We did 'We're Going On A Bear Hunt' activity through a little children storybook. Today's activity can be applied to primary children, even for secondary school students (maybe to a certain extent). Most of the children storybooks have a building-up climax that engages all children to the story, because it is what spurs them to read further. This spurring of moment can be acted out or 'played' in drama activities.
Activity 1
Groups of 9. 3 will be observing the 6 people, who are going to act the whole story out. Different groups will have a different way to act it out by using elements of drama. While the 6 people are planning, the rest will observe and note down the planning. After acting it out, we record and analyze the whole process through their observation and recording of video.
I feel that this activity allows the performers to reflect and think what went wrong and what we can do better through external views and the recording of our performance. After what they told us about their observations, I realize that the activity requires us to have team-bonding skills. It is either we follow the leader and contributing along the way or we each come up with an idea and choose what is best, so there are split responsibilities and roles amongst us. During this activity, we plan as we go along, trying out various ways by acting it out instead of discussing what we want to do first and then rehearse it out. Both ways are not wrong, they are just different approaches. This activity is good for primary, as well as secondary school students because the activity is experimental where the students explores and try it out. If the acting or rehearsing is not to their liking, they change, so in a way, it varies their thinking and acting skills, therefore applying some decision-making skills. It also develops their imaginative and improvisation skills. After they have established their roles, tensions and focus, they can then be spontaneous, allowing ideas to just flow freely. One downside to trying out this activity in secondary schools is that students in the neighborhood schools or normal stream students may find the play kiddish and not want to participate. They may feel that because it is just a children story, they would not want to cooperate.
Extended activity
After activity 1, they can discuss about what went wrong, how can they improve and then try it out again. After the second try, come back together as a group and discuss again. Their discussion should be on whether their focus is now clearer, more defined, more fluent and stronger than the previous. This is part of realism on stage.
This extended activity allows students to reflect upon and decide what is best and what is not in their play, coming up with fresh new ideas to make the play more engaging and more 'playful' to the audience. However, O'toole and Haseman (1989) warned that 'Realism is not easy... strength of feeling in your original improvisation may now appear limp and lacking in impact as you lose the spontaneity.' (Pg 145-146). At times, re-enacting may cause students to feel that it is no longer improvisation and therefore, dismiss it as merely acting like any television drama. It is still improvisation because students use other means of acting to portray their ideas more effectively to their audiences. In fact, it expands their exploration, experimental, improvisational and imaginative skills.
Activity 2
We can use drama conventions suggested by Jo Raphael (2002). We can use Tableaux to create portraits of tensions and focus, Writing-in-role to express the character's feelings, flashback to develop scriptwriting skills, or even hot seating the bear to know the character better.
It helps the students to explore and even create beyond the script. They are making meaning and purpose out of the script that they create or add on. This, I feel, may be more interesting for secondary school students because they are not restricted to the text alone compared to the first. They are more comfortable and these conventions pushes their imaginative skills further as they make meaning to their text. They have the freedom to express and explore deeper into the story. They also have storytelling skills as they act out their versions of the story. It creates more opportunities for them to create their own stories.
References
Raphael, J. (2002). Drama Conventions.
O' Toole, J. & Haseman, B. (1989). Dramawise: Introduction to General Certificate of Secondary Education Drama. Improvisation. Australia: Heinemann Educational Publishers
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