Three broad, interrelated approaches apply to all fine arts classes. These are creating (students create their own dances, dramas, music compositions, or visual images), presenting (students prepare and perform or exhibit a dance, drama, or musical selection, or visual images), and responding (to live, recorded, or print presentations and exhibitions).
Note: The following information is adapted from Arts Education (Curriculum Guides for Grade 1-5), Saskatchewan Education, September, 1991.
The creative process of exploration, selection, combination, refinement, and reflection allows students to be active learners. As they create, students are experiencing, gaining knowledge, experimenting, and facilitating at the same time. Often, too, there is a social dimension as students work with partners or in groups. Both process and product are valued: students need opportunities to practise taking creative risks, alone and in groups, without always having to aim for a predetermined quality standard.
To facilitate students' creative development, teachers play an interactive role through coaching, guiding, and discussion with students at all stages of the creative process. Depending on the particular requirements and students' prior experiences, teachers may at first need to develop activities that are more structured, in order to allow students to gain confidence with drama skills and processes. Once students become familiar with these skills and processes, activities can become less teacher-directed.
The suggestions listed in the Creating Drama chart can help teachers structure creation activities for drama. In practice, these activities will vary in sophistication and scope according to the time available and the developmental level of students.
| Establish a warm, accepting, and non-judgmental atmosphere where students feel safe and free to take creative risks. Show enthusiasm. Join with students in the activities when appropriate to help establish trust. |
| Set ground rules to keep the lesson running smoothly. For example, students should know if they are to start and stop on a signal from the teacher and where the boundaries of the drama space are. |
| Provide opportunities for individual and group creation activities. |
| Use a variety of stimuli to inspire students' imaginations and assist in the creative process (e.g., pictures, scent, music, poetry). Use a variety of images to encourage students to explore several possibilities. Use issues and topics of interest and relevance to them. |
| Provide a context or motivation for creation (e.g., current focus or issue, a given historical or cultural context). |
| Assist students as they decide on a focus for creation (e.g., expressing a feeling or idea, interpreting a poem or story, exploring specific drama skills, transforming a previous work, solving a given problem). |
| Coach students while they create, being clear and loud enough so that they can hear. Say words in a manner that conveys their meaning, encouraging students to respond in a particular way (e.g., s-t-r-e-e-e-e-e-e-t-c-h). Encourage them to explore a range of possibilities for movement and dialogue. |
| Use visual aids and other representations to convey ideas when appropriate. |
| Use repetition. Students gain satisfaction and confidence from learning a skill and repeating it. Allow opportunities for refinement. |
| Encourage the value of stillness where appropriate. Stillness is not a state of "not doing," but can have equal validity in the drama. |
| Discuss objectives and establish criteria for assessment. |
| Provide opportunities for students to reflect on and assess their work. |
| Allow time for students to respond to their peers' work. Provide opportunities for them to rehearse and present their creations in more formal contexts, as appropriate. |
| Help students extend and redirect their experiences. Encourage them to talk about their projects with their drama mentors, to polish their creations for presentation, to view dramas that illustrate the same principles they use, to attend live performances, to adapt or expand their original ideas to create new works, or to apply their creations to other fine arts disciplines (e.g., use a drama creation as a stimulus for music composition). |
Students gain personal satisfaction and accomplishment when they are given opportunities to prepare, polish, and present or perform their own work. Presentation or performance for peers, parents, or the public provides a focus and an end point to the creative problem-solving process. When their work is to be presented or performed, it is important for students to be involved in the selection and decision-making process. All students, not just the most able ones, must be given opportunities to present or perform.
Note: In the suggested strategies in this IRP, the terms presentation and performance are often used interchangeably. In practice, the teacher, sometimes in consultation with students, will determine the level of formality appropriate to the situation.
When designing activities related to presentation and performance, consider opportunities for students to develop and apply their knowledge and skills related to the following:
Revised: July 8, 1998
