Top 10 Drama Strategies to Do With Older Grades:
- Connection chains/connection webs
- Tableaux
- News report
- Gibberish
- Writing in Role
- Alter-Ego
- Stop Animation
- Pinwheel Poetry
- Picture Walk
- Mantle of the Expert
This strategy can be modified for older students. For example, if they are doing this while 'in role', the roles can be greatly varied, such as for a Medieval Times activity where students can be a pope, the king, a blacksmith, a night, etc. These roles might make it harder for students to find a link with others and forcing them to further develop their creative thinking skills. For students who are still insecure, this can still be used to foster a positive classroom environment as they must work together. This can also be used as a review or formative assessment if students are given key words or concepts and must create a link between them. This form of the drama strategy would be great when students are reviewing math or science concepts!
Tableaux
Older students tend to be better at staying still and for a longer amount of time. This would of course make it easier to do tableaux than with younger children. Other than having groups holding their tableaux for a longer period of time, students are able to do more complex tableaux scenes as they have better control of their gross and fine motor schools. One activity that can be done is for Grade 6 space (science) where students are learning about some star constellations. Adding in some music, one group can do their tableaux, then another group come in and do their own tableaux beside the first group, and so on. In relation to language, older students would be able to do multiple tableaux scenes so that they are able to retell a story or a scenario. Once again, the possibilities are endless, especially with older students!
News Report
News report is an excellent way for students to develop their oral communication and presentation skills. As a student in the junior grade or above, they can choose to do individual or group news reports. One modification from the primary suggestion would be to leave groups only a short time to determine what they will be reporting on (e.g. 5-10 minutes), or if the students are really comfortable with each other and with drama, the teacher can just have the students do an improvisation of a news report. Students are once again exploring different roles and perspectives. As part of the media literacy, students can alter their news report presentation by gearing it towards a specific audience. Cross-curricular possibilities also vary, such as reporting on a problem in a class novel that is being read during language.
Gibberish
Gibberish is another excellent activity to do at any age. With an older group of students, participating in the gibberish activity would give them an opportunity to have fun while still doing a presentation using their facial expressions, tone of voice, and use of body language. Teachers can challenge students by giving them a specific audience and/or scenario. For example, if a student were to pretend to 'talk' with younger children about behaving and not fighting, they might wave their forefinger and have an angry face. However, if they were very excited to present their science experiment findings to another student or teacher, they might have props with them or show their excitement by how fast they were talking and by having a smile on their face. Once again this could be an opportunity for some students to build confidence, such as those who may have a language barrier or who usually get nervous and forget what lines to say. It is such a fun activity that even older students would most likely have fun doing it!
Writing in Role
With this strategy, students are able to develop their critical thinking and writing skills. They must take on the perspective of a character or another person and then write based on a topic given by the teacher. For older grades, they can do a more complex piece of writing such as a journal entry, a poem, a biography, etc. The roles that the students take on would depend on the subject linked with it. For example, when doing the government unit in social studies (e.g. federal, provincial, municipal), a student can write as the mayor who is writing about his/her day.
Alter-Ego
The alter-ego provides students a fun way of thinking and seeing how a person might make decisions. With older students, the teacher can give them very controversial issues or ethical dilemmas, such as whether or not a student should report his/her friend who stole from the teacher. This could be linked the healthy and physical education curriculum as it also deals with interpersonal skills. Since the students are older, the teacher can give them a few minutes to think of as many points as they can. When the time comes, students from both sides will be stating their opinions, comments, etc. at the same time in order to convince the middle person to choose their side. Once again, different cross-curricular activities are possible. With the older students, they could use this strategy based on the middle person being a character from a class novel. Or, when doing the government unit, if there are several groups or 'political parties', the middle person can be a citizen who is voting and must make a decision on which political party to vote for. This could be a great activity that later leads up to a class debate which, once again, develops their critical thinking and communication skills!
Stop Animation
Stop animation is a great activity to do with older students, especially with the current generation becoming more and more tech savvy! As individuals who tend to have greater gross motor skills, the older students are hopefully more capable to remember the different poses and do them. Also with stop animation, it can require a lot of patience and planning. Students will need time to plan the order of poses and practice them before taking pictures of each one. The only downfall in doing stop animation would be if students or the teacher did not have a camera and a computer to use. Cross-curricular possibilities are numerous, all depending on the topic of the stop animation. Common subjects would be language, physical education, social studies (history/geography), and science. Examples could include doing a stop animation to show a scenario in a novel/in the past, or even to do a 'How To' guide/rules for physical education and science.
Pinwheel Poetry
This is a great activity to do in relation to language arts! Students can be active while sharing their ideas/comments in a group presentation. Although working as a team to rotate, this strategy is mostly individual, providing them a chance to practice their oral communication skills. One modification that could be added would be to for each person in the front to say their idea/comment, and then to act it out or do a tableaux before rotating to the next person. It would be really interesting to see what the perspectives of different students will bring for this strategy.
Picture Walk
This activity is great for students to do as a formative assessment. Students can represent what they have learned and what they remember from previous lesson(s). For example, students can do their tableaux based on a science unit about biodiversity. This develops their creativity skills, thinking skills, gross motor skills, and communication skills. Students must think of information/a fact that they have learned and then be creative in representing it through a tableaux, holding it, and then later explaining what they did to the rest of the class. Usually a circle or semi-circle is formed, allowing students to see each other and build a safer community as they are not being singled out by the 'walker'. However, if the students are comfortable, they can incorporate the corridor of voices format where everyone does their tableaux in a line and the person at one end will go through everyone, then the next person goes, etc. Similar to the other strategy, they will be shifting to the side to give room for the 'walkers' at the end of the line to do their poses again.
Mantle of the Expert
The mantle of the expert is an excellent group activity for older students to take part in. They can do this as part of a research assignment, or even as a formative or summative assessment. For example, as the experts in the field that the teacher assigned them, the group of students could go on to research more about the topic/issue, what the experts in their assigned field do and how it's related to the topic/issue. They will then present all of their research to the rest of their class as experts of their field. If the teacher chose to use this as a strategy for formative or summative assessment, the groups of students would simply report to the teacher and other students with minimal time to gather or study notes or to review was done during the unit. Students would be experts of their field based on what they remember learning throughout the unit. Also, in order to develop their critical thinking skills, this would truly be a great exercise to do with older students as they must present their ideas and be able to support them in case other groups/students question them/their ideas. This is truly a great strategy that can even teach students how to improvise and 'think quick'!
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