This semester at Catholic University, I am teaching a course on American Drama. Last week, we created a Curriculum-Based Readers Theatre (CBRT) script on August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.

I have 17 students—mainly Drama and Music Theatre majors. They are a terrific and talented group of young people. We are reading 16 plays this semester and I may just be learning more from them than they are from me.

Because I believe that most people learn best through some form of activity and because CBRT is an activity that’s worked so well with younger students, I decided to give it a go with the undergrads.

I created the first page of the script. I decided that the script’s context would be a TV show called “Most Memorable Character.”

1            Good evening and welcome to tonight’s installment of…

All            “Most Memorable Character!”  [gesture] [sound effect]

2            Yes, the show in which each character from a play tries to convince our studio audience that in their particular play, he or she is the…

All            “Most Memorable Character!” [gesture] [sound effect]

1            Tonight we have characters from a play in August Wilson’s Century Cycle—

All            The Piano Lesson.  [gesture] [sound effect]

I wrote the first section about the character Berniece. I made photocopies, distributed the scripts to the students, and assigned the three solo speakers. Then we read through the first page of the script, making decisions about gestures and sound effects.

We held just one read-through. (These students work FAST. They are, after all, focused on the performing arts.) Then, in groups, they chose one character from The Piano Lesson, and followed the directions on the back of script page one:

Add to the script. Create a portion on the character _________.

Your script portion must include:

—3 facts about the character

—3 pieces of information about the action of the play or other characters

—3 lines of your character’s dialogue

—At least 2 Lines or Sound Effects/Gestures for ALL

I gave them 20 minutes to write and then, beginning with the script start I had created, we read aloud an entire script in which salient aspects of the play’s plot and characters were presented.

I was extraordinarily pleased with what they created and I felt it was a valuable use of class time. The students had to refer back to the text and synthesize what they knew from their reading of the play to create a new product—a portion of a script.

Before the semester ends, I plan to type up the entire script and give each of them copies. If anyone reading this blog wants a copy, please leave me a comment and we will figure out how to make that happen. In the meantime, here are some photos of my students after performing the script, a photo of script page one, and one of the page twos.

You may also like:

Teachers Creating Scripts

More Teachers Creating Scripts

Here’s the fourth and final in this series of Theatre Games that we all use (and know and love) purely to strengthen acting tools and skills followed by some simple shifts to use them to address social and academic skills valued in classrooms.

“What Are You Doing?”

(I did not invent this theatre game. It’s one of the old chestnuts in the field. I’ll explain my way of giving directions for its use in classrooms.)

1) Stand with students assembled in a circle. Ask each student to look to his or her left. Explain that this is the person to whom they will each ask the question “What are you doing?”

2) Model by miming a simple activity that can be done in place, like “tapping my knee.”

3) As you mime a simple activity, ask the student to your right to ask you: “What are you doing?” Continue miming and respond by identifying not the activity you are miming (“tapping my knee) but a completely different activity like “playing piano.” Then instruct the student doing the asking to mime activity you named—playing piano—not the activity you are currently miming.

4) The student to the right of the student now “playing piano” asks that student “What are you doing?” The piano playing student must continue to mime “playing piano” while answering with a completely new activity like “doing a dance.”

5) Model how this works with the first three or four students:

1: (Mimes playing piano)

2: “What are you doing?”

1:  “Doing a dance.”

2: (Mimes doing a dance)

3: “What are you doing?”

2: “Eating ice cream.”

3: (Mimes eating ice cream.)

4: “What are you doing?”

3: “Tying my shoes.”

6) Each student stops the miming when the next student begins his or her mime.

7) After the modeling, ask each student to think of one simple activity that can be done while standing in the circle. Tell them to hold that idea in their minds for later use in the game.

8) Conduct the game by beginning with one student miming a simple activity and progress around the circle so that each student gets a turn.

Using “What Are You Doing” to reinforce curriculum content:

Once students understand the basic theatre game, consider a topic you are studying and add this stipulation to your instructions: The activity you mime must be something that occurred in our book or unit. Examples:

The American Revolution

“Boycotting tea”

“Protesting taxation”

“Sewing a flag”

“Loading a musket”

“Donating pewter”

“Throwing tea in the sea”

“Signing the Declaration” 

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

“Whitewashing a fence”

“Writing on a slate”

“Hiding behind a gravestone”

“Eavesdropping on Aunt Polly”

“Building a raft”

“Faking a toothache”

Theatre Skills: Taking Direction, Observation, Concentration, Cooperation, Adjusting Body and Voice, Following cues

Links to Adjusting Theatre Games to Connect to School Curriculum, Parts 1 - 4:

“Go like this!”

Circle Tableau Game

Show Me Characters

“What are you doing?” 

Here’s the third in this series of Theatre Games that we all use (and know and love) purely to strengthen acting tools and skills followed by some simple shifts to use them to address social and academic skills valued in classrooms.

Circle Tableau Game

(I learned this game from my colleague Educational Drama Specialist Stacey Coates. I have adapted it somewhat from her original offering.)

Instructions:

1) Stand with students assembled in a circle.  Explain that the purpose of this activity is to create a frozen picture or tableau using three people working together. When the teacher gestures to one student, that student becomes the central part of the tableau while persons on either side complete the frozen picture.

2) Teacher models how to make frozen pictures (tableaux) of a moose, a rabbit, and a raisin with participants.

“Moose”—The student gestured to creates a snout with his or her hands. The students on either side use their hands to create the moose’s antlers.

“Rabbit”—The student gestured to creates a bunny tail behind the back with his or her hands. The students on either side use one finger to create the rabbit’s ears.

“Raisin”—The teacher gestures to one student, but the cue “Raisin” actually signals that all the students in the circle crouch down and “wrinkle up” their bodies and faces. 

3) Teacher conducts the game by standing in the center of the circle, gesturing to one student, and saying either “Moose” or “Rabbit.” That student and the students on either side collectively create the tableau of that animal while the teacher counts to five.

      The teacher continues the activity by gesturing to different students and thus involving new sets of three students in creating tableaux of the animals named. As the activity continues, the teacher once in a while says, “Raisin,” causing all students to freeze in the raisin pose. 

4)  Teacher explains that the tableau must be made by the count of five. But, in reality, what you are seeking to encourage is teamwork or ensemble playing.

      So, while you act like you’re going to get to five, you actually keep saying, “Four, four, four…” until the three students successfully create the tableau. Repeating the number “four” several times until the three-person team has assembled itself eliminates the threat of students’ being called “out.” 

5) If another student comes to the aid of the three students and helps them correct or remember the tableau pose, call attention to and positively reinforce this effort. Applaud any student who helps another three-member team. 

6) Conduct this theatre game for several minutes so that students understand how to play. 

7) Using one group of three students to demonstrate by striking the “Moose” pose, point out to students that in each animal tableau, the middle student strikes one pose and the students on either side do the same thing—as mirror images of one another. There’s symmetry in the three-person tableau. The same is true of the “Rabbit” pose. 

8) Plan to add to the game by asking the students to contribute ideas for three-person tableau poses for other animals like: Crocodile, Giraffe, Bumblebee, Elephant, etc. 

9) Agree on how to create each new tableau, stand in the center of the circle, and add the new animals to your vocal prompts. 

Using “Circle Tableau” to reinforce curriculum content: 

Introduce or review characters, incidents, themes from the stories, books, plays, historical episodes, or concepts that students are studying.

In groups of three, students can create tableaux for:

—King Tut

—The Sphinx

—A Pyramid

And everyone can simultaneously strike an agreed-upon pose for

—A Mummy

In groups of three, students can create tableaux for:

—Romeo

—Juliet (Yes, students can become an inanimate object like her balcony.)

—Exile

— “Thursday next to go with Paris to Saint Peter’s Church!”

And everyone can simultaneously strike an agreed-upon pose for

—Poison

In groups of three, students can create tableaux for:

—A triangle

—A cylinder

—A cone

And everyone can simultaneously strike an agreed-upon pose for

—A line segment 

Have the sets of three students teach the whole group how to create each new tableau. Then, from the center of the circle, use the identifying vocal prompts to involve all students in creating tableaux targeted at specific curriculum content.

(Teaching Tip: Create a chart for yourself so that you can remember all the tableau vocal prompts!)

Theatre Skills: Ensemble Playing,Taking Direction, Concentration, Cooperation, Adjusting Body and Voice, Remaining Frozen and Silent 

Links to Adjusting Theatre Games to Connect to School Curriculum, Parts 1 - 4:

“Go like this!”

Circle Tableau Game

Show Me Characters

“What are you doing?” 

Here’s the second in this series of Theatre Games that we all use (and know and love) purely to strengthen acting tools and skills followed by some simple shifts to use them to address social and academic skills valued in classrooms.

Show-Me Characters

(This activity is from the “Preparing for Drama” chapter in the book that Lenore Blank Kelner and I wrote—A Dramatic Approach to Reading Comprehension.)

Students modify posture and body positions to communicate information about a character type. This is a silent activity that requires students to adjust and freeze in a variety of poses.

 Procedure:

1. Invite students to stand up and find their Personal Space.

2. Explain that you are going to name a particular type of character. The students’ acting task is to use their bodies to show you how they would play that character.

3. Tell students that the main acting tool they will use is the body, not the voice. This is a silent activity.

Sample Language: I will name a character type and then cue you by saying, “Show me a friendly old lady.” Then you show me by posing and freezing in place like a friendly old lady.

4. Instruct students to remain in character until you name a new character type.

Sample Language: Remain frozen in character and listen for the next character type that you will show me using your bodies.

5. Encourage students to use energy in their portrayals.

Sample Language: Show me energy in your bodies when you play your character types. Energy means that you are powerful, active, and animated.

6. Begin and continue the activity.

“Show me ____(Choose a character type below.)

“Show me ____(Choose a character type below.)”

(Repeat with new character types as desired.)

Character Types

• a cool teenager
• an army sergeant
• a cranky old man
• a scolding teacher
• an enthusiastic fan
• a super model
• a super model

Using “Show-Me Characters” to reinforce curriculum content:

Introduce or review characters from the stories, books, plays, or historical episodes that students are studying:

• “Show me a person in hiding who is terrified of being discovered.”
• “Show me Anne Frank when she heard loud noises from outside of the annex.”
• “Show me a person very pleased with his reflection in the mirror.”
• “Show me Byron in The Watsons Go To Birmingham, 1963.”
• “Show me Julius Caesar.”
• “Show me a suffragette.”
• “Show me a person who disagrees with the suffragette movement.”

To watch a short video of “Show-Me Characters,” please click here.

Theatre Skills: Taking Direction, Concentration, Cooperation, Adjusting Body and Voice, Remaining Frozen and Silent

Links to Adjusting Theatre Games to Connect to School Curriculum, Parts 1 - 4

“Go like this!”

Circle Tableau Game

Show Me Characters

“What are you doing?” 

This past weekend, I presented a session called Adjusting Theatre Games to Connect to School Curriculum at the Washington, DC AATE Theatre In Our Schools Mini-Conference. Here’s my session description: There are so many Theatre Games that we all use (and know and love) purely to strengthen acting tools and skills. In this workshop, experience and explore how to make simple shifts in these theatre games so that they address social and academic skills valued in classrooms.

Instead of photocopying a handout for my attendees, I decided to lead them through the activities and post their descriptions here on my blog. This way, I figure I “save some trees” and potentially reach more people.

To avoid an overly-long post, I will break up the descriptions of each theatre game and its application to curriculum up into smaller offerings and schedule them to appear over the next few days.

“Go like this!”

(I learned this theatre game at a conference years ago. I wish I could remember the name of the presenter so that I could properly thank him for adding this valuable activity to my teaching repertoire!)

1. Stand with students assembled in a circle.

2. Explain that you say the line, “Go like this,” and perform a simple motion or strike a pose.

3. Once you do that, everyone in the circle responds with “Yes!” (and a “yes” gesture) and then they all simultaneously imitate whatever motion or pose you performed.

4. Model this process with a few sample motions or poses: 

Teacher: “Go like this.” (Clap hands three times.)

Students: “Yes!” (with a “yes” gesture)

Students and Teacher: (Clap hands three times.)

Teacher: “Go like this.” (Pose with a shrug.)

Students: “Yes!” (with a “yes” gesture)

Students and Teacher: (Pose with a shrug.)

Teacher: “Go like this.” (Do “The Twist”)

Students: “Yes!” (with a “yes” gesture)

Students and Teacher: (Do “The Twist”)

5. Explain that now each person in the circle will say the line “Go like this,” and perform a simple motion or strike a pose…

6. …to which everyone in the circle responds with “Yes!” (and a “yes” gesture) and imitates whatever motion or pose the person performed.

(Note: with students—emphasize simple so that everyone in the group may easily imitate the motion or the pose and the activity remains safe and quick-paced.)

7. Go around the circle until everyone has had a turn.

Some Ideas for using “Go Like This” to reinforce curriculum content:

Adjectives or Adverbs

Tell students to choose an adjective or an adverb and adjust their dialogue, motions, and poses to communicate information about that part of speech. Examples:

“Go like this—slowly.” (“Slowly” is spoken slowly and accompanied by a slow gesture.)

“Go like this—rhythmic. (“Rhythmic” is spoken by emphasizing two distinct syllables followed by four rhythmic claps or taps or slaps.)

 Characterization

Tell students to choose character from the story or play they are studying and choose dialogue, motions, and poses to communicate information about that character. Examples:

“Go like this—The Big Bad Wolf. Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!” (“Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!”  is spoken in character as the student executes the appropriate posture, facial expressions, and gestures.)

“Go like this—Macbeth—Ambitious.” (“Ambitious” is spoken in character as the student executes the appropriate posture, facial expressions, and gestures.) 

Theatre Skills: Ensemble Playing, Observation, Taking Direction, Concentration, Cooperation, Adjusting Body and Voice

Links to Adjusting Theatre Games to Connect to School Curriculum, Parts 1 - 4:

“Go like this!”

Circle Tableau Game

Show Me Characters

“What are you doing?” 

The Teacher-in-Role (TiR) drama strategy is aptly named because it is precisely what it sounds like it is: The teacher plays a role in the drama and collaborates with the students within the imaginary situation. This role allows him or her to help keep the drama in motion by questioning, challenging, organizing thoughts, involving students, and managing difficulties. In role the teacher can protect a scene from failure, encourage greater language use, point out consequences, summarize ideas, and engage the students in dramatic action.

One of the simplest ways to practice TiR and get your students agreeing to pretend along with you is to play the host of a TV talk show who interviews various characters from books or history. Everything I know about using Character Interviews as an entry point to the TiR drama strategy comes compliments of my colleague Lenore Blank Kelner who has deeply developed it as a strong arts integration technique. I’ve shared Lenore’s methods with my CUA MATE graduate students and it’s true what they say—when you teach something, you learn it twice. To further increase your learning, add a bunch of inspired grad students who create compelling characters and lead dramas that are so engaging that everyone is shocked to learn that our two-and-a-half-hour class meeting is just about to end. You’ll be more than doubly prepared (and motivated) to use the TiR drama strategy with Character Interviews.

In class last week, we had “TV talk show hosts” who called themselves Reed Novels, Booky T, and Calli Graphy. The photo below shows the teacher-in-role as Calli Graphy, host of the show “The Write Stuff.” She is interviewing two students in role who are playing Norman the Fish in Not Norman by Kelly Bennett.

Calli Graphy was a bouncy, enthusiastic host with a slight Southern accent and a surefire ability to excite the student actors’ interest in responding to her questions. (She was so convincing, in fact, that her character portrayal challenged the concentration skills of the other students!) She asked the students playing Norman inferential questions like:

• How do you feel about being The Boy’s pet? Why?
• How did you feel when you saw that, initially, The Boy didn’t want you? Why?
• What were you thinking when that dog almost drank all the water in your bowl?

The students playing Norman created the body of a fish by bending forward, crossing one arm over the other, and using their hands as fins that they would flap to let Calli know they had a response to her questions.

One of the grad students is currently a school librarian who gets to try out all the drama strategies we study in class immediately with his students. Regarding Character Interviews, he says, “They LOVE it! They are so excited to pretend to be on TV and if you ask the right kinds of questions, the responses they give are mind-blowing!” Last week, he interviewed Strega Nona, Mufaro, and both of his beautiful daughters. After being a guest on “The Write Stuff,” he plans to book the characters from Not Norman on his show soon!

The video that follows this post shows Lenore Blank Kelner conducting Character Interviews with a large class of students.

You might also like:

The Character Interviews Drama Strategy

I am not alone among professionals in the field of educational drama who were deeply influenced by the book Dorothy Heathcote: Drama as a Learning Medium by Betty Jane Wagner. For me, the discovery of this book propelled my life’s work into targeted motion. So, each semester that I teach a course called Drama in Education, my students read and respond to Wagner’s description of the drama work of the late great Dorothy Heathcote.

This semester, one of the students in the CUA Master of Arts in Theatre Education program wrote such interesting reflections on the book that I asked her to allow them to be reproduced and shared with a wider audience. So for this post, here are the reactions of guest blogger Robin Bingham: 

Let me first say that I’m in love with Dorothy Heathcote. I wish I had met her. I want to be her. Reading about her work, I’m reminded of what it means to get to the heart of what it means to be a teacher: How do you hold a class’s attention, gain their respect, keep their interest, open them so that they want to take what you have to give them, open yourself so that you can learn what they have to offer you, adjust what you have so it fits them perfectly, so that you are working as a team together?

“No magic in it?” Heathcote insists that “what she does has ‘no magic in it’ and can be learned and employed by any teacher,” (p. 3) but given the thousand and one split decisions a good teacher makes every day that an average, or a bad teacher is not even aware of, this can be hard to believe. There is magic in it! The magic of synthesizing all those split decisions, organizing (external and internal) the lesson and the class, keeping your eyes and the students’ eyes on the objective, and then—selling what you are doing to everyone (administrators, parents, students) involved.

A Good Teacher’s Split-Second Thinking. One of the things I really like about this book is the extent to which (and still it is limited) the author tries to quantify the split-second thinking that goes into the kind of class that Heathcote (or any good teacher) conducts.

I really think that this is key: there are a thousand little actions and reactions that a class brings, and as we teach, we realize that there aren’t really a thousand. There are maybe 10 or 20 categories with a thousand variations. What is the preplanning required to set you up so you can respond to these thousand little actions? Learning those 10-20 categories is one. This is the want-a-hall-pass-for-some-reason category. This is the I-don’t-like-my-grade category. This is the lets-get-the-teacher-to-change-the-subject-and-ramble-so-we-don’t-have-to-work-today category. This is the let’s-make-a-rumpus-so-I-can-have-a-little-much-needed-attention category.

The Fear of Drama in the Classroom. I think that many teachers, (myself included) fear drama in the classroom because the strategies they must learn are new and different from the ones used in a traditional classroom format.

• What happens if the stage-fight turns into a real-fight? (This happened to me)
• What happens if the class audience starts calling the actors names? (This happened to me, too.)
• How do you grade something that is spontaneous and took a lot of courage to do, but which wasn’t very good? (I’m still struggling with this one)
• What if what the students produce looks nothing like what I wanted them to produce? (This one, too.)

These last two are true of a story assignment just as much as a dramatic production for the class, but because the story is more common in a traditional classroom setting than a dramatic production is, average teachers are more familiar with the categories of student actions they need to think about.

The Thinking Process of the Teacher during the Drama Class. One thing I really appreciated about Drama as a Learning Medium is that it describes the thinking process of the teacher during class. In the first chapter, we get to see Heathcote’s thinking and directing of a class as they decide their play (and it really is play) is about a ship at sea in 1610.

In describing the drama work, the author focuses very much on Heathcote’s direct interactions with the students:

·      “…then she changes to a musing tone and says softly… she pauses…another pause… followed by a long pause…..”

·      … then she says quietly, almost to herself…”

·      … then with some gruffness she turns to the laggers and says….” (pp. 5-6)

I think the focus on her tone of voice and her manner is important because it shows the subtlety of what Heathcote is trying to draw out—the teacher as actor. These subtle changes in demeanor are clear decisions she has made to evoke a specific response in the students.

Of course, this is much more difficult in practice than in theory.

The decisions Heathcote allows the class to make. In Chapter 2, the author describes the decisions Heathcote allows the class to make and how she leads them through these decisions:

“She has discovered that an essential element in her teaching is the taking of risks. She comes alive to a situation and does her best teaching when she and the students both are moving into the unknown.” (p. 10)

One thing that is not addressed in this text is how you might write up a lesson plan that would pass muster in an American public school if you don’t “plan beforehand beyond a moment of beginning,” and when “the outcome is unpredictable.” (p.10) But this book sets a lot of things aside and the entire super-category of ‘answering-to-your-administration’ is one.

Addressing the Discomfort of the Teacher. I really like the way the author (and Heathcote) address the discomfort of the teacher. I think that being upfront about one’s own comfort zone is really key to ‘edging in’ as she likes to put it. In the example of the play about the ship, Heathcote’s acknowledged discomfort with the idea of placing herself in the middle of the slave trade allows her to ‘protect herself’ by moving the class to another set of choices. The point is well made that “when she lets the class make decisions, she pays for this in that the class may make decisions that are actually uncomfortable for her. However, if she gets their decisions, she gains their committal; her discomfort is the price.” (p. 15)

But I wish the book would go further into the actual risks. One is uncomfortable for reasons far more important than simply the feeling of discomfort itself. For example, the reason Heathcote is uncomfortable with the slave trade topic is that it throws the power-dynamic of the imaginary world into a horrific parallel and echo-chamber of the actual world. Here would be this English woman teacher, (white, and in both imaginary and real worlds, therefore in power) and a mix of students, black and white, (whose power relationship is directly tied to the class connotations of their color) whose very existence is dependent upon and scarred by 17^th and 18^th century American slave trade, and who live today in a power-dynamic that was created through the slave trade. (A simplified analogy would be a German teacher re-enacting the holocaust with a bunch of German and Jewish students, all of whose grandparents participated in the holocaust.)

In actuality, if this class had been working together for sometime, it might be a really good idea to do something about these historical elephants in the room. In fact, I think it’s important especially for white teachers to be open about the topic of race in an American classroom. The problem is that race is such a charged subject. Because of this, many teachers (and people) avoid the subject altogether. Then they are completely at sea when it does come up, and because the subject is closed for debate, simple misunderstandings can suddenly take on racial overtones. At the same time, the topic has to be addressed with real sensitivity, and with an ear for complexity and shading.

I think that Drama really is a fast-track to these topics in a way: sensitive subjects get brought up almost freely in a dramatic context, perhaps because students are drawing on real life at every moment in order to participate. This means that race is going to come up in some way or another.

A Situation of Discomfort in my own Teaching: Once, I had a group of high school students improvising a chicken-box take-out restaurant. One student was supposed to be the lady behind the counter, taking orders. One student was the short-order cook. The other students were to be customers waiting in line. Immediately, the improv veered into this impossible world for me. One mistake I’d made was that I’d only bought take-out chicken in Baltimore once, so I didn’t know any of the “stock” characters. I didn’t realize that 95% of Baltimore take-out places are run by Koreans, and that there is a very real and tangible animosity between the Koreans, who mostly live in the suburbs, and who seem to be gaining quick access to the American Dream, and the generationally poor and disenfranchised local African-American customers, who a few generations ago, ran the chicken-box stores.

All my students were black, which meant that no sensitive ears but my own heard the almost immediate epithets and racial caricatures; I was suddenly dealing, not with an innocuous role-playing exercise, but an extremely sensitive and angry subject. The real risk was that I was reinforcing deep-seated prejudice. This was true regardless of whether I continued the role-play or discontinued it. Because it came up so suddenly, I didn’t have a ready split-second decision plan in place. I quickly stopped the improv and, because I hadn’t thought about it, I was at a loss as to how to proceed.

So I started a different improv with a different scenario and characters. The experience left me with a little fear and a lot of discomfort. I had done nothing to address the racism in the room. At the same time, I was uncomfortable re-opening the subject because I didn’t know how to effectively address the issue, and I was afraid of going into uncharted territory. The risk was that I might re-enforce deep-seated hatred, I might put myself into a weird power-dynamic with my students (my being white and middle class, they being black and poor) and I could lose authority and direction. So I stayed away.

The Decisions You Don’t Dare Let Out of Your Hands. In her chapter “Edging In,” the author touches on this, saying, “What you need to know is what decisions you don’t dare let out of your hands. Don’t give away decisions that will land you where you don’t want to be, and don’t play so risky that the class doesn’t sense your authority.” (p.27)

Heathcote admits that “when a threshold has been crossed, a teacher loses poise, control and satisfaction.” What she doesn’t really touch on, however, is that you really kind of have to cross these thresholds multiple times in order to really know where they are, and how to cross back. It’s very easy to hit that line—of losing authority, of finding yourself out of your comfort zone, of touching off something potentially explosive. While Heathcote is very good about pointing out that one has to think about where these thresholds are, most of the time—even if you’ve thought about it—you are not going to understand that threshold or its implications until you are on the wrong side of it. Unfortunately, Wagner never really addresses the problem of what to do in these situations.

Revealing the Inner Thoughts of a Teacher. This not withstanding, Heathcote does an excellent job of quantifying a system for thinking about this stuff. I’ve rarely (if ever) seen the inner thoughts of the teacher being discussed at all, even in the eight education classes I’ve taken. That’s fine. I’ve rarely seen the minute-to-minute interactions between people organized on paper anywhere. In teaching, the types of interactions really matter; this is what will make or break you. You can learn grammar and composition out of a book. But you really need to understand human interaction in order to teach, and this book is brilliant in systematizing a way to go about this.

Discussing “Register” in Teaching. A great example of this is her discussion of register. “When she is talking about register as a threshold… she means the attitude implied in the way the teacher relates to the class.” (p. 30) It’s ironic that this is the first place I’ve seen a real discussion of register—it’s a primary part of teaching. It’s extremely necessary to understand register in order to get the kids to do what you want them to do, get them excited, pique their interest, and so forth. Maybe this has not appeared in other education classes because it’s the ‘acting’ part of teaching.

Build a Tension Situation. Another really nice discussion in the book is the one about the fighting boys class, in which they wanted to kill the president. “The teacher’s goal was not to build a conflict situation—which was what the boys did every day in their real lives—but to build a tension situation… the boys needed the adult, not to ‘direct’ the play but to engineer it so it stayed long enough in one place to build toward new insight… without an adult, children’s dramas tend to be episodic, a set of adventures with no time for the build-up of tension or the exploration of what lies between people, of that aura that can be felt in a human situation” (p. 37)

Incorporation “The Brotherhoods.” Herein lies the entire focus of a literature class. Fortunately for us, she spends quite a bit of time explaining exactly how to do this. Brotherhoods is one way. Wagner writes that “By keeping only the inner experience itself constant, a person can span all time and circumstances, all social strata and age groupings. Instantly into a teacher’s hands come dozens of situations in which the inner experience of the participants is the same,” (p. 41) i.e. “If you ______________ you are in the company of all those who ____________________.” (p. 42). This is the ‘universal experience’ that underpins all human interaction, and is highlighted through Drama.

Segmenting. By a pre-planning process she calls ‘segmenting’, Heathcote is able to have at hand a dozen entry points for the class of boys who want to kill the president. If the goal is truly to ‘build a tension situation … not to ‘direct’ the play but to engineer it so it says long enough in one place to build toward new insight,” (p. 37) she has to have a whole set of possible scenarios in which the class can slow down and focus on the characters.

So, here I’m going to go back to my chicken-box store scenario. I really like that Heathcote’s segmenting of anti-American and violent activity of killing the president includes ‘living with murder on one’s conscience, loneliness of being President, danger of flouting the law, prison after being found guilty, fears of the president, loneliness of those outside the law, fears of gang members, the bereaved family, the funeral,” (p. 50) etc. I begin to see how if I had segmented the chicken-box store scenario, I might have been able to sit with the scenario a while in order to push the class beyond their own boundaries to explore the actual people in the chicken-box store rather than re-enforcing negative stereotypes. I can see a segment on “owner’s family goes home after work, employee goes home after work, former owner comes to visit, owner has to sweep up the glass after a robbery, daughter of owner plays outside the store after school,” as ways to perhaps open the students up to the idea that the Korean family running the chicken-box store deserve the respect and dignity of their humanity.

Dropping to the Universal? I need to think more about ‘dropping to the universal’ (52) and Heathcote’s claim that “the deepening of the level of the drama is the one thing classes cannot manage without a teacher,” and the one thing Heathcote is committed to effecting. “Without this dropping to universal human experience, Heathcote sees no point in drama in education.”

I’ve found that yes, it is easy to have empathy when you are working to find something in common with the character you are trying to play. But is this really the point of drama? I agree, but perhaps not so broadly. I want to think that simply playing is important, and that exploring the range of people and things and events and scenes that you can enact is important, that just the ‘agreeing to pretend’ part is important—so the class can begin to have a shared vision of things. Does it have to be ‘dropped to the level of universal’ in order to get these things? Or does having these things mean you’ve ‘dropped to the level?’

All in all, I’m really excited about this book. It puts into words things I’ve thought about deeply as a teacher but without focus or understanding that these were real issues. It describes a systemic way of thinking about teaching drama (and literature) that makes me really want to read more and begin to use in my own work.

If you have any thoughts you’d like to share with Robin, please leave a Comment below and I will make sure she gets them and responds.

You might also like:

The Passing of Dorothy Heathcote

In this post I am sharing some drama warm-ups that work well for building the skills that students need for creating successful Human Slide Shows. In the classroom, a Human Slide Show involves groups of students who play characters in a sequence of silent frozen pictures (tableaux) that depict events in a scene from a text. Human Slide Shows as a classroom drama strategy are also known as freeze-frames, slide shows, and linked still images.

In each slide, the student actors must remain silent, still, expressive, and focused as they strike the rehearsed sequence of poses. 

Observers participate in the Human Slide Show presentation by closing their eyes when cued with the word, “Blackout.” This simulates a theatrical lighting blackout during which the actors change positions and freeze. When the observers (the audience) hear the cue, “Lights up,” they open their eyes to view each slide.

Taking time to do warm-ups/skill-builders like these increases the likelihood that drama experiences will be effective and positive for all. This is especially true when the warm-ups refresh and reinforce the selected acting skills that student actors are going to use in the upcoming drama work.

Simultaneous Solo Human Slide Show Warm-Ups

Directions:

1. Invite all students to stand up and find their Personal Space.

2. Explain that you are going to read a sequence of actions, one action at a time. You will call “Freeze” after you read each action aloud. The students’ acting task is to use their bodies to show how they would play the character doing that action—frozen in time.

3. Tell students that the main acting tool they will use is the body, not the voice. This is a silent activity.

4. Instruct students to remain frozen and in character until you read the next action in the sequence and call “Freeze.”.

5. Encourage students to use energy in their portrayals.

Sample Language: “Show me energy in your bodies when you play your character types. Energy means that you are powerful, active, and animated.”

6. Choose from the sequences of Solo Human Slide Shows below. Begin and continue the warm-up.

7. After the warm-up, discuss with students the ways that they used their bodies and modified posture, positions, and poses.

8. Invite individual students to share their Solo Human Slide Show with the class. Discuss effective examples of uses of body and energy.

9. Discuss with the students what other acting tools and skills were used in the warm-up.

Simultaneous Solo Human Slide Show Warm-Ups

(Note: Special thanks to my students in the CUA Master of Arts in Theatre Education classes who contributed the ideas for these warm-ups.)

1) It’s a beautiful day and you are walking your dog.

2) You run into a friend and stop to talk for a minute.

3) After you say goodbye to your friend, you realize your dog is gone!

4) You sigh with relief when you spot your dog playing with other dogs in the park across the street.

1) You look at your watch or your cell phone and realize you are late.

2) You run to catch the bus.

3) You make it to the bus and get on, out of breath.

4) You start to find a seat and realize it’s the wrong bus!

1) You are walking down the street in the pouring rain.

2) You see a car approaching.

3) You take a step to move farther away from the curb.

4) The car splashes water all over you.

1) You are a soccer player. You are in ready-position, lined up at the beginning of the game, ready to sprint down the field as soon as you kick the ball.

2) You are running down the field determined to make it to the goal.

3) The goal is directly in front of you so you kick the ball.

4) The ball hits the back of the net, and you celebrate your success with your team.

1) You are a guest at a surprise birthday party. Everyone has arrived except the “Birthday Person.” You and the other guests are talking and laughing.

2) You hear that the “Birthday Person” has arrived, so you and the others spread the word.

3) You take your hiding place and wait.

4) The Birthday Person enters. You jump out and yell “Surprise!”

1) You are walking down the street.

2) You see a ten-dollar bill on the ground.

3) You bend down and grab the money.

4) You hold it up to the sky cheering and dancing.

5) While you are celebrating, a gust of wind fills the air and snatches the dollar.

6) You chase the ten-dollar bill as it flies away.

1) You are walking home from school when you notice a little dog in front of you.

2) You stop to pet the dog.

3) You continue walking home. The dog follows you, even though you keep telling it to stop following you.

4) You beg your family to let you keep the dog.

1) You have a bunch of flowers in your hand.

2) You open a cabinet door and reach for your family’s best vase. You take it in one hand because you have the flowers in the other. No big deal right? You can handle it.

3) You pull the vase toward you too quickly and you see it start to slip through your fingers.

4) You desperately try to use your other hand—dropping the flowers—to cradle the vase to save it from crashing to the floor, but it’s too late.

5) You stare in shock at the shards of beautiful crystal on the floor.

The following Solo Human Slide Show Warm-Ups and be done while students are seated at desks:

1) You are a suave business executive sitting are your office desk, eating soup for lunch.

2) You scoop up a spoonful and are ready to eat it, and notice a large fly in your soup!

3) In a moment of panic, you drop your spoon and scream!

4) You look around to see if anyone saw you freak out and attempt to regain composure.

1) You are at your desk ready to take a big test.

2) You take the test paper that your teacher hands you.

3) You calmly write your name at the top of the first page.

3) Suddenly, you realize the test is in Russian! You don’t speak Russian!

4) Thankfully, you wake up and realize it was just a dream.

1) You are sitting in class.

2) You hear the teacher ask for last night’s homework assignment.

3) You didn’t do last night’s homework assignment, so you dig through your backpack while coming up with an excuse.

4) You give your teacher a lame reason for why you don’t have your homework.

If you want to read more about Human Slide Shows, see Chapter 8 in A Dramatic Approach to Reading Comprehension.

If you’d like to try Human Slide Shows for teaching the plays of Shakespeare, this article will help: “Shakespearean Slide Shows”

This video will let you see the Human Slide Shows work in action with 4th graders. 

You might also like:

Human Slide Shows: An Introduction to the Drama Strategy

The Human Slide Shows Drama Strategy