Day 6 - February 25, 2015

We did it! The last week of drama (boo) but third last week of class (woo).

This post will be short as I sadly did not get any photo's of the day, but what a day it was.  We opened it up with everyone presenting how they felt about drama between the beginning and the final day of class.  People used a wide-range of strategies, and I'm not going to lie, while I knew basically what I was going to say, I had no idea what strategy to use.  I ended up using an interview strategy because I thought it would be hilarious to interview myself.  It got a few laughs, mission success.

I work with kids with special needs so when Gillian asked if I would like to work with one of the kids with special needs I was quite excited.  The boys name was Eli and he was a champ, just had a little bit of energy!  I was also paired with a girl in the class, although I cant remember her name right now (new names take me days to remember, unless its someone like Eli who stands out).  They both worked great together and were very excited to get to the bottom of the animals in the Olympics debate.  This was a super fun class and it did two things for me 1) got me super excited for block and 2) showed me how into drama kids can get.  I've never taught a proper drama class and the kids excitement every second of the class was addictive.  I absolutely plan on using some of the strategies shown to me over these 6 weeks (honestly probably not even in drama but as a fun integrated curriculum activity).  This class was great, I just wish I had more chance for Improve/character stuff, even though I am well aware that was not the purpose of the class.

This was a great class, and I hope you enjoy our final performances Kari-Lynn!

Day 5 - February 18, 2015

Graduating year, final performance of HS.  This was the wonderful cast.

Today was my presentation day! So much pressure!

But first, the wave.  I like the idea of this activity but once again the content was a bit too intense for me.  This time it was dealing with homelessness.  The wave is when everyone walks in a line...a wave if you will....someone will drop out into a tableaux only to be picked back up by the group when it swings around again.  I thought about dropping out but I didnt have anything to say about homelessness that I can portray with just my body.

Next up, our presentation.  I was feeling fine about it, I was prepared, I had faith in my group and I enjoy talking in front of people so there was little to no nervousness.  Our group made a concentrated effort to stay away from the heavy topics because Kim and I are not huge fans of those types of topics, the rest of the group was okay with it because we chose a very fun book, the Hiccupotomas.  This was a story about a hippo with hiccups! It's great fun!  My part of the assignment was to work on the picture walk strategy.  A picture walk is a form of predicting the text where you will show a picture and have the students predict in tableaux what will happen next.

Explaining the picture walk to our audience! (I have this shirt on a LOT in photos)

We used a few scenes from the book and the class seemed to really enjoy it.  The rest of my group presented without a hitch!  We also used the voice over narration, mime and guided visualization as the rest of our strategies. (our prezi with our expectations and the lesson can be found here: https://prezi.com/azfz00pa6uzs/the-hiccupotamus/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy)

Kim presenting Guided Visualization and me looking all together far too intense.

The theory talked about in class was the Critical Position Theory which states that a persons upbringing and personal experience contribute to our identities.  Some of these things can change (attitude, clothes, mood.etc) while others are fixed.  It's very important for teachers to be able to make the distinction so you're not trying to change something that can't really be changed.

The last thing we looked at in class was the critical analysis process from the curriculum.  I personally think this is one of the most important things looked at all year so far simply because I believe that there is not enough critical thinkers in the world.

The proliferation of information on the internet means I can tell someone that there is such a thing as "Drop Bears" a supposedly bloodthirsty marsupial with a weakness for Vegemite, back it up with a webpage and a wiki entry, and BOOM...its a fact.  If you seriously Google drop bear the first 3 entries all perpetuate the hoax (seriously: http://australianmuseum.net.au/drop-bear, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_bear, and http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Drop_bear).  I think this is hilarious, but also sad.  People should see this sort of stuff and instantly think "nope" but because its online its fact?  I think we as teachers should focus more on critical thinking and analysis because hopefully that will help defeat the rampant misinformation that exists online.

This was a great second last week of class and I was very excited to see what comes next!

Day 4 - February 11, 2015

Ready for curtain!

We started off the day doing a name game using syllables.  You would have to clap out the syllables in a persons name while saying it.  Eventually we had to do it without saying names.  It got tricky but it was very fun.  I can see this being a great get to know you activity for a class that has never met as well as a class that has known each other for years.

Next up was the presentations for the day, and unfortunately this was also a very heavy topic.  HOWEVER this was a topic that made sense (MLK and the 60's equality struggle) to me because it was Black History Month AND the movie about MLK's peace march was recently released in theatres and was nominated for a few Oscars.  So even though it was heavy, this made sense to me.

The first strategy we used was voices in the head again.  After this we did Draw/Pass where someone writes/draws something and passes it on so the next person can draw/write something.  We made a speech about equality that we had to present to our classmates (which was fun because even though it was short, I got to be a character!!).  After this we did an activity called gibberish where one person will do something and speak gibberish while the other interprets.  This was funny becasue Dominika was speaking gibberish but I was pretty sure she was just speaking another language.  When i asked her about it she said that she was in fact speaking Polish.

Dominika Speaking gibberish (Polish) and Ashley interpreting

The last strategy was called Alter-Ego and its basically where you have to be the devil or angel on someones shoulders.  Jen and I were the alter ego's (I was devil, she was angel) of Rosa Parks (Alissa) as she was asked to leave the bus.  I enjoyed this activity because I got to play a character, even though it was for a short time.

Alter-Ego

 I think this could be a great activity to use because all kids understand the good/evil dichotomy from tv shows and moves.  I think all student could relate to this AND like the activity from a previous class (hot seat) this is a great activity to explore differing perspectives of people.

Next we talked about Multiple Intelligence Theory and the Creative Process.  I wont talk much about these here as these have been discussed in other classes.

Lastly we incorporated science into drama by learning about different insects.  We did a choral reading again but this time using boom whackers.  I am a big fan of music and hitting things, so a boom whacker is basically a perfect storm of fun for me.  For that reasons I will ALWAYS be careful using things like this in class.  I'm tempted to play with this stuff and i'm 25, what will a 7 year old do?  This was a fun activity though, any time choral reading is done well it can be a very profound and beautiful auditory experience.

Day 3 - February 4, 2015

Eye shadow does NOT work on me apparently.  Preparing for final Grade 11 performance.

So right off the top, this was probably my favourite session.  That is because in this class I got to do basically my favourite thing ever - inhabit a character and play around with it.  Sure the character was a giraffe but he was a dancing giraffe...nay he was MY dancing giraffe.  (I couldn't figure out how to embed the video BUT enjoy - https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10155192548720501&set=o.1536723739911265&type=2&theatettpsr)

The strategies used in this class were choral reading which is where groups of students read the same passage together - it makes for a very cool effect.  After choral reading we did something called mirrors which was fun to do, but very difficult.  I dont have the patience to do it well, but those that did, it looks awesome.  We also did some tableaux's today and after seeing how our tableaux turned out, it might be my favourite one that I did in class.

We nailed it girls! (by the way in the scene i'm really horrible ugly, they are blown away by this)

After the strategies we looked at the Ontario curriculum to look up definitions of the fundamentals of movement.  I think exploring the fundamentals of movement could be an entire lesson in and of itself, and the only way for students to really learn about them is to DO IT.  Some of these can be very difficult (angular/curved body, neutral space.etc) so I think the best way to teach this, is to have the students actually do it.

Fundementals of Movement

Finally we got to the giraffe part! We were reading from a book that was about bullying.  I will always be a major anti-bullying proponent and thats because I was picked on a lot as a kid.  Its a topic that hits almost too close to home.

So I loved exploring bullying through something like a giraffe dancing.  It was perfectly silly while also being a serious piece.  I also just had a lot of fun pretending to be a giraffe and dancing and being silly!  Dominika started as the giraffe and we did a voice alley with her where we basically pelted her with insults.  This can be a great strategy to show how much words actually hurt.

This was Dominika demonstrating her dance - we "insulted her" after this beautiful display

 Then i got to be the giraffe, we did a hot seat activity where I got to answer questions in character (which i loved) and we wrapped it up with the giraffe finding his confidence again!

Giraffe in the hot seat

The book was a lot of fun, and I will ABSOLUTELY be doing something very similar to his in a classroom.

This is how a happy Giraffe dances

Day 2 - January 28, 2015

Classmates TRYING to apply make-up to my face.  Grade 11 preparing for final drama performance..

Today was the first week of class presentations.  The theory focused on during the presentation was Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.

The topic focused on was Residential School so it was a bit heavy for so early in the morning.  This always felt weird to me, I tend to avoid really serious topcs kind of in general because I would rather talk about something silly and fun and more relevant to young students than something like the Residential Schools.  Don't get me wrong, I understand the importance of a topic like this, it is just not my cup of tea.  With that out of the way, I would like to say that since this topic makes me uncomfortable the group and the activities we did were great for making me feel at ease as well as expressing ideas about Residential Schools.

One of the activities we used was a flash back where people would act out some scenes from the book.  Next was an eavesdropping activity where you would pretend to listen in on a conversation from the story.  After this was the hot seat where someone would have to take a role from the story while we asked them questions.  This was more up my alley, I love improv activities like this.  I remember this morning people were a bit reticent to answer questions, I tried to ask as many as possible so the activity was not de-railed.  The last activity the group did was position-mapping like we did in the first class.  We were to decide on whether or not we thought that residential school still affected aboriginal peoples to this day.

I'm close to the chair because I believe that these schools still affect people today.

After Kari-Lynn led us through some other activities that included a sort of choral reading that when done together sounded very cool and powerful.  There was also tableaux that we created and while in our tableaux's we had to do a voices in the head activity where we would give a voice to what our character/tableaux was feeling.

Now even though I love improv I realize good improv can be very difficult to do (unless it's something like the Question game).  So I don't know if I would use it beyond what was used in this class with the hot seat activity (which I think can be actually be a very valuable activity to try to get students to look at the world through someone else's perspective/point of view.

Day 1 - January 21, 2015

It's Drama Time!!!!

This is a community theatre production I was a part of in HS.  I wasn't here for this photo sadly.

This first picture, while random, is here to show you guys a little bit of my history with drama (I'll post 1 per week/reflection).  This was a production of the WWI play All Quiet on the Western Front.

I like art, not just visual arts, but I adore the blanket term of arts.  I play some instruments and I absolutely LOVE drama.  It probably has to do something with how I was when I was a kid and not being comfortable in my own skin but nowadays one of my favourite things in the world is to play around, to explore a character, to have fun being someone else.  That being said, I was a little bummed when at the beginning of the class Kari-Lynn explained the difference between Drama and Theatre.  I was only bummed because Drama and Theatre had always been interchangeable for me, so I expected some more improv games, character works and more theatrical things.  However at the end of the 6 weeks, I understood the difference, and that understanding started today.

We started off the class by playing some ice-breaker games.  We played a game called sharky-fin where the "shark" must try to approach and touch a player in the circle before the lifeguard saved them.  I love games like this, I have worked at summer camps for years so I have played games very similar to this one and this was a great game that I will absolutely be bringing back to camp with me.

We did some position mapping which is where you make stance on a topic using your body and the proximity to a chair.  On day 1 the position mapping was about how comfortable you were with drama.  I was basically standing on the chair because as stated, I love drama.

Drama and I are homies.

There is something that was introduced the class that I thought was awesome, the right to pass.  I would never use the right to pass for myself because I love getting into a character and I love any dramatic challenge thrown my way.  However, I am an anomaly.  People generally arent as comfortbale with being loud, silly, and out there like I can be.  For those people I believe the right to pass to be an incredibly important aspect of drama.  It makes drama safe, and the best way to be dramatic is if you know you are in a safe place.  

The last thing I'd like to mention is the theory mentioned in this class.  This theory basically describes how people internalize and learn from information.  It was very cool learning about this theory because one of my high school teachers taught us this as she felt it was very important to understand this in order to undertake drama in the best possible way.

Dwyer's Theory of Learning

I was excited to start drama, definitely more excited than music/art simply because I adore being dramatic, silly, and over the top.  I am very excited for what comes next.

Kim and I worked together for the ice-breaker activity called "gimme 5" where you had to share 5 new things with a partner.  Kim and I have grown to know each other alot in the past year, so probably not the best choice for this activity as finding new things to talk about wasnt easy!