Week 1: Drama and Literacy

Professor Miyata "Teacher in Role

 Teacher reads story aloud in dramatic and engaging way. Teacher pauses story and invites students to partake in making inferences/predictions based on where they are in the story. Teacher sets the stage - “We are at a town meeting and can we please hear from Anana.” and waits for student to assume role.





Reflection: This strategy is important to me because it makes story-telling come to life. The teacher sets the stage to engage students in the story, it is enticing and prepares to transfer role-play to students as the story ensues. I would use this in class, especially at the beginning of a drama unit, because it puts the teacher on stage first and allows students to slowly get comfortable and warm up to the idea of role play.

Teacher pauses story at suspenseful parts so that students may use the knowledge they have of the story to make predictions. Teacher asks questions for students to ponder quietly: “is this a friend or foe, how do you visualize the stranger?” Students visualize and present tableaux of their imagined stranger and voice their description of the stranger to a partner.

Reflection: This is an effective strategy because by suspending the story students are able to use literacy skills to make inferences and analyze the story for comprehension. The teacher's prompts allow students to pause the story to practice drama along the way as a way to use multimodal strategies to further enhance reading comprehension. 

“Story drama approach encourages teachers to use the issues, themes, characters, mood, conflict or spirit of the story as a beginning for dramatic exploration.” (David Booth)
Exploring an Inuit folktale to inspire drama.