints' questions in the content descriptions of the Drama curriculum. Questions could include:
What did you like most about the performance?
How did it make you feel?
What was the most interesting part of the performance?
Can you tell me anything about where and when the performance was set? How did you know that?
How did people in the performance communicate to you?
What can we do differently to make the story, idea or theme clearer for the audience?
How might the mood be changed or the tension accentuated?
Working with students
Safety to play and explore in Drama also means setting clear boundaries and developing an atmosphere of respect. Here are some ideas to get you started:
Mark out Drama classes with an action or ritual to help you and the students get into a different "zone". This might be sitting in a circle together, a special bell or sound, moving furniture in the classroom or taking shoes off. These rituals help form boundaries and create shared expectations for students and teachers.
Let students know that there is quiet, reflective time at the beginning and end of the session but there will be a chance to be louder and more active in the middle.
Sometimes you'll want to be noisy or a bit chaotic. It helps if the room has some soundproofing or if classes are timetabled to reduce disruption to other learning areas.
Choose activities to control the noise and atmosphere of the classroom. For example, if you want to calm the class down and re-focus you could have the students lie down and run through a guided visualisation of a scene or story. Alternatively, if your students need to revitalise, get them up and moving around the space in an active game.
Planning
As a general rule, Drama lessons should be planned in blocks rather than in single lessons - they should build on each other and culminate in the presentation of work. Allow time for students to experiment with ideas, rehearse and perform.
A typical block of 2 x 45-minutes lessons could consist of:
10 minutes 'tuning in' and warming up body and vocals
5 minutes focusing activity or game
20 minutes pair or small group activity + share time
20 minutes devising and rehearsing in larger groups
15 minutes performing to the teacher and other students or recorded on camera
10 minutes reflecting and reviewing
10 minutes journal writing or drawing.
The Drama room should have a cleared floor space, free from hazards, to move around in. This could be a multi-purpose room, a hall or a classroom with the desks pushed back.
It helps if you can control the lighting in the performance space - ideally you would be able to make it dark and have stage lighting available, but even shutting blinds and switching off some lights can create different moods. Focus audience attention by highlighting the performance space with very simple lighting. Or even mark out a stage with tape on the floor.
If possible, control the heating and cooling because classes have periods of inactivity (watching performance, reviewing and reflecting) and activity (warm-ups, group games and activities, performing).
Preparation
The Drama room should have a cleared floor space, free from hazards, to move around in. This could be a multi-purpose room, a hall or a classroom with the desks pushed back.
It helps if you can control the lighting in the performance space - ideally you would be able to make it dark and have stage lighting available, but even shutting blinds and switching off some lights can create different moods. Focus audience attention by highlighting the performance space with very simple lighting. Or even mark out a stage with tape on the floor.
If possible, control the heating and cooling because classes have periods of inactivity (watching performance, reviewing and reflecting) and activity (warm-ups, group games and activities, performing).
Overcoming constraints
There's not enough time OR we've finished too early!
Time flies when you're having fun and students can be really engaged in Drama tasks for longer than expected. At other times you may find that an activity you had planned is finished very quickly. Try to be flexible with your lesson structure and allow students to have time to explore their interests. Always have a few activities "up your sleeve", like drama games, if you find you need them. If you need to stop students mid-performance or mid-rehearsal, make sure the class acknowledges their work and agrees to take it up for the following session.
We don't have many drama materials
The great thing about Drama is that you don't need any materials except your mind and body. If you do choose to use materials, then simple and open-ended props are the best additions to a Drama classroom. Choose something that you can use over again in lots of different ways, such as a cardboard box that becomes a car, a gift or a house, or a length of fabric that becomes an ocean, a picnic or a puppet theatre.
Presentation: Where can we perform?
Drama can be performed in many different spaces, so don't worry if you don't have access to a traditional theatre. You could present in a school hall, multi-purpose room, outside - or film it to show at a later time. Wherever the presentation of your work is, be sure to have time to practise in that space so students can get used to differences in sound (they will have to project their voices in a larger space), lighting, technology and the safety of the space, such as an uneven or slippery surface.
How do we document drama?
Drama is mostly a live event, and is therefore harder to "capture" than some other art forms. Plan who and how you will document performances, such as through photography, film or written records. It is also a good idea to document the drama process through journal writing, photographs or drawings to show the students how far they have come in creating their drama artworks.
How do we manage technology in drama?
The use of technology can be a great addition to drama, for example, using music, lighting or projections within a performance. Make sure you test, experiment and rehearse with the technology beforehand though! Waiting for music to start or missed lighting cues can really hinder a drama performance.
Tips
Children are naturally playful and will usually have plenty of ideas of their own when given a little prompting. Brainstorm with them. You could simply start by asking, 'What is drama?' and let students choose the themes and stories, or even which dramatic medium to use.
As the Drama teacher, it is your role to guide your students, not necessarily to direct them. It may be that you help when they get stuck for ideas, or that you oversee the playing of a drama game or you help students to analyse what parts of a performance work well. As students get older, they may want to try on the role of director themselves!
Links to general capabilities
Go to the Teach tab in any ARTS:LIVE resource and find information on how the activities help students develop general capabilities from the Australian Curriculum. The Educational value statements will guide you and the Teacher Notes contain more specific guidance on how the resources relate to specific general capabilities.
Examples from ARTS:LIVE
Literacy
Drama develops oral language skills and enhances students' ability to communicate through their body, voice and expression. They gain greater understanding of the written word by acting out and embodying words.
Bring Poetry Alive: Rap It Up develops students' oral language skills and enhances their ability to communicate through deeper understanding of words and language. The meaning of words must be thoroughly understood by the student in order to translate it into a performance for others.
Dance Your Socks Off: Learn the Alphabet Dance links directly to Literacy by asking students to match movements with letters.
Numeracy
Numeracy skills developed in Drama include expanded spatial understanding by moving props and objects around, enhanced recall and sequencing skills by remembering scripts and directions for performances, and an understanding of shape and angles by using dramatic lighting.
Improvisation Starters develops students' spatial understanding by asking them to move around the dramatic space, and numerical understanding by forming them into groups of different numbers.
Information and communication technology (ICT) capability
ICT can be used in Drama to record performances in photographs or film for students to reflect on and review. Screens and images on screens can also be used as props in performance. Documentation of drama processes or performances can be uploaded and shared on the internet.
Performance and Digital Media: Drama and Photography involves students using screens and images on screens as props in performance. Texture, light, shape and image become part of the drama performance.
Critical and creative thinking
The process of creating a dramatic work is very much one where you practise, hone, refine, and retry each new scene or element.
Improvisation Starters asks students to use critical and creative thinking to transform an imaginary object into something of their own.
Personal and social capability
In Drama, students share their ideas and viewpoints as audience members and collaborate to create new work. They develop empathy by viewing and practising being characters other than themselves.
Dance Your Socks Off: School of Fish challenges students to work together as performers, all trying to move at the same time. They develop their senses by noticing and responding to others and develop empathy through mimicry and their connection as a group.
Links to cross-curriculum priorities
The Australian Curriculum embeds cross-curriculum priorities in all learning areas and stresses their importance in a globalised world. ARTS:LIVE Teacher Notes list any relevant cross-curriculum priorities for each activity.
Examples from ARTS:LIVE
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures
Bring Poetry Alive: Rap It Up shows the strong link between rap and storytelling.Rap music was born from African-American culture, expressing hardship and truths. It can also be a powerful and contemporary way of telling the stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories.
Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia
Mask Making: Drama Activities with Masks can link to the rich cultural history and practice of drama that uses masks in Asian cultures, such as in Indonesia, Japan, China and India.
Sustainability
Story Starters: Story Building links to Sustainability through the use of the cardboard box as an imaginative prop. The box is recycled and re-used in many ways.
Archetypal character: a character with set attributes, such as the villain or the hero, that recurs through drama and literature over time to become thought of as universal.
Chinese opera theatre: highly conventionalised type of traditional opera, begun in Beijing in the 16th century, where actors wear elaborate face paint and move with set postures and steps.
Commedia dell'arte: theatrical form born in Italy before the 16th century that uses masks and stock plots with an emphasis on ensemble acting.
Cues: points that jog an actor's memory to know what line, movement or action comes next in the sequence of a performance.
Devising: process of making and creating drama performances where ideas are generated and tested.
Dramatise: make something into a drama performance, for example, adapt a written story into a performance.
Film drama: performed on film and video as opposed to on a stage in front of an audience.
Focus: directing the attention of performers or audience to a particular action, emotion or state.
In the round: performance on a circular stage surrounded by the audience.
Jacques Lecoq: French actor who developed and defined his own style of physical theatre in the mid-1900s with a strong emphasis on improvisation, gesture, mime and clowning.
Mime: silent drama form that uses movement and facial expression to convey meaning.
Musical theatre: incorporates music and singing into the performance.
Naturalism: style of drama where the acting and scenery are as lifelike as possible.
Noh theatre: 14th-century Japanese theatrical form where performers use symbol, mask and metaphor to tell long stories.
Open-ended materials: materials or objects that can be used in many different ways, depending on the actors' imagination and physical movements.
Physical theatre: communicates mostly through the actors' physical movements and gesture, rather than speech and text.
Puppetry: performance of dolls manipulated by actors using rods or strings or by hand to animate them as characters.
Radio drama: performance using only voice and sound, broadcast on radio.
Realism: theatrical movement in the late 19th century where drama characters and settings were based on real life and believable characters.
Rehearsal: practice and refining of drama performance.
Sanskrit theatre: oldest living theatrical tradition in India, which utilises stock characters in highly poetic, classical literary and visual performances.
Scenario: written outline of a drama play or performance.
Safe space: where people feel able to express themselves without harassment or judgement.
Spatial awareness: awareness and understanding of your body's proximity to people and objects in a space.
Symbolism: theatrical movement from the late 1800s that uses poetic language, myth and mood to convey meaning.
Theatre for social change: drama groups and performances that explore themes of social change to educate and influence their audience.
Warm up: to gently prepare the body or voice for more rigorous activity, to prevent injury or strain.
Web drama: performance recorded and uploaded to the internet, often presented in a series of short pieces called 'webisodes'.
Produced by the Song Room with support from the Australian Government Department of Education
Talent in video: Diana Nguyen
References
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), http://www.acara.edu.au
Australian Curriculum: The Arts, Foundation to Year 10, http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/the-arts/introduction
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), http://www.aitsl.edu.au