FOR EXPERIENTIAL ENGAGEMENT IN DRAMA / THEATRE
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
An extension of Young People and the Arts: An Agenda for Change by Sue Giles, Platform Papers No 54, Currency House Feb 2018
by Frank McKone
Acknowledgements
The central content in this article was originally published by the Education Directorate, Australian Capital Territory Government in the course document Drama A&T, 1994 (Hawker College). Material consisting of direct quotations is reproduced here by kind permission of the Directorate and the three co-authors 1992/93: myself and colleagues David McClay and Jenny Brigg.
The concepts concerning experiential engagement are largely derived from the work published by David A. Kolb: Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, 1984 (2nd Edition Contents, Preface and Introduction now available at http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/9780133892406/samplepages/9780133892406.pdf Pearson Education, NJ, 2015)
Background
In her Platform Paper, Young People and the Arts: An Agenda for Change, Sue Giles, well-recognised for her work as artistic director of Polyglot Theatre, Melbourne, makes an impassioned and urgent plea for adults to appreciate the need for and to put into practice, theatre which is for, with and by young people – not at them.
These are my words to distinguish between those children’s theatre productions which are valid educationally – in the broad sense of having social value – as opposed to those that are presented on stage, and on small and large screens, in ways which impose attitudes and ideas, and even stereotyped feelings, on the viewers. Indeed, as I have experienced, this essential difference in the business of theatre is important to recognise in all theatrical productions for audiences of any age. Quality theatre means engaging audiences sincerely in new understanding.
For this discussion, the issue is the nature of engagement. For adults, watching a stage from the bleachers, the two-way engagement between them and the actors, and thus – via the directors and designers – engagement with the authors, is for the most part an act of the imagination. Watching, for example, the current BBC 1 production of Howard’s End, is illuminating in many ways – about the issues surrounding sexist behaviour, including the aside remark by Mr Wilcox that ‘I am not Bernard Shaw’, as well as about E M Forster’s remarkable ability to create fully-rounded characters across the several layers of the English society of his day. It is a person’s imaginative response to drama which needs to be developed in childhood and in youth. As Polyglot’s videos show on their website http://polyglot.org.au/ this is the essential work that Sue Giles and the many others she refers to in her Platform Paper are doing every day – despite lack of recognition, including insecure financing, for what has become an established Theatre for Young People industry.
The key issue which arises, as I see it, from the Giles paper is that adults who have not had exposure to personal engagement behind the scenes, and so do not understand the process of drama creation, and whose imaginations have been guided to seek superficial ‘entertainment’, are inclined to think of theatre for children as essentially only to ‘entertain’ them and to inculcate conventional ideas, beliefs and behaviours. In other words these people would replicate themselves. Giles describes the situation perhaps more bluntly, as follows:
Children live in an adult world that controls them, feeds
them, teaches them, trains them in values and principles,
asks them to sit quietly, teaches them manners, cares for
them, punishes them, loves them, watches them, neglects
them and damages them. Children have no money, no
vote, no power. They are small, vulnerable and easily hurt.
They are under the eye of a controlling force because they
are not yet trusted to be self-aware and able to think for
themselves. Some adults understand them, others consider
them to be a different species—and yet all adults were
children once too.
To assist practitioners – whether teachers in educational institutions or theatre directors of children’s drama – I would like to provide details of the process which I along with a number of colleagues developed over 20 years’ work. At the time, this was for senior secondary students, but the principles and practice can apply to any age – from babies to young adults as directors such as Sue Giles show, and indeed for many situations which would not be thought of as ‘drama’ for adults of any age, taking up David Kolb’s still ongoing work in workplace training and organizational behaviour.
My purpose is not only to provide drama/theatre practitioners with methods and concepts that may help them in their practice, but perhaps (rather than teach ‘grandmothers to suck eggs’) more to give practitioners the words to explain why and how they do what they do, to those others who would distrust or prefer them to go away; who do not recognise the value of child/youth initiated drama/theatre – and do not wish to provide support or funds.
As one school principal demanded of me, “Where is the Content in Drama?”. It took 20 years to answer that question. This was because I had begun with largely romantic ideas based on the Play Way approach of the British educator, Brian Way. Here is what I, with the help of many colleagues, settled on. There are three main parts: Drama Knowledge, Personal Development and Design of Process.
These are followed by an outline of the student assessment system we developed for this age group of self-selected Drama students. Though this section may seem relevant only to a formal school situation, it was designed as a guide for both students and teachers – including new staff coming from other schools or systems. Curriculum is strongly school-based in the Australian Capital Territory, so this document was originally specific to Hawker College.
1. Drama Knowledge
If people want to know what is the content of drama, we found there are five elements in drama, whether it be improvisational activity (which is close to the play that is natural to young children, but is still an essential component in adult acting) or the performance of tightly scripted theatre (which assumes an established cultural tradition, specific genre, or new exploratory writing). These are:
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KEY LEARNING AREA 1 : DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
ROLE KNOWLEDGE:
Learning to "identify with a particular set of values and attitudes, which may or may not be your own" (Haseman & O'Toole: Dramawise 1987); create a shared belief in the dramatic reality of the roles; develop one's awareness of images and feelings; be aware of and work with other people's images and feelings.
GROUP KNOWLEDGE:
Learning to take personal initiatives; co-operate with others; gain confidence in movement, speech and improvisation; take the lead in group work; direct other people with confidence; adjust one's approach to help the group work together.
BODY KNOWLEDGE
Learning to keep in time with the group; relax; develop good posture; control breathing; move freely and with control; control voice; understand the importance of training in physical skills; develop and use personal warm-up routines; direct warm-ups with other people.
KNOWLEDGE OF DESIGN ELEMENTS
Learning to use self and others in space, sound, light, colour, texture and materials in purposeful ways to create dramatic effects; highlight drama with complementary use of any appropriate media; explore presentation and management skills.
CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE
Learning to place drama experience in a cultural context, using a variety of appropriate forms among which might be script, film/video treatment, documentary, essay, research report, narrative, plot (lighting/sound/stage manager), prompt book, illustration, statement (financial), report (administrative), director's instructions, scene analysis (directing/acting/technical), character analysis (directing/acting/technical), notation (movement/dance/music), phonetics, production review, theatre criticism, social and historical study.
NOTE:
Drama Knowledge is the domain of learning. The five types of drama knowledge are areas of focus within the domain. They cannot be taught or learned as independent entities, since each overlaps into all the others.
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The degree to which a child, teenager or young adult may be expected to become conscious of operating in each of these areas of focus is clearly different according to their age, their practical drama experience, their intention or purpose in participating. Judgements by others, such as a teacher, a director or audience are only relevant where the activity is in the formal or institutional context of ‘learning drama’ or ‘studying theatre arts’ or undertaking “theatre training”.
There is no requirement for assessment, for example, in situations like those set up by Polyglot Theatre in public areas where Polyglot performers are dressed as ants, transporting bundles from place to place (representing moving egg-sacs to a new nest). Though these actors and their director and designers could be expected to understand as well as perform in all five areas of Drama Knowledge, the two to three-year-olds who take part will do so without needing to be conscious at all of these concepts.
However, when parents take part with their children or as audience, and ask questions, the practitioners’ being able to articulate these elements of Drama Knowledge can help educate them about the drama process and encourage support. For example, the child who sees that it would be more efficient to stack the egg-sacs in a neat way, and gets other children (now all self-enrolled as ants) to work as a team to get the job done is demonstrating some aspects of Role Knowledge, Group Knowledge, Body Knowledge, Design Knowledge and even perhaps of Cultural Knowledge (stacking neatly and tidily) very effectively for a three-year-old, while naturally absorbing an understanding of drama process internally.
2. Personal Development
This aspect of drama experience is commonly thought of in global terms, such as ‘gaining self-confidence’. For institutional teaching purposes, we had to explain in more detail what personal development consisted of, showing its constituent parts and clarifying the line of progress for a student.
As in the case of Drama Knowledge, in situations such as public performance of children’s theatre there need be no explicit judgement or assessment of the participants’ progress in personal development, but the concepts we developed in a teaching course for senior secondary students may be useful for theatre practitioners to be able to articulate to parents and the powers that be how experiential drama benefits children, even at very young ages, as well as at teenage and young adult stages of their lives.
One would hope that all adult theatre practitioners are at the Making Meaning stage of personal development in drama.
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KEY LEARNING AREA 2 : PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Key area 2 comprises three levels of personal development in drama.
ACTION ---------> PERSONAL RELEVANCE ------------> MAKING MEANING
These are progressive from Action to Making Meaning.
The development in learning can be described as:
ACTION
Participants may learn skills and techniques in drama but they may not value their learning and have difficulty communicating about what they have learned.
PERSONAL RELEVANCE
Participants are engaged in learning and value it personally, but have difficulty placing their dramatic learning in a broader context relevant to others.
MAKING MEANING
Participants are engaged in learning, value it personally, can reflect critically on the process and make their learning relevant to others.
NOTE:
Making meaning represents the student's objective particularly if their aim is tertiary entrance.
"Making their learning relevant to others" implies being able to use a sophisticated knowledge of the culture of theatre to underpin one's practical work in drama; and to be able to articulate one's knowledge to peers, to other theatre and drama practitioners, and to an academic audience orally and in writing.
LEVELS OF EXPERTISE
Expertise can be described as three levels of initiative which indicate the student's taking increasing responsibility for their own learning:
CONTRIVING
EXPERIENCING
CREATING
These levels of expertise show the quality of learning represented by the degree to which the student takes responsibility for their learning and thus their leadership in drama.
CONTRIVING
Learners participate in dramatic action with a low level of initiative in a self-conscious way.
EXPERIENCING
Learners participate in dramatic action with medium level initiative. They are intuitive and sincere in their involvement and connect the value of their dramatic work with their personal development.
CREATING
Learners participate in dramatic action with high level initiative. They are self-confident, self-questioning and therefore self-aware. They make meaning out of the drama for themselves and others.
NOTE:
The three levels of expertise relate directly to the three levels of personal development. "Contriving", "Experiencing" and "Creating" are descriptors in an active form which a teacher can easily recognise in students' dramatic work.
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3. Design of Process
The essential structure of child-engagement in improvisational drama has four parts:
Planning – by adult and/or child/youth participant(s);
Stimulus – a theatrical device to initiate a drama action in response;
Drama action – by participants – with or without adult input, in or out of role;
Reflection – talking about the drama action.
This structure can be observed in children’s play, and is the same as in scripted theatre. My role as theatre critic, for example, is part of the reflection process; as is the publication of papers such as Sue Giles’ Platform Paper No 54, and indeed this paper you are now reading.
The important issue raised by Giles is that, even if the planning and stimulus phases are carried out by adults, the children need at least to be given the freedom to initiate drama action in response, and respond freely in reflection.
By taking this idea further, child-centered means the stimulus phase and ultimately the planning phase is placed in the control of the child/youth participants, while the adult(s) may act, in or out of role, essentially to protect participants where necessary, or sometimes to help shift the direction of the drama action to help a through-line develop and reach a satisfying (to the participants) endpoint.
Here is how the original Hawker College course document explained the process (in a trimester system of 12-week units), for the School Board and the Tertiary Accrediting Panel which accredited this course for a five-year period. This course was in modern parlance, Drama v5.
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DESIGN OF PROCESS: ACTION AND REFLECTION
Usually a focus is established by the end of the second week of classes, but sometimes with provisos, such as re-negotiation to take place at some specified time.
Dramatic Frame is a useful concept to keep in mind, and can be imagined in three dimensions, as if it were a proscenium stage. The proscenium may be changed in shape, or the action may take place upstage or downstage. If the "audience" is considered ordinary reality, then the further upstage the action takes place the more it is removed from ordinary reality.
Negotiation and re-negotiation can take place in terms of changing the height and width of the dramatic frame; or, of course, changing the picture within the frame.
Many different factors can determine how a group will respond to the dramatic frame. A group may be more comfortable closer to ordinary reality, yet on occasion may need to work at a more abstracted level. The teacher can intervene (in or out of role as appropriate) to shift the action within its frame for the benefit of the whole group or individuals in the class.
Intervention which breaks the dramatic frame is often felt by the students as an unwarranted intrusion. On the other hand intervention is necessary at times to deepen the drama and, provided the teacher has the trust of the group, students will respect the teacher's important role and also recognise the need for the teacher to provide a safety net for the group. Emotions are often finely balanced when situations are being explored with real energy. The teacher may often have to make delicate judgements (sometimes in conjunction with the students who are leading the work).These include deciding: when to stop open-ended group improvisations; when to intervene in work which is ongoing but showing little apparent progress; or when to perform or not to perform.
Throughout the unit, dramatic action, including decisions taken by leaders, must be followed by reflection. Commonly this takes place before the end of each session, but sometimes a period in which the experience is absorbed privately is valuable before group reflection occurs - perhaps at the beginning of the next session. Sometimes whole sessions are needed to articulate everyone's understanding.
Through the process of reflection, new ideas are generated and put into action. This means that it is rare that a class will lay out a complete program early in a trimester with a rigid timetable; yet for some groups deadlines may be best. One important function for the teacher is to take initiatives (with the whole group or certain individuals) at appropriate times in an attempt to have the whole group feel high points of achievement. These should be just before vacations and especially in the last practical classes of each trimester.
The teacher, in this process, becomes a leading member of the group and can think of the work as rather like directing through a rehearsal period so that the high point is achieved at final dress rehearsal and opening night. Perfection is rare. The teacher's aim is the same as for the students: to make meaning from personal involvement in dramatic action. With this aim, the teacher becomes a positive role model whose work benefits all the students at whatever level they are able to achieve.
Finally, at least at the end of each trimester and possibly once during the trimester, reflection becomes a formal evaluation of the students' achievements, as individuals and as a group. This provides a conclusion to the unit and often is a stimulus to dramatic action in the following unit.
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4. System for Assessment and Evaluation – The Matrix
The development of the Assessment Matrix, or Drama Assessment Profile, which is used to describe a participant’s achievement and assists the teacher/director to evaluate their work, was my invention to solve the problem of making fair assessment for students while producing grades for an education system. Using the matrix is valuable for the teacher/director also for reflection on their own participation in the theatre or workshop process.
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The following figure provides students and teachers with descriptors which help them to make judgements about their progress.
These descriptors apply to the student's way of approaching their work in all five areas of drama knowledge.
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| | |
| |INITIATIVE -----------------------------> LEADERSHIP |
| | |
| |Contriving Experiencing Creating |
|_______|______________|______________|__________________|
| | Doing it | Connecting | Doing it with |
| | | doing it with | value for me |
|State of Doing| | self: (value | to make mean- |
| | | for me) | ing for others |
| | | | |
|______________|______________|______________|___________
| | Being self- | Being intuit- | Being self- |
|State of Being| conscious | ive and | aware |
| | | sincere | |
|______________|______________|______________|______________|
| | Low quality | Medium | High quality |
|State of | initiative | quality | initiative |
|Relationship | initiative | (leadership) |
|______________|______________|______________|______________|
Judgement about one's work is therefore concerned with quality.
Quality can be observed in the nature of the involvement of the student in the action. It can range from being self-conscious; to being intuitive and sincere; and to being self-aware. Furthermore quality is indicated in the types of response by students in reflection. These can range from being descriptive; to being concerned with value to self; and to being concerned with value to others.
Self-confidence is related to quality in a complex way. It is possible to have high self-confidence with low quality initiative. Commonly, self-confidence increases when students are involved in medium quality initiative which they value.
Initiative of high quality, however, inevitably requires self-confidence but is tempered by self-questioning. Together these are the essential elements of self-awareness.
Thus, assessment is of the quality, not merely of self-confidence or personal self-knowledge, but of knowledge of one's experience in a wider cultural context.
Analysing one's failures and successes leads to the development of a very strong relationship between theory and practice (carried out in the context of the texts and human resources made available to the students for research).
Day to Day Content
The content of individual drama activities consists of those actions which the students and teacher, as a group, choose to do in each of the areas of knowledge. Since all human experience is available for dramatic use, daily content cannot be prescribed. The quality of a student's work in drama is not only related to the day-to-day content, but to what the student does with the content.
Activities can be based on areas that are very important to the students' everyday life, such as relationships or communication. A second approach is that students may explore broader issues, such as discrimination or the future with which they may have had less direct experience. Finally students may wish to explore aspects of theatre.
The power of drama is that it allows students to explore a wide range of issues through the roles they play and they learn about both drama and themselves from these experiences. The framework of the Key Areas 1 and 2 provides this exploration with the necessary coherence.
In the following figure, some descriptors have been written in as a guide to what students might do, so that the distinctions between the types of knowledge may be clearer. These descriptors are in no way exhaustive but are designed as a guide to indicate how a student's experience changes as s/he develops expertise.
____________________________________________________________
/
/ INITIATIVE ----------------------------------> LEADERSHIP
/
/___________________________________________________________/
| | | | MAKING |
| | ACTION | SELF | MEANING |
|______________|______________|______________|_______________ |
| ROLE |Contriving |Enjoying role |Expressing |
| KNOWLEDGE |images and |images and |character |
|_______________|feelings_______|feelings________|________________|
| GROUP |Going along |Belonging with |Working with |
| KNOWLEDGE |with the group |the group |the group |
|_______________|_____________|______________|________________|
| BODY |Breathing |Enjoying |Expressing |
| KNOWLEDGE |Moving |action and |through |
|______________---_|Voicing_______|responding_____|action____________|
| KNOWLEDGE |Making sound |Enjoying |Expressing |
|OF DESIGN |silence;light |effects and |through |
| ELEMENTS |dark;shapes; |responding |effects |
|_______________|colours;masks__|______________|________________|
| CULTURAL |Collecting |Using |Creating |
| KNOWLEDGE |cultural |cultural |cultural |
|_______________|artefacts_______|artefacts_______|artefacts__________|
<------------- Drawers open from the left end
Note: Cultural artefacts may refer to any works of art, literature or products of research relevant to the dramatic theme, form or theory under study.
The final figure represents the integration of all the aspects of the course, showing how a student operating in all areas of drama knowledge may progress through negotiated drama activities towards achieving expertise in drama.
In a light-hearted way, the teacher may perceive this process as a chest of drawers, each drawer containing compartments in which there are items of costume which the student selects and, with the help of the teacher, uses to become "well-dressed".
The "best-dressed" student has a complete costume, representing an ideal to aim towards.
In this figure, the front of the drawers is hidden so that the items in the drawers can be indicated on the sides and top of the chest.As students open a drawer, they will first find items of action. If they play with these alone, they operate with low quality initiative.
If, or when, they venture further and open the drawer to reveal items of personal relevance to add to their action, they are operating with medium quality initiative.
If, or when, they open the drawer fully, they will find items of meaning to others as well as themselves to add to their action. Then they are operating with high quality initiative.
If the student opens only some of the five drawers, they will find that they will have difficulty putting together a properly co-ordinated outfit. They may not be concerned about this while they play only with action items, but it will become more of an obvious problem to them, and to the teacher and others in the group, as they open the drawers further.
By regularly reflecting on what they have done, what they think and feel about what they have done, and what their play means, students go through a process which encourages them to open all the drawers as far as they can.
The teacher has a special role to assist with drawers that stick, in responding with thoughts and feelings, and to help interpret what the group's play means.
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By taking the side of the set of drawers in our original Figs. 1 and 2, we can create a table with two dimensions:
BASIC DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
Role
Group
Body
Design
Culture
GRADE LEVELS
This is the generic model. There are several ways you can easily modify it to suit your needs.
The matrix can be used to draw a ‘best line of fit’ to decide on the grade.
DRAMA ASSESSMENT TABLE – Two different students with the same overall grade.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT Action Self Making Meaning
DRAMA KNOWLEDGE
Role S2 S1
Group S2 S1
Body S1 S2
Design S1 S2
Culture S2 S1
GRADE LEVELS C
We can see here that Student 1 works evenly across the drama knowledge categories, while Student 2 shows much more variation. In a tick-the-box outcomes system, it would be difficult to distinguish these two students, while using the 2-axis system it would be easier to describe the particular qualities of each student’s work. This becomes an important matter when writing reports.
If the institution requires scores, then these two students could be distinguished. Middle C might be allocated a score of 65. Because S2 had three assessments below middle C, it may be decided that while S1 receives 65, S2 would receive 64. On the other hand because S2 has such a high place in Design, despite the low place in Role, a score of 66 might be awarded. For each student the ‘shape’ of the ‘line of best fit’ will help decide on fine distinctions between students, as scoring by numbers require.
The Matrix is not a Rose Garden – no assessment system can make a good drama teacher – but I hope you may find some practical use for it.
© Frank McKone, Canberra
2018
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