Dear Drama Diary,
Sorry I haven’t been able to write to you in a while. School has gotten very busy. I’ve missed you!
We did another drawing activity in class this week. It was called collective drawing—we got to
work as a team! In this strategy, small
groups (or the whole class) work together to create a picture that incorporates
everyone’s thoughts and ideas. Groups
can choose to add words or short sentences to enhance their drawing. Collective drawing gives students a chance to
collaborate with their peers and generate discussion about and reflect upon the
dramatic arts. What a great way to get
students talking to one another!
In order to test out this strategy, we used the mentor text Jeffrey and Sloth by Kari-Lynn Winters
and Ben Hodson. We read the story,
stopping at key parts. In small groups,
we drew pictures of what we predicted the next section of the book might be
like. As we continued reading, we
adapted our original pictures to include the new information. Jeffrey
and Sloth was a great text to use for this activity because it had many
plot twists and cute moments. Plus, who
doesn’t love sloths?! As if that wasn’t
enough, we then got to go around the room and share our creations with the
other groups. It was important that we
justify our thinking and explain the meaning behind our creations. This is such a wonderful way to gain insight
into what students are thinking and also get them comfortable with oral
presentations in an informal setting. I
have some great photos of my classmates’ drawings to show you!
This week’s cross-curricular connection was especially cool
because it combined THREE subjects—drama, visual art, and language. The visual art was evident in the creation of
the drawings and the language portion was linked to the reading of the mentor
text. Because our activity dealt with
the concept of making predictions, I think it would be an awesome activity to
use in a science class. Students could
predict and draw the outcome of an experiment they’re working on. Once they have completed some of the steps in
the procedure, they could adapt their drawings to reflect new predictions. Instead of including words or short
sentences, they could include labels using scientific vocabulary.
I am looking forward to learning a new drama strategy next
week!
Goodnight Drama Diary,
See you soon,
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