Weekly Teaching and Learning Email - Drama - Thanks to Sara Clark

Drama (Credit: Sara Clark)

3rd December 2014

Dear Colleagues,

This week a huge thanks to Sara for providing some excellent ideas for using drama based activities in the classroom.
This is a simple way to introduce drama and role play into any lesson. The idea is to work with still images/freeze frames. This can be useful with having students summarize a story or to physically show their understanding of a concept. Basically, a freeze frame can be used to stop the action in a play or story so the students are creating a photograph.

Students could work in groups and be asked to show the main points of a story using freeze frames. You can decide on the number of still images based on the length of the story, but 3 is a good place to start showing the beginning, middle and end. The students work cooperatively to show the moments using body language and facial expression. They can freeze for perhaps 5 seconds with each image.

If you want to take the activity further, the still images could be brought to life and the students could use improvisation to add lines that their character says, or even to speak aloud the thoughts the character could be having at that moment.

You could use this with vocabulary skills by asking the students to illustrate a word or phrase by using a still image.

In science, students could create a series of images that show a process, such as metamorphosis or photosynthesis.

Students could even be asked to create a painting or drawing using still images.

There are loads of options! The important thing is that the students are demonstrating their understanding by using movement and drama skills. I’m sure some teachers have used this before in lessons, but it’s a great way to get the students comfortable with using drama as it doesn't require any speaking to take place.

Good luck and please let me know if you have any questions! sca@traillschool.ac.th

Sara