Drama 4
Exploration and Imagination

It is expected that students will:

• select feelings and ideas expressed in the group to use in dramatic work
• demonstrate the ability to provide and accept constructive feedback
• suggest reasons for various responses to a dramatic work
• demonstrate co-operative effort to develop dramatic work

To view the prescribed learning outcomes for Exploration and Imagination in other grades click on an icon below.

• Divide the class into small groups and give each group a newspaper headline (e.g., from the sports page). Discuss the stories behind the headlines and have the groups create tableaux to represent them. In creating the tableaux, ask the groups to choose roles, decide what the tableaux will look like, practise forming the tableaux, and present them to the class. Guide discussion and reflection through questions such as:
  • Who appears to be a leader or the most important person in the tableau? How do you know?
  • What emotions are depicted?
  • What problems did your group encounter, and how did you solve them?
• Give pairs of students each a stick (e.g., thin garden stake, twig, unsharpened pencil). Have partners hold the sticks between them using index fingers only. Direct them to move in different ways and directions without dropping their sticks.
• Select a book with pictures that tell a story. Divide the class into two teams (A and B) and work through the following sequence:
  1. Have teams sit in two lines facing each other and form partners with those sitting directly across.
  2. Stand behind team A and show the first picture to team B members, who describe what they see to their partners in team A.
  3. Repeat the process (team A describes to team B) with the next picture, and continue the pattern to the end of the book.
  Discuss the original story with the whole class, comparing it to the stories described by the teams. Ask students to identify aspects of the pictures (e.g., facial expressions) that helped them to tell the story accurately. Have students develop a dramatic representation of the story, based on their observations.

Suggested Assessment Strategies

• Prompt students to reflect on their responses to dramatic works by asking questions such as:
  • What stands out in your mind?
  • What surprised you?
  • Which part evoked the strongest feelings or emotions for you?
  • What other feelings did you have as you watched?
  • What questions would you like to ask the author, director, or performers?
• After a group activity, ask students to talk about some of the problems they had to solve. Focus on their solutions to specific challenges by asking questions such as:
  • How did that work?
  • What other approaches did you consider?
  • How did you decide what to do?
  • What did you learn that you could use in another situation?
• After students have worked in groups, ask them to choose one or two of the following prompts and to write, sketch, or act out their responses:
  • I helped with planning by ---------- .
  • One example of how I encouraged other people was ---------- .
  • One of my ideas that the group used was ---------- .
  • You could tell I was working co-operatively by the way I ---------- .
• During group work, occasionally assign two students in each group to be observers responsible for watching how the group works together and providing feedback. Ask each group to decide what the observers should watch for. Have observers record and report on collective rather than individual behaviour, being careful to describe rather than make judgments. After observers have reported to their groups, prompt class discussion with questions such as:
  • What are some of the ways observers helped the groups?
  • Was there anything the observers noticed that surprised you?

Recommended Learning Resources