Today we had privilege
of having the Education Manager, John, from Sydney Theatre Company demonstrate
and share the practise of the Sydney Theatre Company’s School DramaTM program. The workshop involved a series
of learning experiences to enhance student’s learning in literacy through the
process of drama. The book we were focusing on was called: The Werewolf Knight by Jenny Wagner and illustrated by Robert
Roennfeldt.
I learnt a lot of
activities from workshop. One of the activities I enjoyed doing was: Drawing
the village. John read the first few pages of The Werewolf Knight and then
stopped at a page which showed a dark forest crowded with trees and a cave in
the shape of a werewolf head shining in the moonlight. The activity involved
getting into groups of five and drawing a map on butcher’s paper of the area
where this story could take place. We needed to think about what we know
already (that there was a stream, a forest, a castle and a wolf) and what could
also be in the area. I enjoyed it because I was able to use my imagination and
think of what other things could be in the area. For example, on our map, we
had a castle that was in the picture and inside the castle was a princess
chamber, vampire lair, knights round table, unicorn stables, witches hut,
village, crops, forest, wolf head stone and a secret hideaway cottage.
On my last practical
experience, after students had read some chapters of a novel, I had students do
a conscience alley (where a question is posed, for example, Should James save
the worm? A student will become the character James and walk down the middle of
two lines made up of students. One line
of students try to convince James why he should save the worm and the other
line of students will tell James why he should not save the worm). The students
were very excited to do this activity but the student’s became confused as to
who was saying what.
From the workshop, John
modelled and gave set lines to students: “Feolf should tell Fioran that he is a
Werewolf because …..” or “Feolf should not tell Fioran that he is a Werewolf
because ….”. He also suggested that writing sentence starters of what students
would say on the whiteboard for students to have a look at. I think that the
conscience alley is a great activity because students think about the different
perspectives and what the character goes through, how they think, what their
thoughts are. I would definitely try this again in my next practicum as it
gives students the opportunities to become the voices a character hears in
their thoughts. As Gibson & Ewing (2011) explain, “students are provided
opportunities to consider consequences of actions, characters’ reasoning and
think about potential resolutions” (p.56).
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