Day Three: Giraffes Can't Dance

Third week of class meant more presentations! And a lot of giraffe talk.. here we go!

Theory: Bloom's Taxonomy

This theory really resonated with me. Even though it is something that is obvious when you think about it. But it is definitely something that we need a reminder of, as teachers, that teaching should not just be about talking at students. Students need to be able to make connections and take ownership of their own learning and this theory identifies that. The best way to ensure that learning is happening during lessons is ensuring all of these aspects are involved.

Elements of Movement:

These elements of movement are something that I tried to keep in mind throughout this class and the strategies we were learning. It is a part of class that I feel is necessary to highlight in order that we don't forget to ensure the curriculum remains a part of the drama strategies we teach.

Strategies:

The first set of strategies in this picture are the ones that were presented by my classmates and the second set of strategies are the ones that we went through together as a class.

I really enjoyed the way this group did their presentation. Rather than a whole class, we had stations that we rotated. It is clear that the whole class liked this way of presenting as that is what every group has done since then. 

These strategies furthered the idea we have talked about each week that drama can be integrated into many different subject areas. There doesn't necessarily have to be a period every day designated for drama but that if you can and do integrate it into the other subject areas, it will be more engaging for the students and allow them to make more connections to the material. For example, I really enjoyed the News Reporting strategy as it allowed me to think more about how my character would be feeling. This could be used in math (asking about a real-life problem in math and explaining how they found the answer), social studies (interviewing someone from the past), and in language (interviewing an individual from a book in order to see their motivations more clearly). 

I also really enjoyed the rest of class which revolved around the book, Giraffes Can't Dance. This part of class made it clear to me how much you can do with just one book. 

Through just this one book, we examined the strategies of hot seat, dance sequences, voice alley, voice over narration, and corridor of voices. These pictures are some small snaps into what happened during this class. This is one reason I really enjoyed drama class; the ability to take pictures as we went. It really helps to be able to look back and reflect on these pictures and say OH I remember that and how much fun it was!

This lesson was really eye-opening for me. It isn't as if this book we read was a large chapter book with a lot of plot twists and turns but it was easily adaptable to many different drama strategies. I really liked the voice alley and corridor of voices strategy but I can see how it could end badly in a classroom of adolescents. To be able to use this strategy, I think your classroom management skills would have to be near perfect and you would have to know your class very well. As we were all a class of teacher candidates, it worked out fine but I can definitely see it not ending very well in a classroom. 

Writing this portfolio is really making me see how useful this will be to me professionally in the future. I think it would be really easy to forget everything I learned in this drama class but  this portfolio is already helping me to remember the strategies and I'm already thinking of ways to bring this into my next placement.