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“What have you travelled?” A teacher-researcher study of structuring drama for reflection and learning
Edmiston, Brian Wallace, Ph.D.
The Ohio State University, 1991
Copyright ©1991 by Edmiston, Brian Wallace. All rights reserved.
UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106
"WHAT HAVE YOU TRAVELLED?"
A TEACHER-RESEARCHER STUDY OF STRUCTURING DRAMA
FOR REFLECTION AND LEARNING
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of E^to r of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Brian Wallace Edmiston, LL.B., M. Ed.
*****
The Ohio State University 1991
Dissertation Committee; ApproV^3^: Dr. Robert Donmoyer Dr. Robert Donmoyer, Co-Advise^ Dr. Janet Hiclmian College of Education Prof. Cecily O'Neill Prof, Cecily O'Neill, Cb-Adviser Dr. Theresa Rogers College of Education Dr. Robert J. Tierney Copyright by Brian Wallace Edmiston 1991 To all educators have have struggled to improve as enablers of students' learning
n ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Reflections on my experiences in classrooms were steps along the road I travelled in this study. I would like to thank all the students who have taught me so much about how to be a teacher those whose joy in life made days sparkle, those whose pain kept me honest, those who demanded that I pay attention to their needs, and those who patiently waited for me to notice them. I set off on this journey after a year with Dorothy Heathcoie which transformed my life. I began to understand what a master teacher is: one who is totally dedicated to education, cares for all students, can find the hilarious and the serious in all matters, and yet is always humble about how much we will never understand no matter how much we learn. At Ohio State I met fellow travellers who pointed out many possible directions and shared thought-provoking insights. I realized that scholars could be friends and that the academic road can be a worthy and fulfilling one. Researching and writing a dissertation is unavoidably lonely. I might never have finished without the good humor and support of my committee. Cecily O'Neill and Terry Rogers saw the potential in early drafts. Bob Donmoyer gave me the fieedom to follow my instincts, Rob Tierney was always positive and encouraging, and Janet Hickman was an example to strive "onward and upward." My friend Una Ni Chaoimh read many drafts and helped me clarify. My friend Kamyar Enshayan reminded me that this was a self-imposed task and would therefore be completed, eventually. iii I began this journey with one master teacher and end it with another. Cecily O'Neill has challenged my thinking and continually presented new horizons, pathways, and possibilités for drama in education which I have been privileged to witness. Finally, I would never have begun or completed this journey without the love and support of my wife, Pat Enciso Edmiston. She blazed her path and handed me torches when mine had gone out Bicycle rides, climbing, laughing, and reading with our son Michael Macrae have helped remind me of the miracle of life. He is a constant joy and reminder of my responsibility to the future. Thank you all for being part of my arrival at this special moment of pausing before a new journey is begun.
IV VTTA
January 25,1952 Bom, Londonderry, Northern Ireland 1973 LL.B., University of Bristol, England 1977 Solicitor of the Supreme Court England and Wales
1977-80 Teacher of English Grades 6-12 Culveriiay School, Bath, England
1980-83 Head of Drama and Teacher of English, Grades 6-12 Kingsfield School, Bristol, England
1984 M.Ed. University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England
1984-87 Graduate Teaching Associate The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio
1987-89 Teacher, Grades 3/4 Highland Park Elementary School Grove City, Ohio
1989-91 LectuTCT The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio
PUBLICATIONS
Edmiston, B.W. (1989). Guardians of the universe. (2), 9-12. Edmiston, B.W ., Enciso P., & King, M. (1987). Empowering readers and writers through drama: Narrative theater. Language Arts. 219-229. Edmiston, P.E. & Edmiston B.W. (1985). The secret lives of a narrator: Examining subtext through educational drama. English Language Arts Bulletin. 26, 7-10. V FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Held of Study Education Studies in Curriculum and Research Methods Professor Robert Donmoyer Studies in Children’s Literature and Response to Literature Professor Janet Hickman Studies in Drama in Education Professor Cecily O'Neill Studies in Response to Literature Professor Theresa Rogers Studies in Reading and Language Arts Professor Robert J. Tiemey
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION...... ü ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... iü VTTA...... V FIELDS OF STUDY...... vi LIST OF TABLES...... xi LISTOFHGURES...... xü PROLOGUE...... xiii CHAPTER 1...... 1 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY...... 1 Introduction ...... 1 Purpose of the Study and Overview of Methodology...... 2 A Note on How to Read This Study...... 3 Drama in Education ...... 4 Definition of Terms...... 8 Significance of the Study...... 11 Summary...... 12 CHAPTER n ...... 14 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ...... 14 Other Uses of Drama in Education ...... 14 Children’s theatre...... 15 Child drama...... 15 Creative drama and creative dramatics...... 15 Drama for social development...... 16 Theatre games...... 16 Role play and simulation...... 16 Reflection in the Arts...... 17 The Need for Reflection in Drama...... 19 The Need for Teacher Structuring to Enable Reflection ...... 21 Participants in Drama Function as Actors, Playwrights, and Audience ...... 22 Four Ways to Structure for Reflection ...... 27 Objective Meaiting, Subjective Meaning, and the Drama World ...... 31 Teacher Structuring to C^ate Objective and Subjective Meaning ...... 35 vii Three Types of SubjectiveMeaning ...... 36 Questions and Teacher Structuring ...... 37 Conclusion ...... 39 CHAPTER m ...... 41 METHODOLOGY...... 41 Introduction ...... 41 Data Sources ...... 43 The practice of Dorothy Heathcote and Cecily O'NeiU...... 43 The writings of Heathcote and other practitioners and theorists...... 44 My own experiences as a teacher using drama...... 45 Data Collection...... 46 Data Analysis...... 50 Development of the Model of Stracturing for Reflection...... 54 Analysis of Examples and Presentation of Results...... 58 CHAPTER IV ...... 60 PRESENTATION OF MODEL AND APPLICATION TO THE HEATHCOTE DRAMA...... 60 Introduction ...... 60 Presentation of the Model for Teacher Structuring for Reflection ...... 70 Applying the Model to the Heathcote Drama...... 78 Teacher Structuring of Tasks ...... 93 Phase A...... 94 Phase B ...... 95 Phase C...... 96 Phase D...... 96 Phase E ...... 97 Teacher Structuring of Interactions ...... 98 Performance/Public Sharing ...... 104 Reflection Structures ...... 106 Objective Reflection Which Leads to Creating Drama Text 110 Subjective Reflections ...... 115 Summary...... 120 Conclusion ...... 122 CHAPTER V ...... 124 APPLICATION OF THE MODEL TO THE DUNGEON DRAMA: A SESSION TAUGHT BY THE TEACHER RESEARCHER...... 124 Introduction ...... 124 The Students and the School ...... 126 Description and Analysis of the Dungeon Drama...... 128 Brief Description of the Dungeon Drama...... 129 Teacher Structuring of Tas)& ...... 139 Phase A...... 139 Phase B...... 140 Phase C...... 141 Phase D ...... 142 Teacher Structuring of Interactions ...... 143 Performing/Public Sharing ...... 147 Reflection Structures ...... 149 viii Objective Reflection Which Leads to Creating Drama Text ...... 152 Subjective Reflections ...... 155 Summary...... 157 Conclusion ...... 161 CHAPTER V I...... 167 APPLICATION OF THE MODEL TO THE ARTS DRAMA...... 167 Introduction ...... 167 Brief Description of the Arts Drama...... 169 Teacher Structuring of Tasks ...... 178 Structuring the Tasks in tiie First Session ...... 179 Phase lA ...... 179 Phase IB ...... 180 Phase 1C...... 181 Structuring the Tasks in the Second Session ...... 182 Phase 2A ...... 183 Phase 2B ...... 184 Structuring the Tasks in the Third Session ...... 185 Phase 3A ...... 186 Phase 3B ...... 186 Phase 3C ...... 187 Teacher Structuring of Interactions ...... 187 Performing/Public Sharing ...... 196 Reflection Structures ...... 199 Objective Reflection Which Leads to Creating Drama Text ...... 200 Summary...... 218 Conclusion ...... 221 CHAPTER V n ...... 224 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS...... 224 The Model of Structuring Drama for Reflection and Learning ...... 224 Structuring for Reflection in Drama is Essential ...... 227 Distinguishing Between Objective and Subjective Reflection ...... 231 There Must be a Drama Text Created by All the Students ...... 234 Ways in which drama text can be created...... 235 Explicit agreements are important...... 236 Protection for the students ...... 238 Stracturing for Reflection is Not Dominating Students ...... 239 The students must have experiences ...... 240 If the teacher reflects this is to enable the students to reflect 241 Performances/Public Sharing are to enable the students to reflect...... 241 The educational aim is a constraint on students' responses and experiences...... 243 Students in reflection - can actually begin to question domination...... 245 Students May Reflect at Any Time...... 246 Conclusion ...... 247 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research ...... 248 Teacher-research...... 248 Specific directions for further research...... 251 Reflection...... 251 Students ...... 252 ix Teachers...... 252 Epilogue...... 253 APPENDIX A ...... 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 258 LIST OF TABLES
TABLE PAGE 1. Four Ways to Structure for Student Reflection 28 2. Description and Analysis of the Heathcote Drama 79 3. Underlying Questions in the Heathcote Drama 99 4. Frequency of Use of Reflection Structures 107 5. Reflection Structures Used in the Heathcote Drama 108 6. Explicit Student Agreements in the Heathcote Drama 111 7. Subjective Reflection in the Heathcote Drama 116 8. The Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles in the Heathcote Drama 121 9. Description and Analysis of the Dungeon Drama 131 10. Underlying Questions in the Dungeon Drama 144 11. Frequency of Use of Reflection Structures in Dungeon Drama 150 12. Reflection Structures used in the Dungeon Drama 151 13. Subjective Reflection in the Dungeon Drama 156 14. The Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles in the Dungeon Drama 160 15. Description and Analysis of the Arts Drama 171 16. Underlying Questions in the Arts Drama 190 17. Frequency of Use of Reflection Structures in the Arts Drama 199 18. Reflection Structures in the Arts Drama 200 19. Subjective Reflection in the Arts Drama 207 20. The Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles in the Arts Drama 220
XI LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE PAGE 1. Teacher Structuring for Reflection 71 2. Teacher Structuring for Reflection 257 3. Teacher Structuring for Reflection in the Dungeon Drama 163
xn PROLOGUE
"What have you travelled?" (Heathcote, 1974).
"Where we had thought to travel outward we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world" (Campbell, 1988).
xui CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
Introduction This is a study of structuring drama in education for reflection and learning. The uses of drama for educational purposes have included creative dramatics, creative drama, child drama, children's theatre, theatre games, role play, and simulation. Though the approach to using drama in the classroom which is considered in this study has similarities to other uses of drama it also has significant differences. One key way in which it may be distinguished from other uses is that the teacher is structuring the drama so that the students reflect on what occurs during the events of the drama. Other uses of drama will be discussed in chapter II and contrasted with this approach which was pioneered by Dorothy Heathcote and has been extended by Gavin Bolton, Cecily O'Neill, and others. This approach has been described as "drama", "drama in education", "D.I.E.", "classroom drama", "educational drama", and "improvisation." In this study the terms "drama" and "drama in education" will be used interchangeably to describe this approach to the use of drama in the classroom. Dorothy Heathcote has consistently argued that when students reflect they can create meaning for themselves and construct their own understandings about their experiences of the events in a drama. She has argued that for students "it is the experience arising out of the action which enables them to leam...without [reflection] there is no learning from die experience" (1984, p. 209). In this study students will be regarded as reflecting when they think about their experiences in a drama. The students may be 1 thinking about these experiences afterwards or at the same time as they are having them. They may or may not be doing so "in role" as they are imagining they are in another place or are another person within tlie world of the drama. Heathcote has written extensively about her practice and theory and her writings on education and drama have been collected in a single volume (Johnson & O'Neill, 1984).i Though the importance of drama in education has been stressed and the necessity for reflection by the students has been acknowledged by her and by others (e.g., Bolton, O'Neill & Lambert, Morgan & Saxton, Neelands), comparatively little attention has been paid to how the drama teacher structures for reflection.
Purpose of the Studv and Overview of Methodologv The purpose of this dissertation, then, is to provide a model that illustrates how structuring can provide students opportunities to reflect on their experiences in a drama. The model is presented, applied, and analyzed in the context of actual classroom drama events. Three dramas are analyzed in detail. They are taken from the work of Dorothy Heathcote and from my own work. As a teacher-researcher I collected "teaching data" over a period of two years. For the first year I gathered data in my own classroom and that of a colleague; I was a full-time classroom teacher grades 3-4. For the second year I was lecturing in drama at a university and gathered data in seven classrooms, grades 1-9, in which i was invited to teach. I video taped sixty-eight hours of my classroom teaching, kept field notes, records of my planning, and written reflections on my teaching. In addition to the teaching data of my experiences as a classroom teacher and the work of Dorothy Heathcote, the writings of other drama practitioners and theorists (e.g..
1 References to the introduction or notes by the editors of this collection will be referenced as Johnson & O'Neill, 1984 ; references to Heathcote's writings will be referenced as Heathcote, 1984 . Cecily O'Neill) were also data for this study. As a former student of both Heathcote and O'Neill, I reflected on and analyzed their practice and writing as well as my own practice and the writings of others. There are three major aspects to my data analysis. Firstly, during data collection in the classroom, I analyzed for structuring as I reviewed each session and planned for the next Secondly, after the collection of my teaching data I sampled the video tapes over time, noted patterns as they emerged, viewed tapes in more detail and considered how I had or could have structured for reflection. Thirdly, as I analyzed tapes, I also analyzed the practice of Heathcote and O'Neill and certain key theoretical writings in the drama in education literature. I read and re-read accounts and analyses of drama lessons, and I reviewed sessions of Heathcote's and O'Neill's which I had observed or in which I had participated. I found that there was a reciprocity between my teaching in the classroom, my college teaching, my writing, my reading of theoretical writings, and my understanding of my own and others' practice. I found that as I read and reviewed tapes my understandings continued to develop and that this affected my practice which in turn affected my analysis. Gradually the model which is presented in this study emerged. The model is presented in chapter IV and illustrated with an analysis of a drama session taught by Heathcote which is available on film. The model is then applied to my own teaching in chapters V and VI. To do that, I chose sessions to analyze which were representative of "successful" and "unsuccessful" drama sessions in terms of promoting student reflection. Conclusions are drawn and implications are discussed in chapter VU.
A Note on How to Read This Studv Readers may wish to read this study in a different order to the one in which it is written. What follows in this chapter is a brief description of drama in education, a definition of terms, and an indication of the significance of this study. Readers interested at this moment in the theoretical aspects of reflection in drama should turn to the next chapter. Readers v/ho wish to know more about methodology should turn to chapter IE. Readers may, however, wish to read first an account of a drama lesson in that case they should skip chapters II and IE and go to chapters to chapters IV, V, and VI. It is important to read chapter IV before the analyses in chapters V and VI because the model of structuring for reflection and learning is presented in that chapter. Readers who wish to read a lesson taught by Dorothy Heathcote should turn now to chapter IV. Readers who wish to read an account of a lesson taught by the teacher- researcher should turn to chapter V for an account of an "unsuccessful" drama lesson, and to chapter VI for an account of a "successful" lesson in terms of promoting student reflection. Figure 2, in appendix 1, is a diagram of the model of structuring for reflection and learning. Figure 2 is printed on a sheet which can be left folded out so that readers may refer to the diagram at any time during their reading of the dissertation.
Drama in Education Though her practice has been studied in detail (Wagner, 1976,1985,1990; Carroll, 1980), and films have been made of her teaching and talks (Northwestern University Film Library, 1973, 1974; BBC Omnibus, 1971), and though she is frequently referred to by most other practitioners (e.g. Bolton, O'Neill & Lambert, Neelands, Morgan & Saxton, McLeod, Booth, Davies, Swartz), Dorothy Heathcote is often regarded as a "special case." Despite her own insistence (1984) that an effective use of drama is not dependent on the personality of the teacher, Heathcote’s "charisma" and her idiosyncratic explanations of her work seem to have led others to regard her as anything from a mystic to an enigma. Wagner’s (1976) and Hornbrook's (1987) writings have perpetuated these attitudes. Wagner's (1976) widely read description of her practice seems, unfortunately, to have cultivated an attitude among many that only Dorothy Heathcote can get students to behave and think as Wagner has described. Dorothy Heathcote frequently began sessions asking the students what they would like to make up a play about. In watching her follow the lead of the students and seamlessly move from one strategy and task to the next, it is understandable that some observers assumed that drama is too complex for 'ordinary' teachers to use. Wagner's tone may well have promoted a sense of reverence in some while leading others (e.g. Hornbrook, 1987, 1989), largely to dismiss her work as inaccessible and those who try to use her methods as "guru" worshippers. Hornbrook (1987, p. 28), quotes Wagner’s (1976) hope that her book would help teachers learn to use drama. Wagner says that the book will "spell out some of the steps so that you can start the dance; but the music you hear must be in your own soul." Hornbrook notes that, "Frequent use of this kind of semi-magical imagery reinforced the evangelical thrust of the new orthodoxy, wrapping Heathcote's already powerful physical presence in a cloak of spirituality around which an increasingly beleaguered discipline could rally." Contrary to these opinions, Heathcote's approach to using drama has been used successfully by many teachers including teachers inexperienced in drama (O'Neill & Enciso Edmiston, 1989). The writings of Bolton (1979, 1984, 1986) have provided teachers with some detailed analyses of practice and a wealth of theoretical detail and justification for using drama. Heathcote's own writings refer to many drama situations and provide rich justifications for using drama across the curriculum. Some practitioners have described model drama lessons (Byron, 1986; Swartz, 1988) or structures which the teacher mav incorporate in a lesson (Neelands, 1990), but O'Neill & Lambert (1976,1982) have given teachers the only extended analyses of drama lessons which have been used successfully by practicing teachers. Dorothy Heathcote has been classified by some as a "creative drama" teacher because the students are improvising (McCaslin, 1974). Though superficially this is happening, Heathcote is not working with the students in drama just so that that they can make up a play. She wants to engage them with the subject matter of their drama and to provide them with "a way of looking at issues, principles, implications, consequences, and responsibilities behind the facts" (Bolton, 1985, p. 154). Though she supports the objectives of personal and social development which others have advocated for drama, as Johnson & O’Neill (1984) point out, she goes far beyond these goals. "Her aim is to build on the pupils' past experience and give them a deeper knowledge not just of themselves but of what it is to be human, as well as an understanding of the society they live in and its past, present and future" (p. 12). She enables this to happen by structuring for reflection. Like many other educational innovators, Heathcote is "child-centCTed"; but she does not interpret this to mean that a teacher is only a facilitator of individual learning. She recognizes that learning in drama happens in groups, but also advocates a complex teaching stance. She accepts her responsibility as "the most mature member of the group" and demonstrates in her teaching that as an "enabler and challenger" she has "not merely a right but a responsibility to intervene" in structuring the experiences and reflection of the students (1984, pp. 92-3). She is well-known for her ability to do this by taking on roles in the drama, but her "benign interference" is part of her teaching stance which continues whether she is in or out of role (Johnson & O’Neill, 1984). Her approach has been enormously influential in the use of drama in education, especially in England, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. B.J. Wagner’s account of her work has been widely read in the United States but there are few teachers who use her methods in this country. Though there is no "Heathcote way", Gavin Bolton, Cecily O’Neill, David Davis, Ken Byron, John Fines and Ray Verrier are well known practitioners from the British Isles who use drama in a similar way to Heathcote. Drama in education has been described as a "learning medium" (Wagner, 1976) and various pedagogical purposes for using drama in education have been realized. The value of using drama to promote language development has been discussed (Verriour, 1984, 1985a, 1985b, 1986; Wagner, 1983; Edmiston, Enciso, & King 1987), specifically for creating reading (Booth, 1978) and writing contexts (Wagner, 1985; Enciso Edmiston, 1988; Hall, 1988). Drama has also been used in the study of history (Fines & Verrier. 1974), literature (Byron, 1986; O’Neill, 1983; Purves, Rogers & Soter, 1990; Edmiston, in press), and other areas of the curriculum (Ayling, 1985; Heathcote & Herbert, 1985). Though drama can be used by teachers for pedagogical purposes including those outlined in the previous paragraph, this study is concerned with how teachers structure drama to enable students to create meaning in reflection regardless of the specific pedagogical purpose of the teacher. Heathcote (1984) has argued that it is only when students reflect that they create meanings for themselves and construct their own understandings about the events in a drama. Norman (1981, p. 50) has described this process of students creating meaning as "making personal meaning and sense of universal, abstract, social, moral, and ethical concepts through the concrete experience of the drama." Watkins (1981, p. 163) has noted that all drama "both celebrates and challenges the norms and values by which people live". Bolton (1984,1985) acknowledges the celebratory function of drama but argues that its challenging function is the reason why drama could be seen at the center of the curriculum. Bolton (1979,1984) argues that through drama the teacher may enable students to change their understandings about concepts (like those outlined by Norman). He calls this "drama for understanding." 8
Though the importance of drama in education has been stressed and the necessity for reflection by the students has been acknowledged, comparatively little attention has been paid to how the teacher structures for reflection; what has been written will be discussed in the review of related literature in chapter n. Reflection has been categorized (Bolton, 1979), examples have been given of activities which will promote reflection (O'Neill & Lambert, 1982; Morgan & Saxton, 1988), and some specific advice has been given to the teacher about how to promote reflection in drama (Wagner, 1976; Fleming, 1982; O’Neill & Lambert, 1982; Byron, 1986). However, little has been written in detail about how teachers could make decisions in their planning and teaching to promote reflection. This study provides a detailed analysis of structuring by the teacher for reflection by the students and in chapter IV presents a model of structuring drama for reflection.
Definition of Terms Some terms require more explanation than the brief definitions given in this section. All of these terms have been used in context throughout this study and I refer tiie reader to descriptions in the first four chapters for more detailed considerations of their meanings. As well as the actual world of the students in a classroom there is a dram a world which the students agree to imagine exists in the classroom. The drama world is the shared imaginary world which participants create as they interact and pretend that they are different people and/or in a different place or time. The participants will talk, move, act and interact as if they are, for example, in the world of "Jack and the Beanstalk." The term drama is used as an abbreviation for drama world as well as an abbreviation for drama in education. The participants include the teacher as well as the students. They take part in creating the drama both in and out of role. The events of the drama are what happens in the drama world; the facts are specific details. For example, an event could be climbing the beanstalk; a fact could be that a golden egg was found at the top. The students can also agree that certain events and facts have happened in the drama. When the term events is used, the term facts is also implied. Those events and facts which each participant regards as happening externally to him or her in the drama world are his or her objective meanings. Just as the meanings of a play in the theatre can be divided into the basic literal meanings of the objective events and facts which are shared by the whole audience and the higher meanings of personal interpretations (Esslin, 1987), so can the meanings in drama. The shared objective meanings can be regarded as the drama text which is created by the participants when they are functioning as actors and as playwrights. Their personal interpretations are the subjective meanings which are made when the participants are functioning as an audience either in or out of role. The terms actor, playwright, and audience will be discussed in more detail in chapter n. Donald Schon has discussed reflection in detail. Reflection-on-action is when we "think back on what we have done" (1987, p. 26), which can happen "in tranquility" or if we "stop and think" about what we are doing. In contrast, reflection-in-action is when we "think about doing something while doing it" (1983, p. 84). In this study, all of these meanings are applicable. The fact that participants reflect on their experiences is also stressed. The terms reflection and reflecting are used interchangeably. As was stated above, in drama, reflection can happen in and out of role. When the students or teacher behave as if they are in the drama they are in role and in the drama world. When they are not behaving as if they are in the drama they are out of role and in the actual world of the classroom. The teacher and students will always be outside the drama at the beginning and ending of sessions but they may also 10 come outside the drama at any time as necessary. When they are in role the participants will be pretending to be someone else and/or pretending to be in a different time or place. Students could pretend to be friends of Jack or they could stay as themselves; they could pretend to live in the place where the beanstalk grew or the time when Jack lived. When the teacher is in role she can also pretend to be in another time or place as well as pretend to be another person in the drama; for example, the giant whom they meet up the beanstalk. The teacher can go in and out of role so that as necessary he can step in and out of the drama world in order to talk about what is being created with the students. A task is what the students do. They may set themselves tasks or be asked to do them. Tasks can be in or out of role. For example, searching for clues at the top of the beanstalk in role or drawing what they found out of role. Every task which has interaction has an underlying question (implicit or explicit) to which the students pay attention and with which they are specifically concerned. For example, "What is the land at the top of the beanstalk like?" These questions may be explicitly or implicitly posed directly or indirectly by the teacher. Finally, it must be stressed that in discussing thinking there is no suggestion that thinking can be separated from feeling. It has often been argued that any separation is a false dichotomy and that the affective and the cognitive are interdependent (Polanyi, 1958; Goodman, 1984; Bruner, 1986; Smith, 1990). For example, as Nelson Goodman (1984) lias put it, "feeling without understanding is blind, and understanding without feeling is empty" (p. 8). It could be argued that feelings are not part of our thinking if we are concerned with a purely technical problem, but as Frank Smith (1990) has recently argued, "emotions arise predictably in response to the meaning of events to the individual, in other words, as a result of thinking" (p. 138). Bolton (1979) recognizes the interconnection between thinking and feeling in drama and notes that it is unfortunate that in English there 11 is no single word "thinking/feeling." In this study, whenever the words "thinking", "thoughts" or "ideas" are used, feelings are also implied.
Significance of the Study This study is significant for a number of reasons. As far as I am aware, this is the only published teacher-researcher study of the use of drama in education. No one has analyzed their experiences teaching in the classroom and then written in detail about what they have learned with reference to specific examples from their own teaching. Though many articles have been written by teachers which refer to their own teaching as well as the teaching of Heathcote, Bolton, O'Neill, and others, to my knowledge there has been no other systematic analysis by a teacher of his or her own drama teaching which was "unsuccessful" as well as "successful" in terms of structuring for student reflection. There are books which are filled with lessons that are supposed to work. However, there is little to reassure teachers, beyond general statements, that even experienced teachers have difficulties and that these can lead to improvement as an educator. Though advice has been given about how to conduct drama sessions effectively, there are almost no accounts which help show teachers some of the specific reasons why they may have been unsuccessful. There are also no accounts which contrast lessons in order to show how differences in the same teacher’s structuring and interactions affect both the students’ and the teacher’s responses. Neither beginning nor experienced teachers have accounts of the problems which can arise as a teacher struggles to use drama or models for how they may work through some of their difficulties and become a more effective teacher. Though Dorothy Heathcote’s practice has been described and analyzed in general terms or for specific purposes (Wagner, 1976,1985,1990; Carroll, 1980) her teaching has not been considered in the detail in which the drama session in chapter IV is analyzed. 12
The necessity for reflection in drama has often been acknowledged; however, little has been written about how the teacher can actually plan and structure a drama so that the students may reflect There are no accounts of how this has been done (or not done) with detailed reference to specific examples. This study is a first step in redressing these deficiencies in the literature. It is the result of my struggles to improve in the use of drama and, specifically, to promote reflection among the students. It provides detailed analyses of drama sessions; and, as well as analyzing the practice of Dorothy Heathcote, it provides an honest analysis of both a highly problematic session taught by me which promoted very little reflection and a session which did promote reflection among the students. This study analyzes these sessions and provides a model for structuring for reflection which will be useful both to novices and experienced teachers of drama as they plan, teach, and review their drama sessions with students. The stories of teachers' classroom journeys are invaluable for the profession. This study is formed from the story of what one teacher travelled on his journey over two years; it will hopefully inspire others to analyze their own teaching and share some of their discoveries and insights.
Summary In this chapter the teacher-researcher study was introduced. Some aspects of drama in education were considered, methodology was briefly discussed, terms were defined, and the significance of the study was argued. Chapter II will review the literature about reflection in drama and other related literature. Methodology will be described in chapter m. A model of structuring for reflection and learning in drama will be presented in chapter IV and used to analyze a drama session taught by Dorothy Heathcote. In chapters V and VI 13 the model will be used to analyze two representative drama sessions which I taught. In chapter VU, conclusions and implications from the study will be drawn. CHAPTER n REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In this chapter I will distinguish between drama in education and other uses of drama in the classroom and then review, discuss, and extend what has been written about reflection by drama practitioners and other theorists. I will also draw on the work of other educational theorists, such as Lev Vygotsky, John Dewey, and Louise Rosenblatt. As was noted in chapter I, the writings of others have been a major source of data for my understanding of how drama can be structured and in particular for the development of the model which will be developed in chapter IV and applied to my own teaching in chapters V and VI.
Other Uses of Drama in Education Drama in education, as developed by Dorothy Heathcote, involves improvisation with a whole group and is stmctured by the teacher who takes roles alongside the students. Though it may be used for specific pedagogical purposes, the overall aim is to change student understandings in some way. To this end, the drama is structured so that the students will create meaning as they reflect on their experiences in the drama. This approach is contrasted to other educational uses of drama Drama is often equated with theatrical performances by or for children. Child drama was developed in England, creative drama and creative dramatics are well known in the United States, and drama for social development was pioneered in both countries.
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Other uses of drama in the classroom have included using theatre games, role play, and simulations. Children's theatre. Theatre in schools ranges from productions of contemporary relevant plays which have been written or improvised and then performed by professional actors to a performance by children who have dressed up to repeat words which they may not understand and which others have written. In all cases however these are productions which are rehearsed and then performed for an audience. Child drama. In contrast to theatre for children, Peter Slade (1954) introduced in England the idea of "child drama" which is "an art form in its own right." Child drama values allowing children to play in the classroom in order to create their own dramas without an audience, a stage, a script, or teacher intervention. Slade "proposed an experiential, child-centered, play-based, natural learning process" as an alternative to the product of a production (Baswick, 1990, p. 3). For Slade, "content did not matter for what was expressed was seen to be of less importance titan the freedom to express it" (Bolton, 1985, p. 153). Creative drama and creative dramatics. In the United States, Slade's emphasis on "free expression" is echoed by those who use "creative drama" or "creative dramatics" in the classroom. Some practitioners (e.g. Heinig & Stillwell, 1981) use the terms interchangeabley. However, according to McCaslin (1974, p. 7) they are different. In creative drama, as in child drama, the children improvise their own stories. Attention is paid to the separate skills of pantomime and verbal activities which can be practised as individuals, in pairs, small groups and then as a whole group. Learning these activities in sequence is encouraged so that whole group activities are not considered appropriate places to start This distinquishes creative drama and creative dramatics from Child Drama which did not stress skills or such sequencing. Another difference between Child Drama and 16 creative dramatics is that in creative dramatics the students are acting out a story which the students are told or know before they begin. When they act it out, however, they do not use the original words of the story, they improvise and use their own words. They will often repeat their "playing" of the story in order to add more detail and to improve their organization. The students may at some point show their work to an audience. When these structures are used in high schools the term "improvisation" is often used. Drama for social development Brian Way, a student and follower of Peter Slade in England, proposed more teacher-controlled experiences for children. He argued (1967) that students could develop "life skills" such as intuition, concentration, and sensitivity through engaging in exercises. His main objective was the social development of the children. His step-by-step outline of skills to be acquired by the students and activities to be used by the teacher along with his concern for "the individuality of the individual" paralleled the work of Wmifred Ward (1930; 1957) in the United States. Theatre games. Viola Spolin's (1963, 1983, 1985) method is based on "theatre games" which are performed and evaluated by an audience. She stresses product over process and advocates "side coaching" by the teacher to keep the students focused on solving the problem which each game poses. A less structured approach to the use of theatre games was proposed in England by Clive Barker (1977). Role plav and simulation. Role play does not usually have an audience. In role play a student will take on a role in order to find out what it is like to "be" another person. Students will pretend to be other people in order to find out how they think and feel as those people. For instance, students may role play members of their family or historical or literary characters. Brookfield notes (1987, p. 104) that "the intent is to help the learners explore the perceptual filters of another person." The participants are not creating a play or a story and, as Bolton points out (1985, p. 156), they are not concerned with 17 symbolization. In other words, they are almost entirely concerned with the functional use of role so that, as McCaslin (1974, p. 9) notes, in role play "the assuming of a role (is) for the particular value it may have to the participant rather than the development of an art" In a simulation the students are role playing but they are all pretending to be in a particular context with the intention of simulating reality. For example, students might simulate nineteenth century schooling by dressing up and behaving for a whole day as if they were in school in the last century.
Reflection in the Arts When arguments have been mads for including the arts in education, it has been repeatedly noted that students should be involved in a variety of different activities. It is argued that students need to make their own art, as well as present it to others; they should also reflect and respond to art and thereby critique, interpret and evaluate it (Robinson, 1980; Abbs, 1987; Bolton, 1990; Hombrook, 1990). Though Abbs (1987) has argued that "in aesthetic education the students move constantly from one position to the other, now making, now responding, now performing, now evaluating", these processes are largely regarded as being separate pursuits. Gardner (1989) has shown how in the Arts Propel initiative (which is part of the Project Zero research) that they can be effectively integrated when there is "a constant dialectic among production, perception and reflection, with each step informing and enriching the others." Klein (1990) has noted, however, that this is contrary to the tenets of the prevalent approach to "discipline-based art education" where the making of art and the interpretation of art are largely regarded as quite separate; students are not encouraged to respond seriously to and evaluate their own work as art. This separation has been extended to the art form of drama; the making of drama, the performing of drama, and the reflection on drama have been seen as not necessarily 1 8 connected. This has been most evident in a long-standing split between teachers of "creative dramatics" and teachers of "theatre", the former seeing their students as learning to make their own improvised dramas and the latter seeing their students as performing for others and responding as audiences (Ward, 1930, 1957; McCaslin, 1974; Heinig & Stillwell, 1981). These differences have continued to be emphasized even by those who would apparently argue for their integration (Hombrook, 1990; D.E.S., 1991). In drama/theatre studies, students may be required to make up a play through improvisation, share the play in a staged performance, and critique it and other plays for their dramatic structures. However, the processes of making, performing, and reflecting are still seen only as separate or sequential rather than also being interconnected. Similarly, in creative drama or creative dramatics, if reflection is discussed at all it is seen as something which comes after a drama session and is not regarded as being an integral part of the work itself. These distinctions seem to have resulted from considering the activities which students engage in rather than considering how art is made. Heathcote (1984) and Bolton (1984,1985,1990), however, have repeatedly emphasized that drama in education ideally still uses the artistic structures of theatre. Robinson (1980) notes a spiraling between exploring, expressing, and interpreting in reflection which can occur as drama is being made in the classroom where though there are no separate spectators, students still work with a sense of audience. Bolton (1984) has extended this to note that there is still a performance element even within the most informal activity of dramatic playing. In this study I will show that rather than treating them as separate processes, making, performing, reflecting and interpreting can be regarded as interconnected processes which occur during the creation of improvised drama in the classroom. Reflection can therefore be seen as an integral part of the process of making drama. This will be discussed in detail below and in chapter TV. 19
The Need for Reflection in Drama Heathcote has argued that students learn when they reflect because they are able to create meaning for themselves and develop their own understandings about the experiences they have when they are engaged in a drama. This argument has long-standing support from the work of both Piaget and Dewey. It was Piaget (Gruber & Voneche, 1977) who demonstrated that children are not passive receivers of information, they are actively constructing their understandings of the world. As Kamii (1984) stresses, Piaget’s theory is in contradiction with strictly empiricist or maturatiortist assumptions about the nature of learning. Kamii notes (1984, p. 1) that Piaget devoted more than 60 years to the elaboration of his theory of "the child's acquisition of knowledge as a process of construction from within, in interaction with the environment, rather than as one of internalization from it." It is in this sense that students are "learning" when they construct meanings for themselves as they interact within the drama. Though Dewey has been simplistically seen as the champion of a theory of "learning by doing" he actually argues (1974) that "reflective thinking" must be an educational aim because without it we do not leam from our actions. Dewey further argues that by reflecting we not only create meaning, but we can become more conscious of the consequences of our actions and thus less likely to act on impulse. What may only have been a semi-conscious awareness may become conscious as we reflect Thus, if we reflect upon our experiences and consider the consequences of our actions, Dewey argues, we will gain more self-control and the freedom to choose wisely. Bolton (1979), Hall (1988), and others, have noted the similarities between children's spontaneous dramatic play and drama in education. In both, participants create a shared imaginary world as they interact and pretend that they are different people and/or in a different place or time. Vygotsky's argument (1978, p. 99) that "a child's greatest self 20 control occurs in play" and his belief that spontaneous dramatic play is essential for the development of the ability to make conscious choices supports Dewey's (1974) position. Though the mental engagement aspect of reflection has been stressed, this does not mean that reflection is purely an internal mental activity. Vygotsky (1962) recognized that when we talk, our thoughts come into existence. With older children and with adults this can be in the form of "inner speech", but with younger children especially, they need to talk out loud in order to bring their thoughts into being. Talking may take place publicly in front of the whole group or more privately in smaller groups. Inner speech and/or talk may happen as students move, write, draw, or otherwise dialogue with their experiences. However, to follow Vygotsky's argument, if the students arc engaged in this way they will be actively constructing their thoughts about those events and will be reflecting upon their experiences. It has been noted that reflection may occur during such activities as writing in role, making a map, making a summary statement in role, performing a ritual or dance, depicting, reading, listening, writing and talking. (O'Neill & Lambert, 1982; Morgan & Saxton, 1987). The students may well reflect on events and actions during these activities, however their reflections will remain private and unshared unless they are made public at some time. The students will not only be able to discover how they already think about something, they may also discover new meanings which may be expressed as ideas, attitudes, thoughts or feelings. These may again be shared in dialogue or as writing, drawing, or other representations which the students have created. Further, if talk or any other product of reflection is shared with others, this can in turn lead to further reflections by any of the participants including the original thinkers. 21
Heathcote has repeatedly emphasized (1978,1982,1984,1990) that students will only be able to leam by constructing meanings and understandings in reflection. She recognizes that it is not enough for the students to take action and to be involved as participants in the drama, they also have to reflect upon their actions and the events in the drama in order to discover what these mean for them. As has been shown, there is clear theoretical support for her position.
The Need for Teacher Structuring to Enable Reflection Though student reflection may happen without teacher structuring, Heathcote (1984) argues that the teacher must not leave this to chance. She emphasizes that drama is a group art form which is created as the teacher and the students work together. Despite criticisms of "manipulation" (Goode, 1982; Boomer, 1982), she argues that it is the responsibility of the teacher to structure the drama for both experiences and reflection by shaping it from inside as well as outside the drama. She does this to enable the students to leam (Heathcote, 1982; 1984). She will make structuring decisions with the students outside the drama (when the students are not in role) but she will also be able to do so from inside the drama by taking on roles in the same way as the students do. She distinguishes between the "enabling" teacher who is maitipulating but doing so for educational purposes, and the "unfairly manipulating" teacher who is not. She recognizes that she is constantly balancing her need to control behavior with her intention to enable learning. "If you want to give children power to achieve something, under what circumstances does it become negative to manipulate them so that they may achieve something?" (Heathcote, 1982, p.l 1). She argues that the teacher should use her power to enable the students to complete tasks, to create dramatic experiences which will achieve educational aims, and to bring about some change in the students' understandings. She argues that she wants the students to exercise power in the classroom, but not to do so 22 destructively. In describing her own teaching she notes that, "The teacher wanted them to take over her power. Not the power to control the quality of the experience (no teacher can abdicate from that) but the power to influence their own construct of the meaning in the event" (1984, p. 132). In her most recent writing Heathcote (1990) has returned to this theme. She refers to Freire (1987) who distinquishes between the manipulating authoritarian educator who retains power, and the liberating educator who when necessary assumes the responsibility for initiating learning but at the same time seeks to hand over that responsibility to the students. Freire here echoes Vygotsky, who noted that the adult can guide the child so that he may "become what he not yet is" (Wertsch, 1985, p. 67). Freire (1970) argues that learning happens in "praxis" which he defines as "a dialectical movement which goes from action to reflection and from reflection to action" (quoted in Heathcote, 1990, p. 42). Heathcote (1982; 1984; 1990) has argued that this is how drama should be structured. She was the first practitioner to point out that students could reflect about their experiences in a drama session not only after but also during the drama. If they wait until afterwards to reflect, the students have to remember what happened but also they cannot change any decisions. If they reflect as they are making decisions in the drama world the students can think about what they are doing. She does not propose didactic teaching or the teacher imposing what the students do not want On the contrary, she argues that by taking on roles with the students and interacting with them in the drama world, she can help the students to create the situations they want and also enable them to reflect on their experiences.
Participants in Drama Function as Actors. Playwrights, and Audience In writing a play the playwright creates an imaginary meaningful world. In the performance of a play both actors and audience have experiences and thereby construct 23 meaning. Useful parallels can be drawn between the experiences of the playwright, the actor, and the audience and the experiences of the participants in drama. Semioticians talk of "reading" the "signs" which comprise a text. Signs signify meaning through language, gesture, the use of objects, and interactions. Kowzan has stressed that, "everything is a sign in a theatrical presentation" (1968, p. 57). As Esslin has noted, "drama in performance is human life put on a pedestal to be exhibited, looked at, examined and contemplated. And every detail of what is exhibited during the course of a dramatic performance...becomes a sign...from which in the mind of each individual spectator, the basic information about what is happening in the drama is perceived and established. And out of these basic facts the higher levels of its 'meaning' must ultimately emerge" (Esslin, 1987, p. 39). Applying the principles of semiotics to the theatre, Elam (1980) has argued that rather than there only being a single text which has been written down, a "performance text" is also being created by the actors and the audience. Each actor uses movements, words, clothing, objects, and interactions with an intention to communicate meaning to the audience. The actors can find their own meanings of their experiences by reflecting as or after they perform; however, the audience must find meaning by reflecting on what they perceive and experience as spectators. They construct meaning from their experiences of everything which they see and hear on stage. Those in the audience do not just watch a performance. Along with the actors, they actively recreate or evoke a performance text for themselves out of what they perceive on the stage (Scholes, 1982). Each perceives a performance text as a network of meanings. There is, however, a basic literal meaning, which is comprised of the facts and events of what happens in a drama; it is collective meaning in the sense that it will be shared by nearly everyone who watches a performance. The performance text can, however, be interpreted for meanings beyond the literal; these 24 are "higher levels of meaning" which can be very different for each person (Esslin, 1987). Any personal, social, political, or symbolic meanings which a person finds in a play will vary depending on how he or she interprets the performance text There are useful comparisons to be drawn between the actors' and audience's experiences of a performance and the experiences of readers. The transactional theory of reading (Rosenblatt 1968,1978) argues that rather than being passive, reading is a very active transaction between reader and text in which meaning is generated when readers reflect on the experiences they have as they read. A work is not the words on the page but has to be evoked or recreated by a reader, only then can there be a personal interpretation which is a genuine response. Readers can thus be seen to be similar to the actors and audience in a performance as they both evoke and interpret the equivalent of a "performance text." Rosenblatt, however, emphasizes that though interpretation itself can be seen to be very cognitive, a reader is not only transacting with thoughts, but also with the feelings, emotions, and images of his or her complete experience of reading. Though the process of finding or creating meaning as a reader or as the member of an audience is active, it is also reflective since the reader or person in an audience is able to stand back and observe even though he or she is at the same time mentally deeply engaged. In drama in education the participants are also actively participating and, in a similar way, may also be reflecting. Though in drama the participants may be physically active, it will be their mental engagement which is essential. Just as a reader, or a member of the audience in the theatre can make sense of what is happening after or during his reading or observing, so can the participant in drama. I am arguing that participants in a drama engage in processes similar to those experienced by the reader and the audience in the theatre. Participants are functioning as both "actors" and "audience." They create what can be called a "drama text" and have 25 experiences as they transact with the drama text When they reflect on those experiences either as they are happening or afterwards, the participants interpret and discover what the drama means for them. Drama operates by the same "laws" as theatre in order to create dramatic experiences. Though there is no stage, lights, or script in drama, part of what makes a drama "dramatic" requires the same elements that make a play dramatic: some people pretend to be somewhere or to be someone and other people watch and may think about what they are doing and saying. In other words, some function as actors and the others function as spectators. In the theatre, though ideally the experience for each actor is an existential one where they recreate their role afresh during each performance (Moore, 1965). Actors may still be largely repeating what they have already done in rehearsals or in previous performances. This cannot be the case in successful improvised performances where the actors have to respond spontaneously in role to the behavior of other characters and bmld a fictional world as they interact (Johnstone, 1979). The actors are not only "performing" they are in this sense also "playwriting" because collectively they are making up a play. This is much closer to tlie experience of participants in drama in education which is by its nature improvisatory. The participants in drama are also in effect making up a play and can be regarded as functioning as "playwrights" as well as "actors." Just as the meanings of a play in the theatre can be divided into the basic literal meanings of events and facts shared by the whole audience and the higher meanings of personal interpretations, so can the meanings in drama. The basic literal meanings can be regarded as tl:e "drama text" which is created by the participants when they are functioning as actors and as playwrights. The personal interpretations are made when the participants are functioning as an "audience." Bolton notes (1984, p. 154) that though drama creates an 26 opportunity to "know something from the inside" by experiencing it, ultimately drama is concerned with "engaging with something outside oneself." Just as the audience in the theatre are spectators on what is happWng on the stage and are then in a position to reflect, similarly, the participants in drama can be spectators on what is happening and find personal meaning as they reflect on what they observe. Heathcote has stressed that teachers expect to be performers in the classroom because they have in effect "made a contract to allow people to stare at them" (1984, p. 162). However, Heathcote also notes that "the children have not made that contract (to be stared at)." Heathcote quotes Goffman (1984, p. 130) as saying that the individual becomes a performer when she is in a situation where she becomes "an object that can be looked at" In drama whenever there are some who are feeling that they are being looked at they are in this sense "performing" when "dramatic action can be observed, held up for examination and investigated for the truths it may contain" (O'Neill, 1988, p. 15). The audience function of participants in drama has not been widely accepted. On the contrary it has been argued that creative drama and creative dramatics are different from theatre precisely because the students are not performing for others or watching each other perform; the emphasis is on process and self-expression rather than product and how they appear to any observers (Ward, 1930, 1957; McCaslin, 1974). A playwright function is stressed, however, this playwright function is different from that in drama in education. In creative drama or creative dramatics it is rarely exercised by the whole group together and is also often seen as improvising new dialogue and/or action for an existing story or scenario rather than making an original 'play' with the teacher. The teacher's function is more of a facilitator of students' "self expression"; her involvement in the playmaking is reduced to a minimum. 27
Also, an aim in creative drama or creative dramatics is that the students should experience as if they are other people. This has been seen as similar to the actor's experience because there is an opportunity for students to empathize and "see the world from another point of view and respond as that person would respond" (Heinig & Stillwell, 1981). The students’ experiences in role are thus seen as valuable in and of themselves. In contrast, Dorothy Heathcote has consistently argued that experience is not enough; students need to find the meaning of their experiences in reflection. Without reflective processes through which students discover these meanings she argues that there can be no learning from the experiences (1984), Robinson (1980) has noted that rather than expressing their "selves", participants in drama express their attitudes, ideas and feelings about whatever they are paying attention to. He echoes Sartre (1946) who argued for a theatre of situation rather than a theatre of character. Thus, rather than stressing students' self-expression and reducing teacher involvement, Heathcote stresses the need for the teacher to be structuring situations in which the students can have experiences and on which they can reflect She advocates active participation by the teacher both in and out of role to enable the students both to experience and reflect The participants in drama can thus be regarded as functioning not only as actors, but also as playwrights, and audience; the students can be regarded as performing, reflecting, making, and interpreting as they create a drama.
Four Wavs to Structure for Reflection Heathcote has never written a systematic analysis of her own work. Wagner (1976) notes some important principles for reflection in her analysis of Heathcote’s teaching, but her account is very descriptive, anecdotal and filled with unexplained and often apparently contradictory quotes from Heathcote. Though Bolton has analyzed his own work (1979, 1984), and has stressed the need for reflection, he has not analyzed 2 8 specifically to show hew he enabled students to reflect Most of the other writers on the practical structuring of classroom drama have also stressed the importance of reflection (O'Neill & Lambert, 1982; O'Neill et al, 1976; Neelands, 1984, 1990; Davies, 1983, Byron, 1986; Morgan & Saxton, 1987; Swartz, 1988; O'Toole & Haseman, 1988), but they have not highlighted reflection and shown it to be essential for learning. For example, reflection has been grouped with discussion (O'Neill & Lambert, 1984) or discussed as one of many teacher "strategies" (Morgan & Saxton, 1987). O'Neill & Lambert (1982) have written the only "practical handbook for teachers" which combines analysis of lessons with advice on planning and structuring drama. However, even in their book the reflective processes themselves have not been described or analyzed in detail. Donald Schon's analysis of reflection by teachers and other professionals has led him to distinguish between reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action. Reflection-on- action is when we "think back on what we have done" (1987, p. 26), which can happen "in tranquility" or if we "stop and think" about what we are doing. In contrast, reflection-in- action is when we "think about doing something while doing it" (1983, p. 84). These different uses of the term reflection are implied in the drama literature. In addition, reflection can happen in and out of role. Four basic ways to structure for reflection by the students emerge from all that has been written. These are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Four Wavs to Structure for Student Reflection
R1 out of role at the beginning or end of a drama R2 out of role ckjring a drama R3 in role after an experience R4 in role during an experience 29
In order to discuss these structures in context, an example from Bolton’s teaching (1979, p. 47) will be described briefly. This example will be referred to below as "the African drama." A class of six year olds who were working on an African theme had demonstrated a general attitude that "Africans are primitive and quaint" Both the teacher of the class and Bolton concurred in this assessment of students' attitudes. The educational aim for a drama in which Bolton was the teacher was to see if the students would modify in some way their attitude to people from a different culture. In several drama sessions the students pretended to be Africans who planned the capture of a lion and then caught it They were very proud of what they had done. They met an American (the teacher in role) who was patronizing in his attitude as he offered them "aid." He wanted them to explain to him about what they had done on their hunt and what they needed in aid. They did so and argued that they did not need the kind of help he was offering. The first way (as noted by O'Neill & Lambert, 1982; Fleming, 1982) that the teacher can structure for reflection is to reflect after the drama session as a kind of summing up of what has happened; here the students are reflecting out of role and outside the drama. In the African drama the students would have been reflecting with structure R1 if after a session they had been discussing what they had done, thought, or felt during the session. If a drama lasts for more than one session, when the students reflect on what happened previously at the beginning of a session, they are also reflecting with structure Rl. The teacher's second way to structure for reflection is to reflect out of role before the end of the drama session. This can be as a kind of appraisal (Wagner, 1976, p. 78; Fleming, 1982). With stmcture R2 the students are again reflecting out of role and outside the drama, but they have only stepped aside in order to think about what has, is, or may happen in the drama. In the African drama if the students had come out of role to discuss 30 how they felt, to decide what the lion had done, or to decide if they wanted a person to get injured on the hunt, they would have been reflecting in this second way. The teacher's third way to structure for reflection is for the students to reflect in role after they have an experience in the drama (Bolton, 1984, p. 169). For instance, when the students were in role as Africans they might have shot at and wounded the lion. If later at their campfire they reflected on what had happened that day, they would be reflecting with structure R3 because they would have been reflecting in role on their earlier experiences. When the students met the teacher in role as an American they were also reflecting on their past actions in trapping the lion, but in addition they were reflecting in a fourth way (R4). Much of Heathcote's and Bolton's recent teaching has been structured to enable students to be both reflecting and experiencing at the same time. This is the fourth way that the teacher can structure for reflection. Bolton (1979, p. 127) has argued that this is perhaps the most powerful form of reflection. Heathcote (1984, p. 106) notes that "I have struggled to perfect techniques which allow my classes to stumble upon authenticity and to be able both to experience and reflect upon their experience at the same time: simultaneously to understand the journey while being both the cause and the medium of the work." This was the case in the African drama referred to above when the students were explaining to the teacher in role how they felt about the aid which he was offering them. Bolton notes (1979, p. 127) how this structure is different from the other three because "as things are happening and as words are spoken, their implications and applications can be articulated legitimately as part of the drama itself." In this case they were interacting with the teacher in role and had to decide what to say and do in response to him as they reflected on their need for "aid." 31
Similarly, if the students had been reflecting on their plans for capturing the lion as they were planning, or how a dead villager had been a part of their community as they buried him, then they would have been reflecting with structure R4.
Objective Meaning. Subjective Meaning, and the Drama World Just as readers create a story world (Benton, 1983; Enciso Edmiston, 1990) and children at play create a play world (Vygotsky, 1976) so the participants in a drama create a drama world. Though each reader constructs a personal story world, the drama world is similar to the play world because both are imaginary yet shared realities. The similarities between children's spontaneous dramatic play and drama in education have been noted above. In both, participants create an imaginary world as they interact and pretend that they are different people and/or in a different place or time. However, in drama the teacher is participating both in and out of role and can structure the work. As the participants interact and reflect in the drama world, they make and discover meanings which can be divided into objective meanings and subjective meartings. These meanings may arise irrespective of which structure for reflection was used. [The terms objective meanings and subjective meanings were used by Bolton (1979) and will here be extended.] Vygotsky argued (1976) that in everyday life we rarely attend to the meaning of our actions but that in spontaneous dramatic play the meanings of actions in the play world predominate over the actual actions themselves and for us to be able to play we must think about what we are doing and imagine a different world. Thus, by extension, in drama in education the participants are attending to the meanings of their actions in the drama world. These meanings are "objective" in the sense that each participant regards the events as happening externally to him or her in the drama world. The "reality" of the play world or drama world is constructed by the children both separately and collectively. Their own 32 actions and the actions of others will only make sense if they regard them as happening in the drama world. Each participant will be creating his or her own matrix of objective meanings but as all the participants tacitly accept or explicitly agree that their actions have particular shared meanings, they will be creating the events and details of the "drama text." Each participant's objective meanings and the collective drama text are "objective" in the sense that their actions and the events and details of the drama text are regarded as being external to them. The actions and events "exist" in the drama world which has an "objective", though imagined, reality. These objective meanings are not created by the participants' actions but as the participants think about their experiences concerning their own or others' actions; objective meanings and drama text are created in objective reflection. The following illustration may clarify this important point. If children are using dolls in a drama and pretending to console crying babies by talking to them and rocking them, each child will form his or her own objective meaning. One may be using a handkerchief and thinking that it is a diaper, another may be using a bowl and thinking that it is a crib. If all the children are wondering how to rock the baby in the crib then they will need to accept or agree that moving the bowl is rocking the crib; rocking the crib will become part of the shared objective meaning and thus part of the drama text if the group as a whole either tacitly accepts or specifically agrees to this pretend. An observer might think that the children are talking too loudly or rocking the baby too hard. However, the children may not think this. They are concerned with the objective meaning of their actions with babies and a crib rather than the specific details of the actions themselves with dolls and a bowl. In this instance, the children wiU interact with each other and with the dolls with their attention on consoling babies. They will reflect and respond to each others' actions on the basis of whether or not they mean that they will 33 console a baby. They each reflect objectively and form an individual objective meaning of what they are doing in the drama world and pay only subsidiary attention to what they are doing in the actual world. As these objective meanings are shared and agreed or accepted they become part of the drama text The drama text is what all the children would see and accept as "reality" if they actually were consoling and diapering babies. However, because there are no actual babies, cribs, or diapers the children "see" this reality in their imaginations. Drawing on Polanyi (1958) and Kelly (1963), Robinson (1980) notes that we can never be wholly objective because the way we see events, the meanings we make are colored by the attitudes we hold, or in other words our ideas, beliefs, feelings, and values. In this sense there will therefore be a "subjective" component as part of each participant's objective meanings. While accepting that as the students create the drama text they are drawing on their personal beliefs and feelings about every situation, it is nevertheless useful to consider the making of the drama text as separate from students’ interpretations when they reflect, think about what is happening and find personal meaning in what they observe. Thus, while accepting that there is no complete "objectivity", it is still useful to consider the drama text which is being made by the participants as comprised of agreed "objective meanings" in the sense that the participants regard themselves as interacting in a shared fictional external world (the drama world) when they are "in role." Conversely when they are interpreting the drama text and finding what the events mean for them, they are discovering their "subjective meanings" in subjective reflection. These are subjective in the sense that these are personal feelings and responses which need not be shared with anyone else and are part of the "internal" reality of each participant's "personal world." 34
Subjective meanings may, however, be shared with others. For example, one student may share his fears about dropping the baby, another may share his worries about getting soap in the baby's eyes and start to dry him. Other students might then reflect on what was said or done. As has been noted, when students interact they draw on their understandings and attitudes (even when they are not aware that they have any) while they make decisions, talk, move, and interact to create the world of the drama together. Though it may appear that they are just making decisions or doing something in role, students will always be relying on their value systems in order to make those decisions or take a particular action. What students, for example, say and do about diapering or bathing a baby will depend on their prior individual experiences, their understandings, and their attitudes which they bring to the drama situations. Participants in drama can, however, explore and investigate those understandings or attitudes as they are shared in particular fictional situations. As Bolton (1979) has noted, participants in drama may merely reinforce their existing ways of looking rather than clarify or modify them. However, it will be in subjective reflection, that any clarification or modification may occur. If students discover what the events of the drama mean to them, they may confront a belief or value as it has been expressed by themselves or others in an attitude to a particular situation. Though Bolton and Heathcote both hope for some change in students' attitudes, perspectives, or understandings as a result of drama work, whether or not any such changes took place is beyond the scope of this study. However, if students are to have any awareness of a widening of perspective or any shift in attitude they will realize this in subjective reflection as they create meaning for themselves about what is happening in the drama. 35
Teacher Structuring to Create Objective and Subjective Meaning Di objective reflection, the students may create objective meanings in their "personal worlds" about the details of the external drama world. In subjective reflection they may form subjective meanings as they wonder about what those details mean to them. The teacher can influence this creation of meaning by using "benign interference" (Johnson & O'Neill, 1984, p. 12) and thereby structure the drama. For example, in the drama about caring for babies, if the teacher picked up the baby and said that it seemed to be hot, a student might have picked up a pencil to take its temperature. This student might have created a thermometer as part of his objective meaning and if the teacher had asked him what he was doing and he had shared this with the rest of the group, then using a thermometer to take the baby's temperature would have become part of the drama text If the teacher wanted the students to reflect on how they felt about holding a baby, he could rock it just hard enough to see if the students would talk to him about why what he was doing was inappropriate and perhaps show him how to do it "properly." In their responses some students might have shared how they felt about shaking a baby too hard and they would have shared their subjective meanings. These would be expressed as attitudes about shaking babies. They might have different attitudes and might argue about what to do. On the other hand they might agree and switch to a different activity like singing the baby to sleep. The teacher can thus structure the drama so that the students will have opportunities to reflect in ways which would not arise if the students were left to themselves as they are in spontaneous dramatic play. The teacher can effect what happens in the drama world. He has introduced action of his own which the students can reflect upon objectively or subjectively and thereby create objective and/or subjective meaning. 36
Three Types of Subjective Meaning Bolton (1979, p. 126) lists what he calls three kinds of reflection: personal, universal, and analogous. Rather than being different in kind, these are really different types of subjective meaning which may be created as students reflect "Personal reflection" for a student may result in "a change in self awareness . . . insight into his own psychological makeup or into the social environment in which he lives." This seems to be synonymous with what Bolton calls a change in "attitude." He argues (1979, p. 41) that students' ideas and feelings about whatever is focused on in the drama context can be regarded as a beginning "attitude" and that as a result of experiences in the drama, the students may have insights which will change that attitude in some way. Bolton argues (1979, p. 49) that from what he observed about the way the smdents talked and behaved in the Afirican drama that at least some of the students seemed to have shifted their attitude from "Africans are primitive and quaint" to now thinking that "Africans are like us in many ways." As an example he notes that they decided to ask for toys as "aid" because as one girl explained "we love our children too." "Universal reflection" is "the conscious placing of an experience within a higher level of abstraction, a movement from the particular to a generalized theory or principle. Bolton gives the example of five year olds who might have generalized that "Things aren’t always what they seem" after they drank some liquid in a classroom drama because it was an interesting color only to discover that it had an unexpected effect on them. Heathcote’s phrase "dropping to the universal" (Wagner, 1976, p.76) would seem to correspond to this outcome of reflection. "Analogous reflection" is "a leap from the drama context to anoAer context." Bolton gives the example of a student who seemed to make a connection between a cover- up in the drama and the Watergate trials which were going on at the same time. 37
Though Bolton's categories are useful, I do not intend to restrict the term "subjective meaning" to the three types outline above nor do I intend to attempt any categorization of subjective reflection. When the term "personal meaning" is used it should not be taken to be restricted to Bolton's first category above. The term personal meaning is used synonymously with subjective meaning.
Questions and Teacher Structuring When students reflect, they are paying attention to particular details or aspects of an event or situation. As the students interact with each other and with the teacher, they will be continually shifting their attention. The term "focus" has been used to describe the object of the students' attention, but it has also been used in other ways. There is, unfortunately, little consistency or clarity in the literature over the use of the term focus. It is unclear whether it describes an external or an internal point of attention and whether it is for the teacher or the students. Some writers (Neelands, 1984; Byron, 1986) talk of deciding on a focus for a drama and use the term almost synonymously with educational aim or objective. Morgan & Saxton (1987) even ïalk of the educational focus. Bolton (1984, p. 157) on the other hand talks of a "focus of attention" and a "subsidiary focus" both of which are different for the students and the teacher. O'Neill & Lambert (1982. p. 137) note that the focus is "precise" and that it needs to be redefined at each stage of the woric but they do not discuss focus in depth. Heathcote notes that a drama session " hasn't got to go drifting about unless that is the choice made by [the teacher] and the class together" (1982, p. 17). She describes (1984, p. 120) focus as the "area of concern" for the students. It has become clear to me that, though students may have a broad area of concern, what the students are specifically concerned with is changing fix)m moment to moment with 38 every interaction. Also, the teacher will be attempting to affect this by setting tasks and interacting with the students. In every task and interaction it can be argued that there is an "underlying question” even when a question has not been asked directly. When students reflect they are in effect "answering" the question which the teacher asks explicitly or inq)licitly. Morgan & Saxton (1987, p. 135) note how the teacher’s questioning can affect what the students reflect about Though Morgan & Saxton detail many of the functions of questions in drama (e.g. "assessing interest" and "seeking information") some of their categories of teacher questioning can also be regarded as ones which wiU promote objective reflection as well as Bolton's three kinds of subjective reflection. A question which Morgan & Saxton categorizes as related to "plot", for example, "This is what I saw. Is this what you wanted us to see?" will promote objective reflection among the students. One related to "meaning", for example, "Do you think we were right to try and make the aliens like us?" will promote subjective reflection which in Bolton's terms is "personal." The question, "I wonder if the aliens feel like the first people did when they saw the explorer landing on their shores?" which Morgan & Saxton relate to "feeling" will promote subjective reflection which is "universal" for Bolton. Finally, a question like, "I wonder if there are times when we are justified in breaking our promises?" could lead to analogous subjective reflection. The students can also be regarded as asking themselves a question in any interaction. The question may have been posed directly or indirectly by the teacher and, of course, questions can also be implied in teacher statements. For example, "I don't know what to do!" implies the question "Wliat should we do?". If the teacher has not posed a question, students may have posed one themselves. For example, in the African drama, as the students sat around their camp fire talking, they could have considered the question. 39
"What happened today on our hunt?" However, even if the teacher has not guided the students' attention, the students will be attending to something even though that may not be what the teacher had planned or intended. Some students may be asking themselves different questions. For example, some students may wonder, "What will we eat for dinner?" which may lead the students into matters which the teacher would rather not spend time considering. In such a case, or if the students are not considering a question at aU, the drama will "go drifting about." If the teacher attempts to shift the students' attention by setting a different task or posing another question, the teacher will be structuring the drama. This may be what is meant by others as "focusing" in the sense that the teacher is attempting to direct or change the students' attention.
Conclusion This chapter reviewed the literature related to reflection in drama. It was argued that reflection can be seen as an integral part of the process of making drama. This will be illustrated further in chapter IV when the model for teacher structuring for reflection will be described. Theoretical support was shown for Heathcote's argument that students learn when they reflect because they are able to create meaning for themselves and develop their own understandings about the experiences they have when they are engaged in a drama. The drama world created by the participants in a drama in education session was compared to the play world of spontaneous dramatic play. Drama and play were then contrasted as an illustration of how the teacher can enable the students to reflect by interacting with the students in role. Four ways to structure for reflection were discussed; two with the teacher out of role and two with the teacher in role. 40
Comparisons with the theatre and with reading were drawn in order to illustrate how the students in a drama are functioning as actors, playwrights, and audience. Though they were acknowledged to be interconnected, a distinction was drawn between students' objective and subjective meanings which are formed in students' objective and subjective reflections. The drama text was shown to be objective meanings which are shared by the whole group and three types of subjective meaning were described. Teacher structuring through the posing of explicit or implicit underlying questions was discussed. The model for teacher structuring for reflection which is presented in chapter IV draws on the literature reviewed in this chapter. The model will be applied to the teaching of Dorothy Heathcote in chapter IV and to my own teaching in chapters V and VI. CHAPTER m METHODOLOGY
Introduction "No one teaches a teacher how to teach. Teachers are made in the classroom during confrontations with their classes, and the product they become is a result of their need to survive and the ways they devise to do this" (Heathcote 1984, p. 11). Here Heathcote reminds us that just as the students construct their understandings of the world so must the teacher. She has never suggested that learning to use drama would be straightforward. She sees the teacher as an artist co-creating an art form with her students but emphasizes that the teacher takes most of the responsibility for structuring the work. In order to do this a teacher of drama must learn "high selectivity" (1984, p. 119). Teachers need to become aware of the choices they have to enable students to leam and become as deliberate as possible in everything they say and do with their classes. As a former student of Dorothy Heathcote's who has struggled to be more effective as a teacher in structuring drama for reflection, I know that the intricacies of using drama do not diminish as one improves. On the contrary, every time I teach, I become more aware of both the simplicity and the complexity of using drama. Reflecting on moments in drama sessions which "work" helps me to appreciate their elegance and effortless appearance despite the complex intercoimections which are being created and effected by the tiniest decisions. Reflecting on moments and whole sessions which "don’t work" often guides me to new subtleties and nuances of structuring drama. Learning to become aware of this complexity, and learning how to build and use those interconnections productively 41 42 is both an ongoing joyful achievement and a painful struggle. However, I have constructed my own understandings by reflecting on my experiences, by reading, by talking, and especially by watching and listening to students. This study is a result of that struggle and achievement. Though ultimately every teacher must leam for him or herself how to use drama, the theories and practice of others can be invaluable. A significant part of my data sources were the writings and practice of others, especially Dorothy Heathcote. This study was a teacher-researcher study. Teacher-research has been described by Lawrence Stenhouse who notes that for generations of teachers, "the refinement of professional skills is generally achieved by the gradual elimination of failings through systematic study of one's own teaching" (1975, p. 39). Though this is the way practitioners have always improved the effectiveness of their teaching, teacher-research is done in a more careful, more systematic, and more rigorous way than the average teacher is able to study his or her teaching (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982, p. 7). In this study I wanted to refine my structuring drama to enable the students to reflect. I was able to do this by the systematic analysis outlined below. Kemmis & McTaggart (1988) note that another goal of teacher-research (or action research as they call it) is to be able to undCTStand practice so as to articulate a rationale of practice in order to improve the practice of others. I also had this aim and this study will present a model of teacher structuring for reflection. The research design for this study, which enabled this model to be devised, emerged as the study progressed. An emergent design is frequently the case in a teacher- researcher study (McCutcheon & Jung, 1990). This model has been written by a practicing teacher and will give examples from lessons which were "unsuccessful" as well as ones which were "successful" in terms of structuring for reflection. The model which has been created will be used in chapter IV to analyze a drama session taught by Dorothy Heathcote as well as in chapters V and VI to 43 analyze an "unsuccessful" and a "successful" lesson which I taught in terms of structuring the drama for reflection. The details of the model will be illustrated with examples from my own teaching.
Data Sources There were three major sources of data in this study: the practice of Dorothy Heathcote and Cecily O'Neill, two leading practitioners of drama; the writings of Heathcote and other practitioners and theorists who have written about drama and education; and my own experiences as a teacher using drama. The practice of Dorothy Heathcote and Cecily O'Neill. I was a student of Dorothy Heathcote and of Cecily O'Neill. Reflecting and analyzing both the practice of these two leading practitioners of drama and their ongoing reviews of their own teaching was seminal in my own growth as a practitioner. Dorothy Heathcote's Master of Education course was an intensive eleven month course which I took with her as the principal professor. The sixteen master's students for that year worked together and with her in the planning, implementation, and analysis of dramas. The participants in the dramas ranged from mentally handicapped children to urtiversity undergraduates. Students on the course all wrote theses and extensive papers about drama theory and practice. Subsequent to the master's course, I have been able to view and analyze several of the commercially produced videotapes of Dorothy Heathcote's work. One of these is analyzed in chapter IV. Cecily O'Neill has her ov/n style of teaching but she acknowledges that she incorporates the ideas and values which Gavin Bolton (a former student of Heathcote's) and Dorothy Heathcote bring to the discipline. As the co-editor of the collected writings of Dorothy Heathcote, she has a special perspective on Heathcote's thinking. My experience of Heathcote's practice was almost entirely her teaching of children or students. In 44 contrast, apart from analyzing several taped or live sessions with children, my experience of Cecily O'Neill’s practice was with the participants in the graduate classes in which I was a student The writings of Heathcote and other practitioners and theorists. There were some books which I read and reread several times during data collection and analysis. Though I do not intend to refer to all those books in this subsection, reference needs to be made to a few of thent We are fortunate that the majority of Dorothy Heathcote's writings on education and drama have been collected in a single volume (Johnson & O'Neill, 1984). Other articles (e.g. Heathcote, 1978, 1982,1983, 1988, 1990) and unpublished materials exist, but this collection provides an invaluable source of Heathcote's ideas about her practice. The collected writings were published as they were originally written so that they are more a chronicle of her thinking at specific moments over the past 25 years rather than a coherent treatise. Her writings are more of a kaleidoscope than a window on drama. The collected writings are rich in references to the writings of others, and to details of her practice. She does not come from a teaching or academic background which causes problems for some readers because her writings are also filled with original metaphors and idiosyncratic thinking. Others have adopted her metaphors as jargon (e.g. "dropping to the universal") but Heathcote has steadfastly resisted ossifying her thinking in her earlier language and continues to invent new ways of describing the complexities of teacher and learning. She continues her struggle to capture some of the specifics of drama teaching without losing its complexities. However, readers of her writings, including those who have been students of hers, can become confused. What I was able to bring to my reading of her writings were those aspects of drama which had become clear to me during my master’s course. 45
Then as I continued to teach myself how to improve as a teacher I found more meaning in sections which I had previously found difficult Gavin Bolton's writings on drama in education consist of two books (Bolton, 1979,1984) and a volume of his selected writings (Bolton, 1986) along with some other articles not included in the selected writings (e.g. Bolton, 1985,1990). Gavin Bolton has provided practitioners with some detailed analyses of practice and a wealth of theoretical detail and justification for using drama. His writing can also be confusing at times since, like Heathcote, he is sometimes idiosyncratic and inconsistent in his terminology and structure. However, with repeated re-readings and references to practical examples, the sophistication of Bolton's ideas begins to come clear. Like Heathcote's they have been seminal in my understanding of drama in education and in the creation of the model which is presented in chapter IV. Other books have also been significant data sources which I have read and reread (Wagner, 1976; O'Neill & Lambert, 1982; Morgan & Saxton, 1988). These and others are referred to throughout this study. Mv own experiences as a teacher using drama. In creating the model for teacher structuring presented in chapter IV, I drew on experiences over the previous seven years of my own teaching as well as on the works cited above. I had taught sessions with school students grades K-12 and had also taught college students drama for a year. However, the major source of data for systematic analysis of my teaching experiences were videotapes recorded in my own classroom and the classrooms of other teachers over a two-year period of formal data collection fiom October 1988 to June 1990. Though I had been a student of Dorothy Heathcote 1983-84 and had used drama with students of all ages fi’om 1984-87,1 felt a need to improve my own practice. I had wanted to return to full-time classroom teaching at the elementary level and in the summer 46 of 1987 accepted a 3-4 grade position in a suburban school with an integrated curriculum and a whole language, literature-based language arts program. I decided to videotape my own day-to-day drama teaching and planned to begin a teacher-researcher study of my structuring of drama for reflection by the students. Knowing how important reflection is in drama, I had already been thinking about how the teacher is enabling reflection in her structuring. This was a problem to which I was committed and one which could at least result in clarification of my own structuring. It was therefore an appropriate problem for classroom research (Hopkins, 1985, p. 43).
Data Collection Learning how to be an effective classroom teacher preoccupied me for my first year in the classroom and it was not until 1988-89 (which was my second year teaching grades 3-4) that I began to collect data of my own teaching using drama. I used drama in my own class, and also taught sessions in the grades 2-5 "special needs" classroom^ of a colleague. I kept field notes and videotaped my work whenever possible. My second year of data collection was 1989-90 when I was a full-time lecturer at a university. During this second year I continued to keep field notes and videotaped my drama work with students grades 1-9 as a visitor to these classrooms. During my second year of data collection I was teaching college classes in drama and in the summer of 1990 ran a six-day course for teachers at another university in Evanston, Illinois. As part of that course I taught, for four mornings, with two different "gifted" classes grades 6-8. The data I collected over this two year period will be referred to as "my teaching data."
1 Students with "special needs" were defined as students of average or above average IQ who were performing below their "potential" as determined by standaridized tests including the California Test of Basic Skills. 47
My two main ways of recording data were video taping and keeping field notes. The videotapes were my ongoing record of lessons. Hopkins (1985, p. 59) describes what my field notes were: "a way of reporting observations, reflections, and reactions to classroom problems," and as Hopkins suggests, I tried to write up my field notes as soon after a lesson as was possible. These were more often hand-written though sometimes written on a word-processor. Though I always thought about previous lessons, my actual written field notes ranged firom a few scribbled notes on a particular student to extended reflections over several pages on a structuring decision ! had made. As well as the uses Hopkins outlines, I also used my field notes for planning. I always reviewed a session as part of my planning for a subsequent session. My field notes were thus a combination of reflections on prior teaching and plans for future teaching. Making videotapes of drama sessions was essential to this study. It was much easier to videotape than I had expected. In my own classroom I used a wide-angled lens and set the camera in the comer. Occasionally an aide would videotape for me which helped as sometimes I was preoccupied and forgot to switch on the camera. In other teachers’ classrooms I asked the teacher to hold the camera. With very few exceptions teachers were very sensitive to the need to show interactions on the video rather than focusing on individuals. Consequently the data produced seemed to be as accurate a record of a lesson as is possible with a video camera. The students largely lost interest in the camera if they were given an opportunity to look at it before taping began and were asked to ignore the camera. The presence of the camera did not seem to affect their behavior, students seemed to behave similarly whether or not they were being recorded. As Hopkins notes (1985, p. 71), video not only shows unedited behavior of teacher and students, it also allows for review and patterns to be established in retrospect, both within sessions and over time. The results of this study could not have been formulated without videotaping. 48
Sixty-eight sessions of my drama teaching were videotaped over the two years of formal data collection. Many of these sessions were parts of extended dramas. In the first year, 28 sessions were videotaped in my own 3-4 grade classroom and 11 sessions were videotaped in my colleague’s 2-5 grade "special needs" classroom. In the second year 29 sessions were videotaped in classrooms grades 1-9. All sessions took place in suburban schools in Ohio with the exception of the 8 sessions at the end of the second year which were conducted in Evanston, Illinois in the summer program for "gifted" students. Class size varied fiom 8 "special needs" students and 9 "gifted" students, to "regular" classrooms of 23 - 29 students. Drama sessions varied in length from 40 minutes to 90 minutes. Dramas were completed in times ranging from a single 40 minute session, to an extended drama of eleven sessions over a three-week period. Some drama sessions began with reading a picture book, others began with me in role, others began with a discussion or review of a previous session. During drama sessions students were engaged in activities including pair work, small group work, the creation of tableaux, whole group work, writing, reading, drawing, and art work. When students wrote, drew pictures, made maps or other artifacts, these were collected or copied and filed. The topic for each drama was chosen by me or the classroom teacher with occasional input from the students. These included: themes in various picture books; a science topic of endangered animals; the social studies topics of immigration, the middle ages, pioneers; and the value of art in our culture. Some drama sessions, including the two used in chapters V and VI, had clear educational aims. The aim of the Dungeon Drama was to have the students in role as knights and ladies question the arbitrary use of power by the king who had locked up 49 prisoners in the dungeon; the aim of the Arts Drama was to have students clarify and extend their thoughts and feelings about the value of art in society. The aims of these two sessions are discussed in more detail in chapters V and VI. Others dramas with clear educational aims included; students in my own classroom in role as immigrants would leave their homes and remember what they had left behind; third grade students in role as villagers would plan what to do with the magician who played tricks on them; third grade students in role as settlers would have to choose between honoring an agreement with the natives and the rights of new settlers to build houses on land they had bought; kindergarten students in role as police officers would search for a lost girl, decide what condition she was in, and then decide what to do when they found her. Some dramas had specific curricular aims, especially those in my own classroom. Examples include: students would write in role as immigrants on board ship remembering what they had left and wondering what would be ahead for them; students would describe what happened in the forest in role as an animal; students were to make tableaux to show what pioneer life was like; students were to research in role as planners of a wolf park. Some dramas, especially in my own classroom, had very hazy aims when I thought I would just "do" some drama. In these cases the "aim" was really to explore any aspect of a theme which arose. Without a clear educational aim my intention was to find one, as happened on occasions. For example, villagers who met me in role as a stranger eventually said they wanted guns to shoot the tigers which had been attacking them. I followed their lead and adopted an aim of seeing in what circumstances they would be prepared to kill tigers. However, as I discovered in analysis, these dramas tended to drift from one concern to the next. More usually, however, I had to tolerate a lack of direction which was actually very unsettling and unsatisfactory. 50
I recorded my plans for all sessions and kept post-session notes. When possible, I reviewed the videotapes during the coarse of the data collection and kept notes of my reactions. I also kept extensive notes of my changing understandings about drama teaching; these were compiled as responses to my reading, my experiences as a student in graduate classes in drama, and my thoughts as a lecturer in drama.
Data Analysis There are three aspects to my data analysis which I wish to discuss. The first aspect is my ongoing analysis of drama which began before the collection of my teaching data and will continue for as long as I am a drama practitioner. My analysis of structuring for reflection in drama is part of this analysis. The second aspect is the analysis which continued over the two-year period of the collection of my teaching data. The third aspect is the systematic analysis which took place after the collection of my teaching data. I will discuss each aspect in turn. My ongoing analysis of drama is pervasive. With everything I read which is specifically on drama and theatre I look for similarities and differences between what the author is discussing or implying about practice and my experiences or observations of other teachers. With my reading of other books of fiction and nonfiction I often find myself thinking about how they could be used in a classroom session. I also often analyze stories, plays, films, television, and people's behavior for their dramatic structures and consider if this tells me anything about how to structure a drama better. For example, in watching "Thirty Something" and "Masterpiece Theatre" on PBS, I watch for shifts in tension, uses of dramatic conventions like dream sequences, and when the characters are reflecting. The graduate classes with Cecily O’Neill and my continuing reflections on the live or videotaped teaching of Dorothy Heathcote, Gavin Bolton, David Booth, and others have also provided significant contexts for my ongoing analysis of drama. When I read 51 theoretical writings, if no examples are given (which is often the case), I usually try to relate their descriptions to examples of practice which I already know. For example, Bolton's (1984) seventeen page description of learning only makes passing reference to two moments in drama sessions. In my repeated re-readings of this section I related his theoretical comments to video tapes of my teaching which I had recently watched. As my experience has increased as a teacher of college students and of children in my own classroom, and in the classrooms of others, I have found that as I have returned to the theoretical writings of others that they make more sense every time. Some passages I have read and reread several dozen times to find that my understanding continues to evolve as I understand more about my own teaching. In particular, my understandings of what Heathcote and Bolton have written about reflection have become much clearer. In writing about drama, in teaching teachers, and in presenting at conferences and workshops, I have had to explain what I and others are trying to do in drama and I have found that each of these has helped the implicit to become explicit I mention these activities to emphasize that the other two aspects of my analysis must be seen in this context My analysis of my teaching was not in a vacuum. There was a reciprocity between my teaching, my writing, my reading of theoretical writings and my understanding of my own and others' practice. This was a recursive process so that during collection of my teaching data and during systematic analysis, my understandings of drama changed and became more sophisticated. When I read or reflected I saw meanings I had not seen before and understood passages in books which I had previously skipped over as being incomprehensible. Similarly, I found that my practice in the classroom and my understandings of my teaching in retrospect were influenced by my ongoing analysis of drama. 52
The second aspect of data analysis was my analysis during the collection of my teaching data. This was as systematic as was possible. I had hoped always to review videotapes before teaching another session with drama but this proved to be impossible especially in my own classroom. I always did plan and always reviewed one session as part of my planning for a subsequent session. I was analyzing for structuring for reflection but, of course, I was also analyzing for the structuring of the drama as a whole. One major finding was that I found I began to question some of my assumptions about structuring in general and structuring of reflection in particular. I began to see considerations which I had not thought of beforehand. For example, I began to realize that I could trust the group more to come up with suggestions. Rather than making a suggestion or stopping the drama completely to plan, I began to ask the group, in or out of role, what to do next Mid-way through teaching data collection I worked with a group of kindergarteners who were searching for a lost girl. We were imagining we were searching for her in a boat and 1 asked them if they could see her. One boy pointed to the floor and said, "She's down there. Stuck." They decided she was alive and then masterminded how to rescue her. 1 also discovered that my intentions were not always consistent with my actions which led me to question and change some of my practice. For example, I thought that I was enabling students to have an experience by controlling their behavior. However, when 1 realized that I was not always paying attention to what they were saying, but was concentrating more on what they were doing, I discovered that I was often firustrating students and negatively affecting the experience I wanted them to have as well as too often missing moments of reflection in my concern for the students to complete a task. My third and fourth grade students on one occasion were waiting in line as emigrants about to board a ship. In role I had told them to line up quietly. When 1 stopped them talking I did not realize that I had stopped them talking about wnat they were going to miss. As I reflected 53 on the practice and theory of others, as was stated above, I found that my understandings of practice and theory changed and evolved in ways that I had not expected. For example, in re-reading Bolton's (1984) comparison between game structure and tension, I began to realize that a task could be light-hearted and yet still have a deep feeling component relevant for the drama. On one occasion students in my class made the sounds of the ghosts in the dungeon of a castle. They had great fiin "scaring" each other, but immediately afterwards wrote moving "messages" in chalk on black paper which the former prisoners had scrawled on the walls. One student wrote, "Help. I dreamed of death by the dragon's hot breath." The third aspect of data analysis is the most systematic. After the collection of my teaching data, I began to review the sixty-eight hours of teaching I had on videotape. Initially I sampled over time and watched about ten hours of my teaching. I looked for moments when the students seemed to be reflecting and took notes on what the students were doing and what I seemed to be doing as the teacher to enable this to happen. I was both describing and evaluating my teaching as I reviewed it (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982, pp 8-9). Patterns began to emerge (Miles & Hubennan, 1984) which were initially based on assumptions which I had developed during the collection of my teaching data. These patterns led me to look for further examples in other video tapes. I discovered that there was a broad distinction between my first and second year of teaching and that I had significantly improved during the second year. Consequently, I viewed several more tapes from the first year but nearly all the tapes from the second year. I analyzed several drama sessions task by task and in some cases phrase by phrase. I looked for confirmatory examples as well as negative case examples (Miles & Hubennan, 1984). Max van Manen (1990) argues that as teacher-researchers we should perhaps "leam to deal with what we should have done" so that we may leam to be more "tactful" in our practice by becoming more thoughtful about the students (p. 154). He continues by 54 arguing that the teacher leams how tactful he is by retrospective "thoughtful reflection" on his actions in the classroom. I was engaging in this type of thoughtful reflection as I reviewed the videotapes, much more so than I was during the collection of the teaching data. I did discover details of both my tactfulness and my tactlessness. I critiqued myself "objectively" as "the teacher" but I was never fully detached from knowing that I was watching myself. For others who might contemplate such data analysis it may be important to note that, consequently, I found reviewing my own teaching a frequently humbling and often painful experience. Though I considered myself a "good" teacher in the sense that my purposes and effects were to enable students to cooperate and leam, like all teachers over several years of teaching I had developed patterns of planning and interacting. Some positive patterns enabled students to create and reflect on drama text, other negative patterns did not Many of the details of what I did were unintentional and unconscious. In my analysis of my own planning and teaching I gradually became aware of patterns both positive and negative of which I had been imaware and which I was then able to compare with the teaching of Heathcote and O'Neill. As I struggled to synthesize these patterns and reconcile them with the literature about drama, I gradually constructed the model which is presented in this study.
Development of the Model of Structuring for Reflection Honest critique of my own teaching was essential in the development of this model. Two processes in particular enabled me to do this. The first was that in college teaching of classes in drama during the second year of my collection of teaching data I demonstrated and then analyzed many drama sessions. I mostly used the college students in each class though occasionally used children. As I explained my rationale for planning, setting tasks 55 and interactions this led me to realize reasons (or the lack of reasons) for my actions and also led me to rethink much of what I did. The second process which particularly enabled me to develop the model was detailed critiquing of my teaching on video tape. It was often extremely difficult to watch myself and feel myself cringe when I said or did something which in retrospect I wished I had not done. However, this process was invaluable as it enabled me to critique my work honestly. I was able to watch interactions in great detail and see them repeatedly. At first this seemed to be almost masochistic but as I forced myself to continue my analyses I gradually began to realize aspects of structuring that effected whether or not a drama
"worked." I should also mention that I had to be very careful during transcriptions to record exactly what was said and done and not to edit out embarrassing moments. Though this study is written mostly in the first person, paradoxically I found that watching and especially writing about myself as "the teacher" gave me the distance I needed to be able to separate myself "the watcher" firom myself "the teacher" and begin to critique what I saw on the tapes. The process I followed is similar to that described by Kemmis & McTaggart (1982) in their explanation of Kurt Lewin's (1946) now classic model of "action research." Lewin described action research as a spiral of steps or "moments" each of which is composed of planning, action, observation, and reflection. However, Kemmis & McTaggart note that Lewin deliberately overlapped action and reflection "to allow changes in plans for action as the people involved learned firom their own experience" (1982, p. 7). This was what was happening as I read and planned what to look for in the videotapes, observed parts of lessons, and reflected on what I had seen. 56
During this whole process my ongoing analysis continued. I continued to teach students on occasions and I also returned to the writings of Heathcote and Bolton. I found that my understanding of their structuring for reflection became more complex and I decided to analyze a videotape of a lesson of Dorothy Heathcote for examples of teacher structuring for reflection. My rationale for choosing this tape is discussed in chapter IV, but briefly, I chose this tape because it is commercially available; many teachers in the U.S. have already seen it and it is a short but substantially complete lesson using drama. I described the "Heathcote Drama" in great detail and analyzed every task and interactions for teacher structuring for reflection. I then returned to the tapes of my own teaching and analyzed six representative ones in more detail transcribing sections of each example. I chose these as examples of when teacher structuring seemed to be enabling at least some reflection. These detailed analyses led me to amend substantially my tentative findings. In particular, I realized that the process of structuring for reflection was inextricably linked with students' "performances", and their "making" of drama. I began to synthesize my results into a model of structuring for refection. I had drawn diagrams throughout my analysis and continued to attempt to capture the complexity of teacher structuring on a single page. I returned to examples firom the Heathcote Drama, the six sessions of my own teaching, and to the theoretical writings of others in order to describe this model in more detail. For the purposes of presentation of analysis and results I decided to continue my analysis of only two examples from my own teaching as well as the example firom the teaching of Dorothy Heathcote. I felt that more than three examples could be difficult for the reader to follow and also realized that by selecting the examples from my own teaching carefully and adding some brief examples fi'om other sessions that I would still be able to 57 illustrate the model effectively. I wanted to give examples of when the model was not working to promote reflection as well as examples of when reflection was being promoted by teacher structuring. I wanted to show the model’s applicability to Heathcote's work but also to my own. I chose the two examples from my own teaching for the following reasons. Both examples: had a variety of different tasks in a comparatively short period of time; could be considered independently of sessions which followed or preceded them; had been planned and had educational aims; and had been recorded in full without any technical problems. The first example (the "Dungeon Drama") is an example of a session in which my structuring had not enabled the students to reflect; in addition it had actually stopped the students from reflecting. This was despite the fact that the students were not misbehaving and were following my instructions as I set the tasks I had planned. Other examples could have been used to illustrate structuring which did not enable reflection but this example had a particularly useful section when I repeatedly negated students’ reflections. The second example (the "Arts Drama") is an example of a drama in which my structuring was repeatedly enabling the students to reflect. I initially had reservations about choosing this example because the drama lasted over four sessions, it was with a small group of eleven students who were classified as "gifted", and had twelve adults involved because I was teaching the drama as part of a summer institute for teachers. However, I chose this drama because I was able to illustrate nearly all the points I wanted to make about the model. Other sessions had been truncated by time or by technical problems, were only successful at enabling reflection in parts, or had been rushed in planning or teaching. The Arts Drama, in contrast, had been very carefully planned, could have been conducted with more students and no teachers, had had no technical problems, and had a coherence that no other drama quite had. I decided to use the drama and analyze only the first three sessions in 58 détail. Those sessions really had to be analyzed together, however, the final session could be considered separately.
Analysis of Examples and Presentation of Results There were ten steps in the analysis of each example and the presentation of results. (Some terms are unavoidably used here which will be defined in the context of the presentation of the model in chapter IV.) (1) Each example was initially described in detail. (2) The description was then presented in a table with an additional analysis column. Every task and interaction in the Heathcote and Dungeon Dramas were analyzed; every task and representative interactions in the Arts Drama was analyzed because that example took place over a much longer period. (3) Each example was then analyzed for teacher structuring of tasks and their grouping into phases. The connection between the educational aim and the structuring of tasks in phases was analyzed. (4) The teacher’s and students' performances in role and their public sharing out of role was then analyzed. (5) The frequency of the use of reflection structures R1-R4 was presented in a table. (6) A table of the reflection structures used in each taskfinteraction was presented. (7) The creation of drama text in objective reflections was next analyzed both for the explicit agreements made by students and for students' tacit acceptance. (8) A table of explicit student agreements was presented in the Heathcote Drama but not for the other two examples because there were so few instances of these. The reason for this is discussed in the analysis of the examples of my own teaching. (9) An analysis of students' subjective reflections accompanied a table showing subjective reflections in each example. (10) Finally, a summary table was presented which showed tasks, interactions, underlying questions, as well as which cycle the teacher and students were engaged in. Again, 1 found that as 1 reviewed and analyzed the three examples, and also continued to read theoretical writings, my understanding of the model deepened. The final 59 version of the diagram, which is presented in Figure 2 in Appendix 1, did not emerge until well into the analysis of my own teaching. As I wrote this dissertation my understandings continued to develop and this study is a description of my current understanding of how to structure drama for reflection. CHAPTER IV PRESENTATION OF MODEL AND APPLICATION TO THE HEATHCOTE DRAMA
Introduction In this chapter I will present a model of structuring drama for reflection and apply it to a drama session taught by Dorothy Heathcote. The model is the result of my reading of theoretical writings, my understanding of my own practice and the practice of Heathcote and O'Neill, as well as the detailed analysis of my own teaching and a lesson of Heathcote's. My analysis was a recursive process with each aspect effecting the others so that as my analysis continued, my understandings became more sophisticated and more inclusive. The patterns which emerged led to many drafts of a model but eventually there emerged the model which will be presented below. In this chapter I will be describing the model with detailed reference to a session of Heathcote’s teaching. In chapters V and VI, I will use the model to analyze two representative sessions from my own teaching. I will firstly describe the session without any analysis. Table 2 will then present the same description with an analysis column added. The drama session taught by Dorothy Heathcote is available on film in two 30 minute parts with the title Building Belief. The first of two days work comprises all of part I and the beginning of part II. The film's title refers to a phrase in Wagner (1976) which is the basis of the analysis in the film commentary, however "belief is not an aspect of this study. I will now refer to this drama session as "the Heathcote Drama." The Heathcote 60 61
Drama took place over two days; I will describe and analyze the first day in detail though I will also make reference to the second day. The first day is described and analyzed in Table 2. Each day's work seems to have been of several hours in length with breaks. I chose to analyze the Heathcote Drama for a number of reasons: 1) she is teaching 29 "regular" U.S. nine- and ten-year old students; 2) the film is one of the few examples of her teaching which shows the progression of a drama over a single session; and 3) this film is widely available in North America and is already well known to many educators. The educational aim for the work (according to the film commentary) was to show how drama can be used to teach social studies. More specifically, the students were to consider the meaning of the words "A nation is as strong as the spirit of the people who make it" My description of the Heathcote Drama is divided into the different tasks of the session which are numbered 1 through 14. Each task is divided into parts; for example, 1(1) means the first part of the first task and is referred to as Task 1(1).
1 (1) The phrase "A nation is as strong as the spirit of the people who make it" has been written on the blackboard before the students enter. They come in and sit on the floor facing the teacher and the blackboard.
1 (2) After introductions the teacher reads the words aloud and asks the students to say what the phrase on the board means to them. "I wonder if we could talk about what we think it means to us." Several students volunteer answers. For example one girl says "If the people are strong then the nation has to be strong because the people are what make up a nation really." 62
1 (3) The teacher summarizes, elevates their language, restates their idea, checks with the class for agreement and writes on the board. The teacher rephrases the girl's reply as "So each individual matters. Would you say that's right?" There is a chorus of approval. The list on the board after several minutes shows "Strength in a nation: the will to go on; the government reflects the wishes of the people; each person must matter." The class all agree with these statements.
1 (4) She then asks them to agree to pretend to be the people in a nation which has survived great difficulties. She tells them that during the plague in Europe there were as few as 29 people who were all that were left in some villages. She tells them that the drama work will be about what the people remember about the times when they had been strong even in hard times and what the strengths of their nation were which had enabled it to survive. She tells them that these memories will be left in the form of a "scroll."
1 (5) The students all agree.
2 (1) Two photographs had been placed on the edge of the blackboard before the lesson which the students have been able to see: one of a rocky land, the other of a river at the bottom of a ravine (referred to as "the torrent"). The teacher now turns to the photo of the rocky land and talks in role about the pictures as if she is one of the people. "Our nation already has a long past to it When we came, this is how the land was. It was not a happy prospect as you can see. Can any of you remember the terrible difficulties you had managing to survive in this hard country?" 63
2 (2) The film shows several responses. The students offer ideas and invent that it was cold and difficult to find food, shelter, and water and that there had been disease.
2 (3) She focuses them on personal details e.g. she says "I remember my hands bleeding while moving stones." Some students add personal details like "It was so hard getting the water because it always spilled."
3 (1) The teacher holds up a photograph in an art book of a painting of a girl who is sitting with her arms folded. She asks them "Can you make your minds up about the kind of person she may be? Where her strength may lie?"
3 (2) They offer ideas "She was asking questions of herself; she may be tired; she looks like she is the kind of person who it isn't easy to make her do something." She repeats their statements and elevates the language of the last statement by saying "She may have a stubborn quality to her." She turns to a second picture of a young child. The film commentary masks her dialogue with the students.
4 (1) Photographs firom Edward Steichen's "The Family of Man" have been attached to pieces of paper and laid out on tables. The papers probably had three headings: name; memory of the first morning in the new land; strength which they bring to the nation.
4 (2) There are many more photos than students and she now asks the students to go to the tables and look at the photos until they find one which could have been one of the people who came to the rocky land. She tells them that they should choose carefully because they are going to get to know this person 64
well over the next two days of their work together. They are to look at the photograph and then invent a name, a memory and a strength for the person. They begin to write. When she notices giggling and attention being put on what students look like, she stops them and says, "Use your thinking on looking into these pictures. What we look like doesn't matter, it's what the picture tells us."
5 (1) The students have been gathered together on the floor with their writing in their hands. Some of the students volunteer to read what they have written. Four students are shown sharing on the film. The film of this task begins with a girl reading "...and they got lost and the brother got sick and he died. And she was trying to find her way back in the night and she tripped and fell over and broke her leg.". The teacher responds "Good heavens what a beginning." The invented names include "Jennifer Sugar" and "Betsy Wilson." The "strengths" for different people include: "she makes people happy"; "he had a tool to cut the rocks"; and "she works hard."
6 (1) There has been a break during which all of the students’writings have been displayed on chart paper so that everyone can see them. They probably had the opportunity to read them during the break.
6 (2) The teacher tells them that they have to agree on the events which h^pened to everyone on that first day . She reminds them that these can never be changed. She asks for a volunteer to keep a record on the blackboard and a girl takes the chalk. The teacher begins to read from their writings and checks with the students to see if anything happened to everyone. We see 65
three examples. She reads "I remember when we first came to that land it was all rocky. There was no food to be found."
6 (3) Then she stops and says "Did that effect all of us?" There is a chorus of "Yes" and she tells the girl at the board to add "Short of food" to the list which includes "accidents; no water."
7 (1 ) [The film does not show this task but it is clear from later references that a task like this happened.] The teacher asks them to remember what they agreed to before they left which would keep them strong.
7 (2) They agree that they had said they would "always tell the truth; communicate carefully and clearly with each other, trust; and share."
7 (3) The agreement is recorded on the blackboard.
8 (1) The students pretend to be the people on the first day arriving in the new land. The teacher speaks in role as she pretends to carry something "Will you get what you’re carrying and bring it over here." They walk across the room.
8 (2) A few mime carrying in a fairly exaggerated way, most seem to be just following her.
8 (3) The teacher stops them and reminds them in role that they do not need "to pretend they're acting...We don’t have to pretend. It happened. We just have to go back as it was that day."
8 (4) She continues and refocuses them on a reason for leaving "Say what was it made us have to move that day? Whose idea was it we had to move." 66
8 (5) A boy responds "It really wasn't anyone's idea. It's just the war was so bad, the revolution, that we just decided to get up and go someplace."
8 (6) She personalizes in her reply "It was far too dangerous where I was" and gives a reason for going "I thought anything's better than being there."
8 (7) One student mentions a detail of the external world (which is inaudible).
8 (8) The teacher refocuses them by saying, "Look at the rocks."
8 (9) They begin to invent details. One see paths of animals. (10) She focuses them on the decision to stay "What do you think? Shall we stay here?" (11) One girl responds "We may as well try for a while" and others murmur agreement. She calls for hands up from those who agree and all students shown on the tape raise their hands to agree that they should stay .
9 (1) They pretend to start moving the rocks. Some of the students start banging the chairs and after asking them if they need them and receiving a chorus of "Yes" the teacher allows them to use the chairs on the floor to represent the rocks; they move and sit on the chairs. In the next segment of the film the chairs have all been returned to the tables. The students had probably pretended to move them as if they were the rocks and begin to make a shelter from the wind.
10 (1) They sit together after moving the rocks and the teacher says "I am determined to make this work. Are you?"
10 (2) There is a chorus of "Yes." 67
10 (3) She continues "When I entered this valley my spirit was very low. I find suddenly that my spirit is very strong and determined. I have travelled from having no spirit to having a very hard determined spirit. What have you travelled?"
10 (4) A boy responds "Not only in spiritual strength but also we found food and it gives us more energy" She restates this as "Physical strength and hope." A girl continues "More people have hope that we can do something to this land and it will be good." One girl notes that "winter is coming and we have little food.." The teacher asks her "But do you have the spirit to go on?" "Yes I do", she replies and others agree. One girl suggests that they write what happened to pass on to the children. Another says that they will try to make it a place where people would want to move to. This task ends with the students talking eagerly about what they will do in the future.
11 (1) During a break for lunch, the teacher has written out a "scroll" of what happened the first day from the students written memories, the physical actions they did, and their discussion in role. The scroll is on chart paper which has been attached to the blackboard.
11 (2) She asks the students to check the scroll for "truth" to see that she accurately recorded what happened. They sit in front of it; she and some students read it solemnly. It begins "That first day as a new nation began thus. Out of the barren rocks we made a wall to shelter us fiom the wind. Out spirit was low and our nation was in despair. We chose to be fiee."
11 (3) They check it phrase by phrase and some alterations to the words are made 6 8
12 (1) The film does not show what happens at the very beginning of the next task. The students must have agreed that an important first thing to do would be to divide the land. The teacher has drawn a circle in chalk on the board and must have suggested that they use this to record their plan. The film begins with the teacher speaking in role as Martha Sharp the oldest person in the nation as she is about to rest "...and when you wake me? Will you have divided the land?"
12 (2) They say "Yes."
12 (3) She adds in reference to what is written in the scroll, "And I shall need a good report on whether you trusted, communicated and shared." She goes to sleep in role and thus leaves them to divide the land without her.
13 (1) The students suggest ideas; most seem to want groups. They gradually raise their voices to shout alternative group sizes.
13 (2) Someone says "Let's vote" which they do, agreeing on eight groups.
13 (3) Most of the girls cluster round the board and try to divide the circle into six equal segments; most of the boys seem to be doing something with some chairs, perhaps pretending with them. As all this is going on the teacher is watching how they are woridng together.
14 (1) When the teacher in role wakes up she asks them to tell her what they have done. 69
14 (2) The teacher repeats one person’s objection, "Somebody here says that you have left no space for the community." Some students say that they had wanted to leave a place but that it had not been shown on the plan.
14 (3) They agree that a central area needs to be left
14 (4) The plan is amended to have a central common area. One girl who had drawn the plan protests "What is he doing?" and the teacher tells her, "If you had been listening you would have known what he was doing."
14 (5) She refers to the new drawing.
14 (6) She checks with the whole group that the amended plan represents what they want and they agree that it is.
14 (7) Then she asks if they "communicated carefully and clearly" in their decision. She asks "Was there anyone who did not understand what was happening?"
14 (8) One boy asks "If we were communicating why should everybody have their own land?" Someone agrees with him. She brings the first boy to the front to repeat what he said.
14 (9) She adds, "You can answer him", and requires the class to pay attention. The only answer shown is from a boy who says, "Well it's not like private property....its so hard for 30 people to work together but it is easier for 5 or 6 or 4 (the numbers in the groups) but you’re still communicating." At this point the film of the first session ends. 70
Presentation of the Model for Teacher Structuring for Reflection Figure 1, summarizes much of my thinking about how the teacher structured this drama for reflection. For ease of reference throughout reading the dissertation, Figure 1 has been reproduced as Figure 2 in Appendix 1. Figure 2 can be folded out so that it can be referred to when necessary. I will refer to it as "the diagram." Figure 1 shows two cycles, a Playmaking Cycle and an Interpreting Cycle. The diagram is not intended to represent a dichotomy but rather a dynamic interplay between the two cycles. The Playmaking Cycle represents much of what is seen publicly as participants interact in role to create the events of a drama and create a 'play' together. The Interpreting Cycle represents much of what is not seen, as students form their own personal interpretations about what is happening. These cycles overlap for many students as actions in the external world of the drama interface for each student with their understandings in their personal internal worlds. Students may be drawing on the personal meanings they have generated as they interact in role or the actions of one student may cause another student to reflect on what those actions mean to him. In this study I am concerned with teacher structiuing for reflection. The experience of a drama session will be very different for each student, but the teacher can influence that experience by structuring the drama. In Figure 1 the solid arrows in the cycles represent structuring decisions by the teacher as the teacher interacts with the students while she participates in and shapes the drama. The solid arrows also represent student initiated actions and responses. The dotted arrows represent possible student responses of which the teacher is aware but for which she has not planned. In this study I will be concerned with teacher structuring decisions. 71
PLAYMAKING CYCLE iptaywrigktfiataion)
ittdividval drama te a objective meatiings (shared objective taeaidngs)
* • DRAMA II WORLD (EXTERNAL) p«rfbnniog (actor fimedoo) /psbtic abanog :
ft PERSONAL , , WORLDS I I (JNTERNAL)
: iadiT idM l «abjaotiT* maaaiaga aabjaativa raflacüaa (iatarptauiioaa)
orrsRPRsnNo c t c l b (aadiaac* faactioa)
EDUCATIONAL AIMS
Figure 1 : Teacher Structuring for Reflection 72
The teacher’s structuring decisions are influenced by students’ actions and responses as they interact with each other and with the teacher both inside and outside the drama. However, the teacher’s structuring decisions are also always determined by whatever the teacher’s educational aims are for a particular drama session. The educational aims guide the teacher’s planning of tasks which can be structured in phases. The educational aims also guide the teacher in deciding whether or not a student’s action or response may be appropriate. The educational aims are thus continually informing the teacher’s structuring decisions. This is represented on the diagram by the encircling oval which can be regarded as an overlay influencing all of the structuring decisions which the teacher makes.. Drama is a group art in which participants interact to create an imaginary shared drama world. Participants (teacher and students) create their own details of the drama world as they interact, experience, and think about what is, was, or may be happening. For each of them this is their individual objective meaning. It is ’’objective” in the sense that each participant regards the drama world as external to him or her even though each knows that it is a product of the imagination. On the diagram the thin solid line in the Playmaking Cycle represents the way in which each participant creates his or her own individual meaning. In the Heathcote Drama, each of the students created objective meanings as they explored how the people who arrived in the new land behaved and felt, as they created specific facts and events which might have happened in the drama world, and as they interacted as if they were the people who were there. In this way the students would each have created their own objective meanings. Some of their objective meanings were shared as, for example, when their writing was read aloud. However, each participant would have had many more images and experiences which arose, for example, as they moved the 73 rocks, talked with each other and with the teacher, and imagined they were those people trying to survive. Though students create their individual objective meanings, many of these will become shared objective meanings because of their unavoidable interactions. As participants interact they tacitly accept certain details invented by others. For example, the students moved the chairs as if they were rocks in Task 10, and when two students carried a chair together there was tacit acceptance that this was a rock. If they had talked about where they should put it and one had said not to put it on a flower, then that flower would become part of the objective meaning for those two students. However, the flower would not be part of all participants' objective meaning. This would only be the case if it was referred to publicly in front of the whole group so that everyone could accept its existence. This happened, for example, in Task 2 when students tacitly agreed that there was a ravine and a river in the new land and that they had experienced disease. When details of individuals' objective meanings are shared and accepted or agreed upon by the whole group then these become part of the drama text. This sharing can happen whenever something becomes public for the whole group, for example, when a person is talking in role and everyone else is paying attention to her, or when a piece of writing or a drawing is displayed. There may be tacit acceptance as with the details of the ravine and river, or more explicit agreement among the participants as with the shortage of food in Task 6. The drama text which is thereby created wiU include the physical details, imaginary people, past events, future possibilities, and other shared "realities" of the drama world. By the end of the drama, if the teacher assists with structuring and shaping their work, the students will in effect have created and experienced an improvised play. Though there is no script for the play, an ongoing drama text is generated throughout the work. In 74 the diagram, thin solid lines represent how individual objective meanings are performed and lead to objective reflection by the whole group. The thick solid line represents how the whole group creates drama text by explicitly agreeing to or tacitly accepting objective meanings as shared meanings. Individuals' objective meanings and the drama text are formed in what can be regarded as the PLAYMAKING CYCLE. Central to the cycle is performing/public sharing by the teacher and students. Performing is when public sharing happens in role within the drama world. I am using the term performing as it is used in the social interaction literature as "that arrangement which transforms an individual into ... an object that can be looked at in the round and at length without offense and looked to for engaging behavior, by persons in an 'audience' role" (Coffman, 1973 p. 124). Coffman notes how performances are on a continuum between the formal performances of actors in the theatre, or the less formal rehearsal for a public event, to the subjects of T.V. news who are filmed without their consent. In all cases, however, there are "actors" who perform and the "spectators" who watch. When students are in role, creating the world of the drama, they are similarly functioning as actors whenever they are being watched by the rest of the group. They may be sharing ideas, attitudes, objects, or actions. Their performances can range from whenever they are speaking in role with everyone paying attention to what they say, to the brief performance of a still and silent tableau. All students can be interacting in role with some students performing while others watch; they will all be in the drama world. Alternatively, while the students who perform in role are inside the drama world those who watch may not be in role and will therefore be observing from outside the drama world. As students and teacher perform in role they may also be drawing the group's attention to objects. For example, in Task 14 the drawing of their plan to divide the land was referred to by both teacher and students. 75
I am using the terai public sharing to refer to sharing by individuals with the whole group when they are out of role and thus outside the drama world. Public sharing is not happening in pairs or small groups. Examples of public sharing &om the Heathcote Drama include the teacher out of role sharing the photograph in Task 3 and their writing in Task 5. One way in which drama in the classroom is different from the theatre is that the spectators to performances in the classroom can interact with each other and with the "actors." Students who are observing in role will become performers themselves if they stay in role while the rest of the group pays attention to what they say or do. For example, the student who raised an objection in role to the division of land in Task 14, had moments before his performance been observing another student performing. Similarly, when public sharing out of role is taking place, the observers can also become sharers. For example, those who have just watched one person publicly sharing his writing can then share their writing with the rest of the group or share a response to someone else's writing. The term 'audience function' will be reserved for the Interpreting Cycle which will be discussed below. In the Playmaking Cycle the rest of the group can instead be regarded as having a playwright's function. The teacher and some students are actively building drama text as they perform or publicly share while other students are tacitly accepting or explicitly agreeing to the drama text as they respond to what is being performed or publicly shared. They may function as playwrights both when they are in role and when they are not As playwrights they reflect on a performance or a public sharing, and create the drama text This can happen tacitly without comment or it can happen in a discussion or other explicit ways of reaching agreement on certain details of the external drama world. For example, in the Heathcote Drama the students tacitly accepted the rocks and river in Task 2 but explicitly agreed to the shortage of food in Task 6. 76
They created these details of the drama text by reflecting on the performance or public sharing of the teacher or a student. In contrast with their reflecting in the Interpreting Cycle, where the students are interpreting for internal personal meaning, in the Playmaking Cycle the students are deciding on the external details of the drama world. They are thus engaged in objective reflection. Just as participants create an objective meaning as they interact, experience, and think about what is, was, or may be happening in the drama world, so they will each find individual subjective meaning as they reflect on their experiences in the drama. As well as being involved in what they are doing, many students may be realizing how they personally respond to the events of the drama. For example, in Task 14, a student questioned the need to divide the land. This was clearly a personal meaning for him. It was "subjective" in the sense that it was not an external detail. It was not part of the drama text, but in this case was an interpretation of the drama texL The drama text included a division of the land which was represented by the drawing on the blackboard. This student had interpreted that and responded by questioning the need for everyone to have their own land if they were communicating. In creating drama text the participants agree on "what is happening." When a participant interprets an aspect of the drama text and in effect answers the question "What does this mean for me?", he or she is creating subjective meaning. Though participants may frequently find subjective meanings during the course of a drama, the teacher can structure for this to occur in what can be regarded as the INTERPRETING CYCLE. The students' subjective reflection on a performance or public sharing happens when they consider how they personally respond to their experiences. Having accepted or agreed on some drama text, the participants may then interpret this. They may interpret this in role or out of role, in private or public, individually, in small groups, or as a whole group and thereby create subjective meaning. 77
They will inteipret the drama text if it is performed or publicly shared. This is represented on the diagram by the thick solid line from drama text to performing/public sharing. The individual interpretations by each participant is represented on the diagram by the thin solid lines in the Interpreting Cycle. The students can be regarded as having an audience function when they reflect and create subjective meaning. This is what the audience in the theatre do as they watch and interpret a performance on the stage. Just as the audience may share their responses with another, so can the participants in a drama. If there is a performance or public sharing then others may share their interpretations. Interpretations may remain private and never be performed or shared publicly. However, if they are shared or performed then they may be interpreted and reinterpreted by others. This was beginning to happen in Task 14. This is represented on the diagram by the thin solid line from individual subjective meanings to performance/public sharing. Unlike the audience in the theatre, the students need not share their responses in a whisper and they also may be sharing in role. Thus their responses may themselves become performances or public sharing which may lead to further interpretations and reinterpretations or the creation of more drama text Though the Playmaking Cycle and the Interpreting Cycle are shown separately, in other ways they can be regarded as overlapping. The dotted lines represent the ways in which students may move from objective to subjective reflection (and vice versa). Similarly, when students are reflecting and finding their individual subjective meanings, they may at the same time be coming up with some objective meaning and (vice versa). It also needs to be noted that the students may create drama text or interpret while paying attention to the same thing, for example as in Task 14. The teacher, however, can structure 78 the drama and promote either objective or subjective reflection. This structuring can be done in role and out of role.
Applying the Model to the Heathcote Drama Subjective reflection comes relatively slowly in the Heathcote Drama and only a few students actually perform or share in public. Though to an uninformed observer it might appear that the teacher is dominating the drama, in my analysis of this session I will show, however, that the teacher is structuring very carefully to enable students to reflect, and that she does this by interacting with the students both in and out of role. Also, though some students never speak publicly, I will demonstrate that they are all involved in the creation of the drama text and that during the drama because of their subjective reflections the students at least all have the potential for discovering for themselves more of the meaning of the words which are read at the beginning of this drama session. Table 2 adds an analysis column to the description of the Heathcote Drama. The different type faces in Figure 1 are used in both the description and analysis columns to highlight whether students are making objective meaning and/or drama text in the Playmaking Cycle or constructing subjective meaning in the Interpreting Cycle. Different type faces are underlined when it is the students who are initiating or responding. 79
Table 2: Description and Analysis of the Heathcote Drama
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS 1 (1) The phrase "A nation is as strong as Though the students are reflecting in Task the spirit of the people who make it" has 1, Figure 1 is not wholly applicable to this been written on the blackboard before the task. This is because the teacher is students enter. They come in and sit on requiring the students to reach preliminary the floor facing the teacher and the agreements to enable the drama to begin. blackboard. 1 (1) This phrase has been made public for the whole class to see. 1 (2) After introductions, the teacher 1 (2) The teacher’s aim for the drama is to reads the words aloud and asks the enable the students to find meaning in the students to say what the phrase on the phrase "A nation is as strong as the spirit board means to them. "I wonder if we of the people who make it." The teacher and students are not in role. The teacher could talk about what we think It publicly shares the phrase by reading means to us." Several students the words aloud to all the students. She volunteer answers. For example one girl directs the students' attention to what the says "If the people are strong then words mean and implies that they read it the nation .has, to be strong because for themselves. She is talking with them the people are what make u p a outside the drama and encouraging their in order to nation really. subjective reflection discover initial meanings of the words for them. As the students reflect some share MsâS-. 1 (3) The teacher rephrases the girl’s 1 (3) The teacher summarizes, elevates reply as "So each individual matters. their language, restates their idea, checks Would you say that's right?" There with the class for agreement and writes on is a chorus of approval. She continues to the board. All of this is public sharing do this as others share ideas. The list on by tlie teacher. In doing so the students the board after several minutes shows share and agree on some of their initial "Strength in a nation: the will to go subjective mcamiugs of the phrase. on: the government reflects the wishes of the people: each iperson must matter." The class all agree with these statements. 80
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
1 (4) She then asks them to agree to 1 (4) The teacher is asking the students to pretend to be the people in a nation which agree to create a drama world. She shares has survived great difficulties. She tells ideas about the plague etc. She needs them that during the plague in Europe consensus because without this there were as few as 29 people who were preliminary agreement the drama could not all that were left in some villages. She bepn. She is open about the reason for tells them that the drama work will be doing this work but is not negotiating what about what the people remember about the the work will be about; this has been times when they had been strong even in imposed. hard times and what the strengths of their nation were which had enabled it to survive. She tells them that these memories will be left in the form of a "scroll." 1 (5) The students all agree. 1 (5) They agree. 2 (1) Two photographs had been placed 2 (1) The teacher takes on a role and on the edge of the blackboard before the performs as a person who is lesson which the students have been able remembering about the rocks which are to see: one of a rocky land, the other of a shown in the picture she is referring to. If river at the bottom of a ravine (referred to the students tacitly accept what she is as "the torrent"). The teacher now turns to sharing, then she is generating and they the photo of the rocky land and talks in are accepting some drama text. In role role about the pictures as if she is one of she directs their attention to the difficulties the people. "Our nation already has a and thereby invites their objective long past to it. When we came, reflection. In doing so she implies that in this is how the land was. It was response they may choose any difficulties not a happy prospect as you can which will then become part of the past for these people. see. Can any of you remember the terrible difficulties you had managing to survive in this hard country?" 2 (2) The film shows several responses 2 (2) As a result of their objective which include that it was cold and reflection some students perform ideas. difficult to find food, shelter, and As with the teacher, if others tacitly accept water and that there had been these ideas they become part of the drama disease. text.. In this case, however, students have suggested these details. 81
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
2 (3) She responds with "I remember 2 (3) The teacher continues to perform my hands bleeding while moving in role and at the same time she is stones" directing the students'attention to personal details which are very dramatic and specific. 3(1) The teacher holds up a photograph in 3 (1) The teacher publicly shares the an art book of a painting of a girl who is photograph. She directs their attention sitting with her arms folded. She asks to her possible strengths which promotes them "Can you make your minds up their objective r^ection.. The public about the kind of person she may sharing and reflecting happen outside the be? Where her strength may lie?" drama; they are not in role. 3 (2) They offer ideas "She was asking 3 (2) Some students share the objective Questions of herself: she mav be tired: she meanings they formed and invent possible looks like she is the kind of person who it details of her personality. These ideas are isn't easy to make her do somethin^.." not publicly shared since everyone is not She repeats their statements and paying attention. The teacher, however, elevates the language of the last statement does acknowledge and extend their ideas by saying "She may have a stubborn when she publicly shares them. quality to her." She turns to a second picture of a young child. The film commentary masks her dialogue with the students. 82
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS 4 (1) Photographs from Edward 4 (1) The teacher has directed the Steichen's "The Family of Man" have students' attention to the name, strengths, been attached to pieces of paper and laid and the memories the person had of the out on tables. The papers probably had first day. By doing so she is promoting three headings: name; memory of the first objective r^ection. morning in die new land; strength which they bring to the nation. There are many more photos than students Each student's task is to look at the and she now asks the students to go to the photograph and reflect on it The students tables and look at the photos until they are woriong independently. find one which could have been one of the people who came to the rocky land. She There is an implication here that the tells them that they should choose students could identify and empathize with carefully because they are going to get to the person. She is thus promoting know this person well over the next two subjective reflectioxt here because she days of their work together. They are to directs their attention to how they look at the photograh and then invent a personally respond to the person in the name, a memory and a strength for the photograph person. 4 (2) They begin to write. When she 4(2) She redirects their attention to the notices students giggling as they talk task. about the pictures, she stops them and says, "Use your thinking on looking into these pictures. What we look like doesn't matter it's what the picture tells us." 5 (1) The students have been gathered 5 (1) The students who read are publicly together on the floor with their writing in sharing their writing (of the experiences their hands. Some of the students of the person in the photograph they each volunteer to read what they have chose) This happens out of role. written. Four students are shown sharing on the film. 83
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
The film of this task begins with a girl The teacher ensures that the rest of the reading "...and they got lost and the class pay attention as students read their brother got sick and he died. And writing. Consequently other students may be comparing die objective meaning in she was trying to find her wav tiieir own writing with that in the pieces bask in the night and she tripped which are read aloud. Also they may and fell over and broke her lee.". become aware of subjective meanings The teacher responds "Good heavens what which arise as they respond. a beginning." The invented names include "Jennifer Sugar" and "Betsv Wilson." The "strengths" for different people include: "she makes people hapjpv": "he had a tool to cut the rocks": and "she woiks hard."
6 (1) There has been a break during 6(1) Their writings have been displayed which all of the students' writings have and thus all publicly shared.. been displayed on chart paper so that everyone can see them. They probably had the opportunity to read them during the break. 6 (2) The teacher tells them that they have 6 (2) The teacher demands agreement on to agree on the events which happened to die facts and events which happened to everyone on that first day . She reminds them all. This requires objective r^ection them that these can never be changed. She by all students on each other’s writing. asks for a volunteer to keep a record on the blackboard and a girl takes the chalk. The teacher begins to read from their The teacher publicly shares their writings and checks with the students to writing by reading it aloud. Rather than see if anything happened to everyone. We students having to read their writing, the see three examples. She reads "I teacher now makes all students work remember when we first came to public by reading it for them. Those who did not want to read in the previous Task that land it was all rocky. There still experience having the rest of the class was no food to be found." pay attention to their work. 84
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS 6 (3) Then she stops and says"Did that 6 (3) The students _ all aeree on affect all of us?" There is a chorus of details of the drama text. The facts "Yes" and she tells the girl at the board to and events are agreed on and recorded. add "Short of food" to the list which The teacher is talMng as if she is in role. includes "accidents: no water." She is thereby encouraging the students to think in role as they decide whether or not they were all a ffe ct. 7 (1) [The film does not show this task 7 (1) The teacher requires the students to but it is clear from later references that an agree to part of the drama text task like this happened.] The teacher asks them to remember what they agreed to before they left which would keep them strong. 7 (2) They agree that they had said they 7 (2) Each of those who speaks shares would "always tell the truth: an idea publicly. communicate carefully and clearly with each other: trust: and share." The other students objective reflection leads them to all agree on part of the drama text. 7 (3) The agreement is recorded on the 7 (3) The facts are agreed on and written blackboard. down; they become part of the scroll in Task 11. 8 (1) The students are in role as the 8 (1) Though the drama has not been people on the fiirst day arriving in the structured so that any students are new land. The teacher speaks in role as watching others, the students still seem she pretends to carry something"Will you very self-conscious when they move as if get what you're carrying and bring it over they are the people. It seems that thev here." They walk across the room. feel they are perfonning. The teacher responds in role shifting their attention unto personal imaginary objects which they might imagine they are carrying in objective reflection. She is encouraging each of them to create their individual objective meanings. 85
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
8 (2) A few mime carrying in a faMy 8 (2) Some students do pretend to lift exaggerated wav, most seem to be just something. Most still seem to be very following her. self-conscious and thus still feel they are performing. 8 (3) The teacher stops them and reminds them in role that they do not need "to 8 (3) Consequently she protects them by pretend they’re acting...We don’t have to reminding them in role that at this time pretend. It happened. We just have to go they are not showing how it was and also back as it was that day." b y ... 8 (4) She continues "Say what was it 8 (4) switching their attention off made us have to move that day? movement and on to a possible reason for leaving. This requires their objective Whose idea was it we had to reflection but invites them to suggest any move." reason for moving. She also challenges any of the students to accept some responsibility ("Whose idea was it we had to move?"). 8 (5) A boy responds "It really wasn't 8 (5) One boy performs his response (he anyone's idea. It’s just the war speaks in front of everyone else). He has was so bad., the revolution, that a passive attitude that the war was the we just decided to get up and go cause of their moving and he avoids someplace." suggesting any personal reason. If the class are tacitly accepting this then this reason becomes part of the drama text 8 6
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
8 (6) She personalizes in her reply "It 8 (6) The teacher accepts this response as was far too dangerous where I part of the drama text but playwrites was" and gives a reason for going "I personal reasons for leaving. thought anything's better than being there."
8 (7) One student mentions a detail of the 8 (7) However the response of the external world (which is inaudible). students is to invent more objective meaning as they suggest further details of the external drama world rather than any personal reasons. 8 (8) The teacher refocuses them by 8 (8) The teacher follows their lead of saying, "Look at the rocks." being concerned with the present external facts rather than their past reasons for leaving. However, she directs their attention to the rocks and thereby encourages objective reflection specifically on the rocks which are an existing difficulty to be dealt with. They have aheady seen a photograph of rocks in Task 2 and some students will have added to their images of the rocks in their writing and sharing. In effect the teacher is reminding them of this. 8 (9) They begin to invent details, One 8 (9) In their objective reflections they see oaths of animals. invent more details but not about the rocks. 8 (10) She asks "What do you think? Shall we stay here?" 8 (10) She switches their attention on to a decision (whether or not to stay). Rather than allowing the students to continue inventing details of the external world, she requires their objective reflection on the existing drama text as a whole. 8(11) One girl responds "We may as well (11) One student agrees. The teacher try for a while" and others murmur checks that they all agree and thus they agreement She calls for hands up from explicitly agree to stay which makes this those who agree and all students shown part of the drama text. on the tape raise their hands to agree that they should stay . 87
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
9 (1) They pretend to start moving the 9 (1) The students’ task is just to pretend rocks. Some of the students start banging to move the rocks. The teacher has not the chairs and after asking them if they structured the task so that any students are need them and receiving a chorus of "Yes" watching others’ work. She is the teacher allows them to use the chairs presumably not intending that the students on the floor to represent the rocks; they feel that they performing. The students are move and sit on die chairs. In the next agreed that they want to use the chairs and segment of the film the chairs have all the teacher allows this. been returned to the tables. The students had probably pretended to move them as if they were the rocks and begin to make a shelter from the wind. 10(1) They sit together after moving the 10 (1) The teacher performs with a rocks and the teacher says "I am determined attitude. Then by asking determined to make this work. Are the students if they are determined she is you?" asking for their subjective reflection on how they feel. She is also inviting them to perform with whatever their attitude is.
10 (2) There is a chorus of "Yes." 10 (2) The students reflect and because their attitudes are performed and there is explicit a^eement the students not only find individual subjective meanings ("1 am determined"), but because they all agree, this agreement to make it work becomes part of the drama text. 8 8
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
10 (3) She continues "When I entered 10 (3) Again the teacher performs this valley my spirit was very low. though now she shows how her attitude I find suddenly that my spirit is has changed. Because the students tacitly very strong and determined. I accept she is thereby playwriting and providing a summary of her feelings about have travelled from having no all that has gone before. She asks for their spirit to having a very hard subjective reflectious on how their determined spirit. What have you attitudes have changed ("What have you travelled?" travelled?).
10 (4) A boy responds "Not only in 10 (4) The attention of each student is spiritual strength but also we found food directed to how their attitudes have and it gives us more energy” She restates changed. Some demonstrate their this as "Physical strengA and hope." subjective reflection: some also A girl continues "More people have demonstrate their objective reflection hoipe that we can do something to when they share more individual objective meanings (what happened and what they this laud and it will be good." One should do). The teacher redirects one girl notes that "winter is comins and we student to reflect subjectively after she have little food,” The teacher asks her shares an objective detA. "But do you have the spirit to go ou?" "Yes I do", she replies and others agree. One girl suggests that they write what The girl who suggests that they write what happened to pass on to the children. happened is playwriting by suggesting a Another says that they will try to make it a possible task. The teacher follows tiiis place where people would want to move suggestion when the scroll is prepared. to. This task ends with the students Having reflected subjectively the students talking eagerly about what they will do in begin to playwrite as they reflect thefiaure. objectively together creating individual objective meanings and as they agree, the drama text of their plans for the future. 11 (1) During a break for lunch, the 11 (1) The teacher has written out the teacher has written out a "scroll" of what scroll of their experiences on the first day. happened the first day from the students She has summarized their experiences and written memories, the physical actions transformed these into an account with they did, and their discussion in role. The elevated language. In order to make this scroll is on chart paper which has been part of the drama text she needs the attached to the blackboard. students all to agree or amend its content 89
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
11 (2) She asks the students to check the 11 (2) The teacher and the students scroll for "truth" to see that she accurately who read the scroll publicly share it. recorded what happened. They sit in front The teacher is encouraging objective of it; she and some students read it reflection by directing their attention to the solemnly. accuracy of the scroll. If they agree on the details they wUl agree to the drama text. It begins "That first day as a new nation began thus. Out of the barren rocks we made a wall to shelter us from the wind. Out spirit was low and our nation was in despair. We chose to be free." 11 (3) They check it phrase by phrase and 11 (3) Some students share ideas and the some alterations to the words are made students agree to very specific details of the drama text in their objective reflection, 12 (1) The film does not show what 12 (1) Their agreement to divide the land happens at the very begirming of the next becomes part of the drama text. The task The students must have agreed that chalk circle is the beginning of a drawing an important first thing to do would be tSL of their plan dividing the land. The teacher divide the land. The teacher has drawn is preparing the class to work alone. She a circle in chalk on the board and must is directing their attention to their task of have suggested that they use this to record dividing the land which requires their their plan. The film begins with the objective reflection.. teacher speaking in role as Martha Sharp the oldest person in the nation as she is about to rest "...and when you wake me? Will you have divided the land?" 90
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
12 (2) They say, "Yes." 12 (2) They all agree to the task 12 (3) She adds in reference to what is 12 (3) She also directs their attention on to written in the scroll, "And I sà&ll mted the strengths they said they would need: a good report oa whether yota trust, communicate, and share. If they consider whether they trusted, masted, eommtmieated m û shared." communicated, or shared, this will have been as a result of their stabjective reflection. By implication she refers back to their earlier agreement in Task 7(1) which became part of the drama text when it was incorporated into the scroll in Task 11. She goes to sleep in role and thus leaves them to divide the land without her.
13 (1) The students suggest ideas: 13 (1) As the plan is discussed and drawn, most seem to want groups. They some students reflect and perform their gradually raise their voices to shout ideas. They only share ideas about how to alternative group sizes. divide the land (their individual objective meanings) rather than how they feel about the division (their subjective meanings). 13 (2) Someone says "Let's vote" which 13 (2) They make drama text when they they do, agreeing on eight groups. agree (or go along with) what to do. However, it is clear that the decision has been rushed and pushed through by a majority. 13 (3) Most of the ^ I s cluster round the 13 (3) What they have agreed to is board and try to divide the circle into six concretized in the drawing on the equal segments; most of the boys seem to blackboard. be doing something with some chairs, perhaps pretending with them. As all this is going on the teacher is watching how they are working together. 14 (1) When the teacher in role wakes up 14 (1) Some students publicly share she asks them to tell her what they have the drawing promoting at first students' done. objective r^ectlon on what they did. 91
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
14 (2) The teacher repeats one 14 (2) The teacher assists the student person's objection, "Somebody who is reflecting in performing his here says that you have left no objection. Thus she is also promoting space for the community." Some objective reflection by enabling him to students say that they had wanted to leave direct the class attention to the implied a place but that it had not been shown on question "Have you left space for the the plan. community?" 14 (3) They agree that a central area needs 14 (3) Some students' objective reflection to be left. led them to agree that the plan does not show what they want it to. 14 (4) The plan is amended to have a 14 (4) The plan and thus the drama text centrai common area. One girl who had is amended bv some of the drawn the plan protests "What is he students. The student who had not been doing?" and the teacher tells her, "If you listening is reminded that everyone needs had been listening you would have known to be part of decisions. what he was doing." 14 (5) She refers to the new drawing. 14 (5) She checks that there is agreement by publicly sharing the amended drawing and 14 (6) She checks with the whole group 14 (6) directs their attention to the that the amended plan represents what they amended plan and requires their objective want and they agree that it is. reflection by asking all the students if they agree. They do and thus they all explicitly agree to part of the drama text.
14 (7) Then she asks if they 14 (7) Then she promotes snbjective "commnnicateâ carefnMy and reflectio n when she asks them all to clearly " in their decision. She asks consider if they understood and "Was there anyone who did not communicated. «understand what was happening?" 92
Table 2: (continued)
DESCRIPTION ANALYSIS
14 (8) One boy asks "If we were 14 (8) This boy, like the previous one in commioiaicatasn^ wlbv should Task 14(2) is perform ing and the everybody have their owm land?" teacher helps him to do so by bringing Someone agrees with him. She brings the him to the front. His attitude is clearly first boy to the front to repeat what he questioning the wisdom of the decision. said. (9) She adds, "Yom cam amswcr him", (9) She insists on subjective refledtiom and requires the class to pay attention. by the class and puts their attention on the The only answer shown is from a boy meaning of "communicating" in the context of their division of land. At least who says "Well it's mot like mrivate one does; he has a different attitude. ipro]pertv....!ts so hard for 30 ipeomle to work together bmt it is easier for 5 or 6 or 4 (the mmmbers im the gromips) bmt vom're still cmrnimmmicatiiny." At this point the film of the first session ends. 93
Teacher Structuring of Tasks A distinction needs to be drawn between teacher structuring in setting tasks for the students which they are required to complete and structuring interactions within tasks whereby the teacher effects the class' attention. The teacher’s structuring of interactions within a task will be analyzed in the next section. In this section the teacher's overall structuring of tasks will be considered. At the most fundamental level of structuring, the teacher sets the students tasks. Tasks are always what the students actually do. What they do may be seen (e.g. writing or talking), but it may also be unseen (e.g., thinking). In a drama session students will complete tasks both in role and out of role. In role, however, what the students do is always part of the dramatic action. Their actions in role are always in relation to the people and situations in the drama world so that what students do in réponse to being set tasks effects the drama world for others as well as their experiences in the drama world. What they do will affect their own and others experiences and will thus affect how students reflect and what they reflect upon. If tasks were added to the diagram they could be listed under any of the words in either cycle. Students may be speaking and/or moving as performers/public sharers; spectating with the opportunity for either objective or subjective reflection; agreeing together on drama text; making individual objective and/or subjective meanings (e.g., in their writing or drawing); or directing attention to an object which they or others have made (e.g., writing or drawing) in a performance/public sharing. The teacher's educational aim in the Heathcote Drama was to enable the students to consider the meaning of the words of the phrase "A nation is as strong as the spirit of the people who make it." In completing the tasks they were set by the teacher, the students began to discover for themselves meanings of the phrase in their subjective reflections on 94 their experiences in the drama. The educational aim seemed to have guided the teacher in setting all of the tasks which can be regarded as structured in different phases. (The phases overlap but may usefully be considered separately.) The teacher's thinking in structuring the tasks seems to have been as follows. Phase A: students will need to share their initial interpretations of the phrase to be focused on and agree to create the drama together. Phase B: they will then assume the roles of the people of a nation who have strengths. Phase C: in objective reflection they will create drama text of difficulties which would be overcome by the people. Phase D: they will overcome some difficulties. Phase E: they will consider the spirit and the strengths they had which enabled them to overcome those difficulties. This will result in the development of the theme of the strength of a nation in overcoming difficulties. Each of these phases will be considered in turn. Phase A: Students sharing their initial interpretations of the phrase and reaching preliminary agreements. In Task 1 the students are asked to respond to the words "A nation is as strong as the spirit of the people who make iL" The students agree in subjective reflection on some initial interpretations including "the government reflects the wishes of the people" and "each individual matters." She finds in Task 1(3) that they agree on their interpretations. She is clearly avoiding any judgment on what they say and now the teacher has a sense of what these words mean to the students before she begins working with them. She would also be able to use their ideas in a later task. For example, the agreement that "each individual matters" could be returned to in reflecting on whether or not they had treated each other as if they did all matter. This agreement did, in effect, become an aspect of the agreement in Task 7(3) that they should "tell the truth, commuiticate, tmst, and share" which was then returned to in Task 14 (7). 95
She tells the students that they will be making the scroll, she shows them the reasonableness of a drama about a nation only having 29 people in it, and gives them a viewpoint of people remembering what had happened. She then asks them to agree to these. These preliminary agreements clearly have to happen out of role because the students cannot agree to create a drama world unless they are doing so in the actual world of the classroom. Also, they need to be able to compare any subsequent interpretations they might have with these initial ones. Phase B: Assume the roles of the people of a nation who have certain strengths. Prior to meeting the students, the teacher has clearly made some decisions about the drama world they will create. She has set the drama in a time when people have made a new nation; they have travelled to a new but inhospitable land and survived there. She has decided that students will be individually in role as the people and collectively in role as the nation. The sequencing of tasks to lead to the agreement on strengths is outlined in more detail in Phase E. The students agree that in order for them to remain strong, they must "tell the truth, communicate, trust, and share;" these were the "strengths" which the people of the nation said they needed. It would not have mattered what the students specifically agreed on as long as they had seriously reflected on the meaning of "strength." In Tasks 13 and 14 (and again in the second session) the students were able to consider if they had been strong in the context of their later actions of dividing the land. Though the teacher has decided on many aspects of the drama world, and in interactions she focuses the students on what to pay attention to, the students are continually being encouraged to take on the role of the people and thereby have experiences which may serve as springboards for reflection. For example, in Task 4 each student is able to choose details for the person he or she would like to be when the teacher requires 96 them to choose a photograph and write a short history for that person; in Task 8 they interact as if they have just arrived in the new land; and in Tasks 13 and 14 they act to divide up the land. Phase C: Forming agreements on difficulties which would be overcome in the drama by the people of the nation. In Task 2 the teacher initially focuses the students on the difficulties the people in the new land overcame by asking them "to remember" what happened. She shows them the photographs and enables them to reflect. They are in role looking back at the time when they first came to the new land. The students seem reticent to perform and the teacher switches to a private structure. They are then focused in Task 4 (as part of the memories of the person) on the difficulties he or she overcame. Now they are more protected and can write their ideas without having to perform them. In Task 5 the teacher allows writers (presumably those who wanted to do so) to read their own writing and she then displays all of the students’ writing for the class to read. Thus she sets the task of writing before setting the task of agreeing about difficulties which affected everybody. In Task 11 the difficulties on the first day are recorded as part of the scroll (along with future decisions) which included dividing the land, shortage of food and water. As with the students' agreement on the meaning of "strength", it is only important that the students have agreed on difficulties to be overcome. What specific difficulties they consider is less important This is because in subsequent tasks she focuses the students not on the difficulties themselves but on overcoming them. Phase D: Overcoming some difficulties. Having agreed on difficulties (including dividing the land), as well as their strengths (to trust, communicate, and share), the teacher structured Tasks 12-14 so that in the drama world they could divide the land. Then the students in subjective reflection considered whether or not the used their strengths to 97 overcome the difficulty. Similarly, an agreement that a difficulty was that people had died, was used in the second session when they had a funeral. Phase E: Their spirit and the strengths thev had which enabled them to overcome those difficulties. The teacher returns to this phase throughout the drama. She focuses the students on their spirit and strengths in 9 interactions. In objective reflection in Task 3 the students consider the strengths of the person depicted in the painting. In objective reflection in Task 4 they write down the strengths of the person they chose as well as on the difficulties the person overcame. In objective reflection in Task 7 they agree what strengths they need in order to remain strong: they must "tell the truth, communicate, trust, and share." This agreement creates the "strengths" which the people of the nation say they need. It would not have mattered what the students specifically agreed on as long as they had seriously reflected on the meaning of "strength." In her objective reflection in Task 8 she gives some personal reasons for leaving, and other students could have mentioned individual strengths. In Task 10 there is subjective reflection on the "spirit" of the people. She is contextualizing the word "spirit" as she says how she feels as well as in her responses to the students. In Task 11 she recorded their strengths in the scroll. In Task 12 the teacher focuses the students on the strengths they had agreed they would need in Task 7 before leaving them to deal with the difficulty of dividing the land. In Task 14 in their subjective reflections they consider if they were strong in those ways. Thus she does not wait until the end of the drama for subjective reflections on their strengths, but enables them to build them in objective and subjective reflections throughout the drama. In conclusion, the teacher’s educational aim clearly gitided the teacher's structuring of tasks in different phases. The tasks set (and the teacher's interactions) directed the students' attention to different aspects of "A nation is as strong as the spirit of the people who make it" The phrase had been concretized in the events of a people's struggles in the 98 inhospitable environment of a new land The teacher carefully structured the drama so that the students would take actions as if they were the people in the nation in order that that they could then consider the strengths that they had as they survived in the new land. The students reflected on performances initially by the teacher and then by the students. In their objective reflections the students created the drama text and in their subjective reflections they began to find subjective meanings as they interpreted what h^pened
Teacher Structuring of Interactions In addition to structuring tasks, the teacher can also structure interactions both outside the drama and inside the drama when she takes on roles with the students. When the teacher is interacting with the students, she can be consciously directing their attention and responding to what the students say and do. As was argued in chapter II, in every interaction there is an "underlying question" even when a question has not be asked directly. When students take action or reflect they are in effect "answering" that underlying question which the teacher asks explicitly or implicitly In asking these underlying questions the teacher has made the students think about what is happening, has happened, or could happen in the drama and she has enabled them to reflect Whether these promote objective or subjective reflection will be discussed in detail in the following section. In tliis section the teacher's different ways of asking these questions will be examined. Table 3 lists the underlying questions which the teacher explicitly or implicitly asks in the Heathcote Drama. Questions which the students ask are in bold type face. Words which are not in brackets are the actual words spoken. Those in brackets are implied underlying questions. 99
Table 3: Underlying Questions in the Heathcote Drama Note: Student underlying questions are in bold type; teacher underlying questions are not Brackets are used when the actual words used in the Heathcote Drama are not reproduced.
TASK UNDERLYING QUESTION______I (1) none (2) I wonder if we could talk about what we think it means to us? (3) (4) [Do you agree to the drama premise?] (5) 2(1) Can you remember the terrible difficulties? (2) (3) [Can you remember how you felt?] (4) 3 (l) [Wtiat is she like? What are her strengths?] (2) 4 (1) [What is his/her name, strengths and memories?] (2) 5 (l) none 6(1) none (2) What things affected all of us? (3) 7 (1 ) (What will keep us strong?] (2) (3) 8 (1 ) [What are you carrying?] (9 P) Can you go back as it was on tfiat day? (4) Why was it we had to move? Whose idea was it?
(Q [Did you have a personal reason for leaving?] (7) (8) [Wfiat shall we do with the rocks?] 0) (10) Shall we stay here? (11) 9 (1) none 10 (1) Are you detemnined to make this work? (2) (3) What have you travelled? [How have you changed?] (4) II (l) none (2) [Is the scroll accurate?] (3) 12 (l) Will you have divided the land? (2) (^ [Will you trust, communicate, share?] 13(1) [How will we divide the land?] (2) (3) 14 (l) [How did you divide the land?] (g You have left no space for the community. (3) (4) (9 Do you all agree? (6 ) (7) Have you communicated carefully and dearly? (8) If we were communicating why should everbody have their own land? (9) [Weren't we communicating because we were in groups?] 100
Underlying questions are asked in different ways. The teacher can ask a question directly or ask it more tentatively. She can also ask it indirectly in a statement directed to the students or as if she is thinking aloud. She can also assist a student in asking a question. In asking a question very directly she almost requires a response. She does this out of role with the preliminary agreements to the drama in Task 1 and when they reach explicit agreements on drama text in Tasks 6,7 and 11. She asks a question directly in role in Task 12 "...and when you wake me, will you have divided the land?" She again asks directly when she requires subjective reflection on an action, for example, in Task 14(7) she asks "Did you communicate carefully and clearly?" These all direct the students’ attention very specifically and all require an answer. Alternatively, the teacher can ask underlying questions more tentatively which invite the students to respond. She does this when they are having to take a risk and perform or share in public. Underlying questions follow quotes in brackets. For example, to begin to create objective meaning in Tasks 2 and 3 she asks "Can any of you remember the terrible difficulties...?" {What were the difficulties?} and "Can you make your ntinds up about the kind of person she may be? Where her strengths may lie?" [What is she like? What are her strengths?] In Task 8 where she is asking them to move in role she only asks "Will you get what you’re carrying...?" [What are you carrying?] and "Say what was it made us have to move this day?" [Why did we move?] On one occasion she even asks a question metaphorically which is another less direct way of asking but one which allows for more possibilities in answering; in Task 10 she asks "What have you travelled?" [How have you changed?] At other times the underlying question is implied in a statement which is less direct than a question but can be just as pointed. In Task 12 she implies a question in her 101 statement, "And I shall need a good report on whether you trusted, communicated, and shared" [Will you trust, communicate, and share?] When she hears a student objecting in Task 14(1) to their division of the land, she directs the group’s attention to this as a statement of fact, "Somebody here says that you have left no space for the community" [Have you left space for the community?] This is an exançle of the way in which she can assist a student to direct the group's attention. Then in Task 14(9) she tells the class "You can answer him" as she requires them to listen to what he has to say. The teacher herself can also reflect, which is another less direct way of asking a question. For example, the question, "Did you have a personal reason for leaving?" is implied in Task 8(6) when the teacher says "I thought anything's better than being there." This is what Heathcote has called a "probe" because the teacher is probing to see if the students are ready to reflect (Wagner, 1976, p. 88). Wagner gives an example of a probe to universal subjective reflection when Heathcote was in role as a sailor looking at the sea and saying "This water looks so gentle and innocent and yet so strange. I cannot understand it" However, the teacher could also probe for personal or analogous subjective reflection as well as for objective reflection. In Task 8(6) she was probing for both personal reflection and objective reflection. As the students respond to these underlying questions, they are in effect "answering" the questions and, on occasions in the Heathcote Drama, coming up with their own questions Though the students ask relatively few questions the teacher is clearly paying close attention to the responses of the students and is encouraging them not only to respond but also to ask questions of the group as happens in Task 14. For much of the early part of the Heathcote Drama (Tasks 1-7) the teacher asks an underlying question and records the students' responses. Here the teacher is assisting the 102 students in establishing the drama world and agreeing on important aspects of the drama text like their strengths and the difficulties to be overcome. Mostly the teacher is quite tentative about requiring responses in the early part of the drama, with the exception of the initial agreements to create the drama world and take on roles where she requires specific agreements. Task 8 is the first of more extended series of interactions in all of which her close attention to student reaction is clear because of her subsequent responses. She can be seen at different times both to shift student attention to a different underlying question as well as to press the students for more detailed reflection. In Task 8 when the students have difficulty in pretending to carry something she shifts their attention off themselves in the present of the drama world and unto a past decision "Why did we move?" However, she presses the students to come up with more personal reasons for leaving. "Pressing" requires "a deeper consideration of a situation" (Wagner, 1976, p. 90). However, as Morgan & Saxton (1987, pp. 77-80) note, the teacher should only press the students in this way when they have the confidence to withstand the pressure. This would seem to be why she shifts their attention away from their reasons for moving when these are not forthcoming. As the students create more details of the drama world she follows this lead but shifts their attention to the rocks which were a difficulty they had already accepted. In Task 10 she presses them for subjective reflection on how their feelings have changed, and in Task 14 on whether or not they communicated. In both of these tasks the students seemed ready to consider the question more deeply because they were productively considering the questions. The teacher is repeatedly requiring or inviting the students to interact and reflect on her performances or on those of the students. She is sensitive to the students' responses 103 and is using a variety of ways of asking the questions in her interactions which lead the students to reflect. The teacher structuring of interactions can be contrasted with student interactions when the teacher is not interacting in role. It is significant to note that Heathcote has always asked an underlying question of the students beforehand which directs their attention when they are without direct teacher guidance. In Task 4(2) where the students write the strengths and memories of the people of the nation, she has already required them to think about both of these in the previous two tasks. For Task 13, when they agreed to divide the land, she focused them immediately before allowing them to interact on their own. In both these cases the students made something which was going to be part of a performance so that the class could reflect. If she had not asked a question then they might have made something which would have been inappropriate for the educational aim of this drama. Also, the students are all concerned with the same difficulty so that in reflection, rather than having quite different concerns, they will all have been thinking about the same one. In Task 9(1) the underlying question was essentially, "How did you move the rocks?" and whatever they did in Task 9(1) would have "answered" that question. Also, it appears from the film commentary that she decided to let the students "play" with the chairs rather than have them perform something which would be reflected upon. Their actions did become a "fact" in the drama text: they had moved the rocks. However in contrast to their writing and drawing in episodes 4 and 13 their actions were not performed and they did not subsequently reflect on the details of their actions. If underlying questions were added to the diagram, they would be listed under the teacher's performances/public sharing but directing the students along one or both of the arrows towards objective and subjective reflection. The underlying questions direct the 104 students' attention and invite students to reflect How different questions invite objective and or subjective reflection will be discussed in a later section. This section on structuring interactions and the previous section on structuring tasks have shown the extent of teacher structuring in the Heathcote Drama. The teacher was structuring the tasks into phases which were all related to the educational aim of the drama. She was also structuring her interactions with and among the students by asking underlying questions. As will be discussed in more detail in the section on Reflection, the teacher’s underlying questions were at the same time enabling the students' objective and subjective reflection.
Performance/Public Sharing Though students may reflect as they participate in the drama without teacher structuring, Heathcote has argued that this cannot be left to chance. The Heathcote Drama is actually structured so that the whole class are repeatedly reflecting upon performances/public sharing by the teacher and/or students. Either the teacher or students are performing/publicly sharing in 41 of the 55 task parts i.e. in every task except Task 4 (when the students are writing) and Task 9 when the students are imagining they are moving the rocks. When students are put in the position of being spectators to a performance/public sharing then they will have the opportunity to reflect and construct meaning about whatever their attention is directed to. I have already considered how student attention can be directed by the teacher’s structuring of tasks and interactions. Now I will briefly consider how student tasks are always related to performances and public sharing in the Heathcote Drama. There are three types of student tasks in the Heathcote Drama: to respond to a performance or public sharing; to make something; and to perform in role. 105
For much of the Heathcote Drama the students are in the position of spectators to the performances and public sharing by the teacher. Though it might appear that the teacher is dominating the drama, as has been shown above, the students are repeatedly being required to respond and thereby create the details and experiences of the drama world upon which they can then reflect. When the students are allowed to perform and function as actors, they have great difficulty in doing this. Clearly, rather than dominating the drama, the teacher is actually protecting these students from feeling exposed in front of their peers. In Task 8(1) the students giggled nervously and in Task 9 they played at a superficial level with the chairs. On the diagram, if students are not reflecting on other students’ performances/public sharing, then the teacher invites student reflection through her performances or public sharing. When the teacher requires the students to make something, whatever they make then becomes part of a performance or public sharing. For example, their writings from Task 4 are shared publicly and performed in Tasks 5 and 6. These are transformed by the teacher into the scroll and performed again in Task 11. Their plan for dividing the land is recorded on the blackboard and is then reflected upon in Task 14. Thus, though the students have difficulty in performing, their ideas are still central to the drama but shared in a more protected way. On the diagram the students have made "individual objective meanings" which either the teacher or the students can move into performance/public sharing. Bolton (1984, p. 154) describes performing as a way of "objectifying one's private (i.e. subjective) meanings" of events which emphasizes how exposing performance or sharing in pubic can feel. In the Heathcote Drama the teacher never requires the students to perform or share publicly. Those who do, always do so in response to the teacher’s 106 underlying questions. In other words, they are volunteering for performing or public sharing. Further, the teacher is ready to accept whatever they say without judgment and to support them in their sharing or performance if necessary. Just because she had volunteers did not mean that students would be able to perform effectively. For example, in the second session, when the teacher wanted the class to reflect on the meaning of the death of a person for the nation, part of the drama text was that he was buried. The class decided to have a funeral, but the boys who had volunteered to carry the body had great difficulty in doing so without giggling. Heathcote, however, insisted that the boys repeated their actions three times until they could carry the body without laughing. This then enabled the students to have more of a chance of experiencing as a pallbearer, but more importantly so that the rest of the class as spectators could begin to experience a funeral in the drama world and not boys giggling in the classroom. Performing and public sharing by the teacher and students is central to drama. That is one reason why it is placed at the center of the diagram. Drama is created in public by the group woridng together. Further, when there are performances and public sharing, the class have an aspect of the drama text to reflect upon together.
Reflection Structures As was noted in chapter II, and outlined in Tables 1, there are four ways in which the teacher can structure for reflection. Table 4 reproduces these structures with the number of times each was used in the Heathcote Drama. Table 5 (like Table 3) lists the tasks and underlying questions in the Heathcote Drama. The table adds whether the question promoted objective or subjective reflection, along with which of the four ways of structuring for reflection was used. 107
Table 4: Frequency of Use of Reflection Structures
STRUCTURE # USED R1 out of role before or after a drama session 2 R2 out of role during a drama session 3 R3 in role after an experience 7 R4 in role during an experience 13 108
Table 5: Reflection Structures Used in the Heathcote Drama Note: Student underlying questions are in bold type; teacher underlying questions are not Brackets are used when the actual wor& used in the Heathcote Drama are not reproduced.
REFLECTION TASK______OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE REFLECTION; UNDERLYING QUESTION______STRUCTURE I (1) none ~ (2) subj: I wonder if we could talk about what we think it means to us? R> P) subj (4) subj: [Do you agree to the drama premise?] R1 p) subj 2(1) objiCan you remember the temble difficulties? R1 (2) obj (3) objjCan you remember how you felt?] R4 (4) obj 3(1) obj/subj^What is she like? What are her strengths?] R2 (2) subj 4 (1) obj/subj:[What is his/her name, strengths and memories?] R2 (2) obj/subj 5 (1) none 6 (1) none (2) objiWhat things affected all of us? R (3) obj 7(1) obj:[What will keep us strong?] Bt (2) obj P) obj 8 (l) obj;[What are you carrying?] FM (2) obj P) obj:Can you go back as it was on tfiat day? R2 (4) ot^':Why was it we had to move? Whose idea was it? R1 (5) obj (6) obj:[Did you have a personal reason for leaving? R4 (7) obj P) objp/Vhat shall we do with the rocks?] A* 0) obj (10) obj:SfraII we stay here? A* (11) obj 9(1) none 10(1) subj Are you determined to make this woek? A1 (2) subj (3) sutq: What have you travelled? [How fiave you ctianged?] R3+R4 (4) obj/subj II (1) none (2) obj: [Is the scroll accurate?) TO (3) obj 12(1) obj: [Will you have divided the land?) A* (2) obj (3) subj: [Will you trust communicate, share?) At 13 (1) obj: [How will we divide the land?) R4 (2) obj (3) obj 14(1) obj (2) obj: You have left no space for the community? R3 (3) obj (4) obj p) obj:[Do you all agree?) (6) obj A1 (7) subj:Have you communicated carefully and clearly? (8) sub]:lf we were communicating why should everbody have their own land? R3 (9) sub]:[Weren't we communicating because we were In groups?) R3 109
Heathcote used all four of these structures. The students reflected before the drama (structure Rl) when they considered what the words on the board meant for them and agreed to take part in the drama. The film does not show the end of either session so no example of reflecting at the end of the drama is available; however it was almost certainly used. Examples of the other three structures are shown on the film. When the students reflected in Tasks 4-6 about the memories of the people and the events which had happened to them all, this was reflection out of role, yet still during the drama (structure R2). In Task 10 the students reviewed how they felt in retrospect, and in Tasks 11 and 14 they checked that the action which had been taken was agreed. In each of these tasks they were reflecting in role but after the action had been taken (structure R3). However, more than half of the time (13 out of 23 task parts) the teacher was using structure R4 when the students reflected about what they were doing as they were doing it. This allowed them to both experience and reflect at the same time so that if they performed ideas or agreed on drama text they would be doing this as they reflected and thought about what was happening in the drama world. They were not only experiencing as if they were the people in the nation, they were also reflecting upon what was happening. For example, in Task 14(5) when they were asked if they all agreed to the amended plan they were clearly experiencing as the people but also thinking about their decision as they were agreeing to it The teacher was actually using structure R4 at times when it may appear that she was not In Tasks 2, and 8(5)(7) though the teacher is talking as if this is "after the action" (e.g. "Why did we move?"), in fact the students are being encouraged here to agree on the drama text The students are actually being encouraged to reflect about what they are doing as they are doing it because in objective reflection they can "remember" what happened. Similarly in Tasks 7(3) and 12(3), though the students are considering the future (e.g. 110
"Will you divide the land?), in fact the teacher is again reminding the students that they are both experiencing and able to make decisions about what they are doing. With structure Rl the students reflect after the drama. However, this structure enables the students to reflect on their work as a whole, to respond in writing, art work or discussion. Students could also consider what they might have done differently or, how they might have changed as a result of the drama. With structure R2 the students can think about what has happened before the end of the drama. With structures R3 and R4 the students can effect what is happening in the drama world as they interact with each other, with the teacher and with any objects. Past action can even be amended (for example the division of land in Task 14) and present action can be agreed [for example, the agreement to stay in Task 8(10)]. With each of the four structures there can be objective and/or subjective reflection.
Objective Reflection Which Leads to Creating Drama Text It is important to stress that there is a difference between individual objective meanings and drama text. As the drama unfolds, students will create their own individual objective meanings in reflection. Students in the Heathcote Drama may well have imagined many events and had many feelings which were never shared. The drama text, however, was formed when actions were accepted or agreed upon by the group as a whole. The teacher, and those students who speak and move while others watch, become performers. However, it is the group as a whole as they reflect upon performances, which tacitly accepts or explicitly agrees what happens in the drama world. For example, though individuals had many different ideas, the group agreed in Task 6(2) about the events which had happened to them all; in Task 12 they agreed that they would divide the land as well as trust, communicate, and share; and in Task 14 though some students drew on the blackboard they all agreed to a division of land. It was significant that in Task 13 where no Ill student had checked to see what others thought, that though it appeared that an agreement on the drama text had been reached, this had not happened. If a specific agreement had not been reached in this case, the drama text which would have been formed would actually have been one of unspoken disagreement. On the diagram, the thin line in the Playmaking Cycle represents individual students creating individual objective meanings which may or may not be shared by others. The thick line represents agreement or acceptance by the whole group of objective meaning as drama text This can only happen with whole group objective reflection and must happen in public either in performance or public sharing. The thin line from individual objective meanings, as well as the thick line from drama text, to performing/public sharing represent how objective meanings and drama text can then be performed/publicly shared leading to further reflections.
Table 6: Explicit Student Agreements in the Heathcote Drama
TASK______EXPLICIT AGREEMENTS______1 (3) meaning of the words in the sentence "A nation is as strong as the spirit of the people who make it* (out of role) 1 (5) preliminary agreements (out of role) 6 (3) the events which affected everyone 7 (3) to tell the truth, trust, communicate, and share 8(11) to stay in the new land 10 (2) determined to make it work 11 (3) truth and accuracy of the events recorded in the scroll 12 (2) to divide the land 12 (3) to trust, communicate, and share 13 (2) that the land has been divided 14 (6) to the amendment to the plan 14 (9) that they had communicated carefully and clearly (posed but no agreement reached)
Clearly, the students are functioning as playwrights as they agree on all these details of the drama text. With structure R2 the students have created drama text and may then 112 think about what they have done. Structure R3 is similar except that they think about the drama text in role as the people who will in some way be affected by whatever happens. With structure R4 because they are thinking about the drama text as they are creating it, they can change a decision before it is made. For example, in Task 4(2) the students literally wrote the events they wanted to have happened as they reflected on the photographs (structure R2); in Task 6(3) they agreed in role to the events which had happened to them all as they reflected on their writings (structure R3); in Task 14(6) they reached agreement in role on the division of land, as they were doing this (stmcture R4). Thus with the R2, R3, and R4 stmctures for reflection, the students are collectively making decisions about what happens in the drama and are not merely participating. They are all agreeing to the events and are in this sense the playwrights of the past, present, and future of the drama world. In contrast, in the widely used structure Rl, the students cannot "playwrite" the drama text because the drama is over. Structures R2, R3, and R4 ensure that all the students participate in creating the drama text so that everyone is having an input into what has happened, may happen, or is happening. The drama text which has been agreed to can be seen to be "events" as well as "facts." The events are, for example, the accidents and moving the rocks. The facts are, for example, the shortage of water, and that the water was only found in the river. These events and facts are in the past, present, and future of the drama world. In the past, the people had agreed to trust, communicate, and share. In the present they moved the rocks. For the future it was agreed that the people had survived. The teacher had set the students tasks so that these agreements on the drama text could be made, but it is the students who have suggested and agreed to the details. This 113 allows the students to agree on what they would like to happen in the drama so that events and facts are not imposed on them by the teacher or some of the students. It is important to note how the teacher ensured that they had actually reached agreement. In Task 14 (l)-(6) the teacher is structuring to enable the students to amend their plan and reach a consensus. In Task 12 the teacher has ensured that the students focus on the agreement to divide the land. The students appear to agree on a division in Task 13 but the teacher checks in Task 14 to see that everyone agrees with what has happened. In fact, when given the opportunity to reflect on the agreement a student questions the agreement and the teacher focuses the rest of the class on the dissenting voices and insists that they reflect upon the questions raised. An amendment is made to the plan but she again checks to see that they all agree with the amended plan to divide the land. The process of ensuring that all voices are heard has enabled the class to reach a more complex agreement with which everyone agrees. The teacher is functioning here as a facilitator to ensure that a true consensus is achieved. She has structured so that the forming of an agreement is not just rushed through but is shared in performance and reflected upon, leading to a more thoughtful agreement by the students who have to listen to dissent Once there is some drama text agreed, then there can be interpretation of the drama text in subjective reflection. For example, it was because the students in Task 13 had all agreed to their plan as well as to communicate that they could interpret whether or not they had done so in Task 14. She could then pose a subjective underlying question, "Did you communicate?" If the teacher had not checked that they all agreed to the plan, then a student might well have continued to respond at an objective level, for example saying, "You did something I disagreed with." Rather than have someone question the actions of those who had imposed the decision on the group, the boy who spoke in Task 14(8) was able to 114 question the wisdom of their decision to have individual land. He could promote subjective reflection because the text had been agreed. It also needs to be noted that explicit agreements on the drama text are important for at least two other reasons. 1) They ensure that any subsequent student forming will be consistent with the drama text; and 2) they ensure that the students all take responsibility for the consequences of whatever they agree to and cannot subsequently avoid a problem by blaming each other for any decision made. Subsequent actions must always be consistent with the drama text which has been agreed. Heathcote emphasizes that in Task 6(2). For example, having agreed that there were rocks in the drama text, they then had to move them if they were going to stay there. In the second session when they needed water they had to go to the bottom of the mountain because they had agreed it was only in the river. All students can be required to take responsibility for the consequences of whatever they have agreed to. For example, they divided the land but did not give Martha Sharp any land. In the second session they had to face the consequences of forgetting her. Heathcote, in role, showed Martha Sharp as being very upset and not knowing whether she should trust them again. They worked together to convince her that she should trust them because they agreed to share with her. This is not to say, however, that the students can never undo what has been done in a drama; it is always possible to agree with the students that they can change their actions, though this did not happen in this drama. Though much of the drama text was explicitly agreed in the Heathcote Drama with a different class much of what was made explicit could have been implicitly accepted. For example, in Tasks 8 and 9 if the students had interacted productively as if they were the people in the new land, they might have created a history of why they came and what they found there. These details would not have had to have been explicitly agreed but would 115 have become part of the drama text as students would have talked and moved and what they said and did was accepted by the rest of the students. Implicit acceptance will be discussed in more detail in chapter VI. In conclusion, tacitly accepting or explicitly agreeing to the drama text is essential. All the students' input is required in an agreement which ensures that they all have ownership of what is created. Once there is a drama text, the students will be able to interpret it in their subjective reflections.
Subjective Reflections In subjective reflection the students interpret the drama text or their individual objective meanings and discover or construct their subjective meanings; they can find out what they think and feel about what is, has, or may happen in the drama world. However, because they are also "playmaking," these events have not been imposed on them but they are ones that they have agreed to or at least tacitly accepted. Just as all four reflection structures can be used in objective reflections, so they can be used in subjective reflections. On the diagram, because interpretations can only be carried out by individuals, there is no equivalent thick line in the Interpreting Cycle, even though students may perform/publicly share their interpretations and in doing so some may agree on interpretations. There is no equivalent for subjective meaning because it is not "external." However, sharing subjective meanings may also involve the sharing of objective meanings and thus lead to the creation of drama text. The dotted lines show how students can begin with subjective reflection and shift to objective reflection, or vice versa. The dotted lines also show how students may have ideas for objective meaning as they create subjective meanings, or vice versa. 116
Table 7: Subjective Reflection in the Heathcote Drama Note: Student underlying questions are in bold type; teacher underlying questions are not Brackets are used when the actual words used in the Heathcote Drama are not reproduced.
REFLECTION TASK SUBJECTIVE REFLECTION; UNDERLYING QUESTION STRUCTURE 1 (1) none (2) subj: I wonder if we could talk about what we think it means to us? (3) subj R4 (4) subj: [Do you agree to the drama premise?] (5) subj fW 3 (1) objfsubj:[What is she like? What are her strengths?] (2) subj R2 4 (1) obj/subj:[What is his/her name, strengths and memories?] (2) ot^subj FC 10(1) subj Are you determined to make this work? 04 P) subj: What have you travelled? (How have you changed?] FS+R4 12 (3) subj: [Will you trust, communicate, share? 04 14 (7) subj:Have you communicated carefully and clearly? (8) subj: 03 (9) sub]: [Weren't we communicating because we were In groups?] R3
With Structure Rl the students could talk, write, or make something which would enable them to reflect on how they individually responded to what happened in the drama. This happens completely outside the drama world. With structure R2 the students can reflect by stepping outside the drama for some time so that they will interpret "as themselves." For example, in Task 4(2) the students could interpret the photographs however they wanted so that they could write down whatever they felt were the strengths of the person. On the diagram, the students are interpreting but are not being asked to see through the eyes of the role as well as their own. They are interpreting past events and are not feeling the pressure of a dramatic moment. However, the drama is only in abeyance and may still be very fresh in the students' memories and feelings. With structure R3 they reflect inside the drama. Because they reflect in role they can think and feel as if they are the people in the drama world who will be affected by whatever happens. For example, in Task 14(8)(9) where they considered if they had 117 communicated, at least some of the students were clearly reflecting as if they were the people of the nation. "If we were communicating why should eveiybody have their own land?" was clearly spoken in role and must have been deeply felt from "inside" this situation because the student spoke this in opposition to an apparent decision by the whole class. Thus, structure R3 allows the students to consider how they feel about what has happened in the drama as if they are the people affected. Structure R3 allows the teacher to direct the students' attention to their previous actions and puts them in the position of reflecting upon their actions after they have been affected by them. This happened in Task 14(7)-(9) where they considered if they had communicated. It happened again in the second session where they reflected on their actions which had resulted in leaving out Martha Sharp when the land had been divided; she was very upset as she interacted with them. It is very important to note that the teacher only focused on previous actions which had already been agreed to in previous objective reflection. In other words, before the teacher allows the students to be confronted with some consequences of their actions, she ensures that the actions are indeed part of the drama text (which they will be if there has been explicit agreement or at least tacit acceptance). On the diagram, the teacher is inviting the students in role to engage in subjective reflection on a past performance or public sharing. The students are reflecting in role from inside the drama world. With structure R4 the students are reflecting in role. However, with this structure they are doing so as events are happening and not after they have occured; they are experiencing what is happening to them but also reflecting about how this affects them in role. On the diagram a participant is both in the middle as a performer but also in the interpreting cycle creating subjective meaning. 118
For students this is the most demanding reflection structure because it requires the students to tap into their feelings as they are taking action rather than just "getting on with the story." However, from the teacher’s point of view, this structure allows them to let their feelings affect their decisions about what they are doing as they are doing it rather than just focusing on the events of the drama. On the diagram what they say in performance is being affected by individual subjective meanings shown as as arrow. Heathcote had difficulty in getting the students to reflect in this way. Though the teacher only directly structured for subjective reflection in Tasks 10,12, and 14, in earlier episodes where they were forming objective meaning, she was encouraging them to draw on their feelings. However, in Tasks 2(2)(4), 8(5)(7)(9), and 10(4) they tended to talk about what happened rather than how they fejt. Whenever she did specifically structure for subjective reflection as they were taking action they tended towards objective reflection, performing for the drama text rather than sharing how they felt about what was happening. Again, in Task 13 though she had structured for both subjective and objective reflection, they only considered the division of land from a technical point of view and did not seem to draw on or share their feelings. However, Heathcote continued to press them for subjective reflection using structure R4. She got them to reflect on how their feelings had changed in Task 10(3). Then in the second session she performed as Martha Sharp who had been left out of the division of land and the students had to decide what to do at that moment to make her feel that she could trust them again. (She was also using structure R3 because they were also reflecting on their previous actions.) In this Task using a role helped to keep them from reducing the problem to a technical one because they had to deal with the feelings of a person; the students did come up with a resolution; they would share with her. 119
When students do discover or create subjective meanings, these may not be performed or shared publicly. However if the students are performing in role or publicly sharing this can lead to further reflections by participants. There may be further subjective reflections as happened in Task 14(8) and (9) where a performance of individual interpretations was beginning. There may also be objective reflections which may lead to an agreement or acceptance of more drama text. This happened, for example, with the agreement in Task 1(X2) that they were determined to make it work in the new land. However, this agreement happened very quickly with no reflective talk and was almost an additional preliminary agreement In contrast, in Task 14(8) when they considered if they had "communicated" this led to the sharing of different interpretations. In Task 14(8) one boy was reflecting on communication and the division of land. The film only shows one other boy's response which is another interpretation of what happened; he considers the question of communication and private property. No agreement is shown as being reached but it is clear that the students continued to reflect on the meaning of "communication" and "land," both aspects of the "strength of a nation." Interpretations were being shared about the meaning of these words in a specific context The students did reach an agreement in the second session of the Heathcote Drama in their objective reflections on interpretations which were performed. In the second session the teacher further particularized the division of land and the agreement to "trust, communicate and share" by performing as Martha Sharp with an attitude that she is not sure that she can trust the others because she is veiy upset at being forgotten and given no land. The students interpret this performance and share their subjective meanings. They reach an 120 agreement about how to convince her that she should trust them by showing her how they would share. Summary The teacher in the Heathcote Drama was continually structuring for reflection by the students. In their objective reflections the students generated their individual objective meanings, on occasions tacitly accepted that some objective meanings were shared details of the drama text, and when focused on explicit agreements by the teacher they agreed on drama text together. In structuring for subjective reflections the teacher enabled the students to interpret the drama text and discover their subjective meanings of what happened in the drama world. The students objective meanings and subjective meanings were continually being performed or shared publicly so that further objective and subjective reflections could occur. Table 8 shows the Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles in columns and uses the abbreviations "t" and "s" for teacher and student respectively. It lists the performing and public sharing by teacher and students and uses capitals to show when teacher or students are in role. It notes the creation of objective meaning (the abbreviation "obj" is used) and drama text in the Playmaking Cycle and when students appeared to be finding subjective meanings in the Interpreting Cycle. Explicit participation by students is indicated by noting whether one, some, or all of the students were performing, playmaking, or interpreting. Some abbreviations may need further explanation. In Task 14(3)(4) the drama text is shown in parentheses because the students had actually not agreed on it even though it appeared that they had. In Task 8(2) student performance is in parentheses because the teacher appeared not to want them to feel they were performing. In Task 14 when the teacher assisted a student to perform this is shown as T+S. 121
Table 8: The Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles in the Heathcote Drama
PERFORMING/ TASK______UNDERLYING QUESTION PLAYMAKING PUBLIC SHARING INTERPRETING 1 (1) none n/a (2) subj:! wonder if we could talk about what we think n/a it means to us? (3) subj n/a sem es alls (4) subj: [Do you agree to the drama premise?] n/a t (5) subj n/a alls 2 (1) ofÿÆan you remember the terrible difficulties? T (2) Obj obj-som eS someS (3) ot^{Can you remember how you felt?] T (4) obj otj'SomeS someS 3 (1) ofÿ/subj^What is she iike? What are her t strengths?] (2) subj obj-som es 4 (1) obj/subj{What is his/her name, strengths and memories?] (2) obj/subj o tj-alls 5 (1) none 6 (1) none t (2) obj-.What things affected all of us? T (3) obj drama text 7 (1) ol^:What will keep US strong? T (2) obj someS (3) obj drama text 8 (1) objiWhat are you carrying?] T (2) obj obj-some S (S) (3) otj'.Can you go back as it was on that day? r (4) obj:Why was it we had to move? Whose idea was it? T (5) obj drama text o n e s (8) obj:[Did you have a personal reason for leaving? T (7) obj drama text som eS (8) otijWhat shall we do with the rocks?] T (9) obj drama text someS (10) otÿ:Shall we stay here? T (11) obj drama text 9 (1) none otjj-allS someS 10 (1) subj:Are you determined to make this work? T (2) subj drama text 8 alls (3) subj: What have you travelled? [How have you T changed?) (4) obj/subj someS someS 11 (1) none t (2) obj: [Is the scroll accurate?] T/S (3) obj drama text 12 (1) olÿ: [Will you have divided the land?] T (2) obj drama text (3) subÿ: [Will you trusL communicate, share?] T 13 (1) ob]: [How will we divide the land?] S (2) obj drama text S (3) obj s 14 (1) obj s (2) obj: You have left no space for the T+S com m unity? (3) obj (drama text) (4) obj (drama text) (5) objiDo you all agree?] T (6) obj drama text (7) sulj:Have you communicated carefully and T deariy? (8) sub]:lf we were communicating why T+S ones should everybody have their own land? (9) 8Ub]:[Weren't we communicating S ones because we were In groups?] 122
Conclusion Though it might appear that there is relatively little interpreting happening, it needs to be remembered that this interpreting comes after the students have created their own drama text They are interpreting their experiences in the drama world and this requires careful structuring by the teacher. Though the students really only begin to interpret in any depth at the end of the Heathcote Drama this is a reminder that it takes time to create something worthy of subjective reflection. The creation of the drama text takes repeated uses of the Playmaking Cycle, both before, during, and after any uses of the Interpreting Cycle. As Heathcote has noted, "dramas, like most things of value, often start very ordinarily and grow into experiences of value" (1984, p. 34). Also, subjective reflection may have been happening in many instances throughout the drama. When "some" or "one" student is mentioned, this only refers to those students who demonstrated on the film that they were performing, publicly sharing, playmaking, or reflecting. Also, Table 7 does not show the dotted lines which are part of Figure 1 and it is important to remember that if there is objective reflection then there may well be subjective reflection which is not apparent because it has not been performed or publicly shared. Students' reflections will tend to be more complex as a result of creating the drama together. When students reflect, they do so on the performances and public sharing of the teacher and the other participants. What is created as drama text and shared or performed by students is a product of interactions which create a much more complex and varied text than any student would create on his or her own. Students are not just interpreting in their own way, they are inextricably affected by and are affecting the thoughts and feelings of the other participants as actors, playwrights and as audience. Though hopefully the drama will result in some change in student understandings, in their subjective reflections students will at least begin to examine meanings. If they are 123 responding to the underlying questions which are asked in the drama in a more complex way, then the students will have at least begun to think more deeply about any themes and issues which will be examined throughout the work. They will have generated their own meanings and have reflected upon others' and perhaps their own understandings. Because the drama is structured so that the students will be reflecting on performances and public sharing, this has implications for the teacher. Though Heathcote is performing and sharing she is hardly ever performing her individual objective or subjective meanings. When she does (in Tasks 2, 8, 10 and in the second session as Martha Sharp) she does so to enable the students to perform or publicly share their objective and subjective meanings in response. She also performs and shares in order to help the students shape their responses into drama text or to lead to further interpretations and thus more subjective meanings. She is enabling the students to share and shape ideas and to discover meanings rather than telling them how to respond. The model which has been presented in this chapter emphasizes that both playmaking and interpreting are needed in structuring a drama for reflection. In chapter IV I will illustrate the significance for my teaching of some of the details of this model. CHAPTER V APPLICATION OF THE MODEL TO THE DUNGEON DRAMA A SESSION TAUGHT BY THE TEACHER-RESEARCHER
Introduction The model of structuring drama for reflection was presented, analyzed, and applied in chapter IV to a drama session which had been taught by Dorothy Heathcote. In this chapter and in chapter VI the model will be used to analyze two representative sessions which I taught These sessions were chosen for a number of reasons. Though I could have used more of the sixty-eight sessions on video tape, I realized that my results could more succinctly be based on two drama sessions. I also felt that this would be easier for the reader to follow. I wanted to demonstrate the usefulness of this model by showing both the effect of the absence and the effect of the presence of aspects of the Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles. Consequently, I chose one session (the Dungeon Drama) from the first year in which the stmcturing was not enabling the students to reflect and the other (the Arts Drama) from near the end of the second year of collection of teaching data in which the structuring was enabling the students to reflect. The Dungeon drama was representative of a drama which I felt "did not work" in terms of structuring for reflection I had felt frustrated and dissatisfied with both my interactions with the students and with their level of involvement. In using the model to review the teaching data, I realized that this session was representative of a drama where many of the aspects of the model for structuring for reflection can be shown not to be 124 125 present Though superficially students are interacting in a drama world, there was actually little creation of drama text by the students as a group and almost no interpretation occuring in this drama. This session is analyzed in detail in this chapter. In contrast, I had felt very satisfied with the Arts Drama. This drama was part of a summer institute for teachers and the teachers helped prepare and review the drama. The teachers on the course had given extremely positive responses and the teacher of the group of students with whom I had worited had been delighted. When I used the model to review this drama, I realized that I had been enabling the students to use the Playmaking and the Interpreting Cycles. This drama will be analyzed in detail in chapter VI. In describing and analyzing the Dungeon and Arts Dramas I will on occasions use the third person and refer to "the teacher" of the drama. On other occasions I will use the first person and describe "my" understandings. In using the third person I will describe what any observer of the session would see if they viewed the video tape. I will use the first person to describe my intentions and other details of which an observer would not be aware. As I noted in chapter III, the use of the third person had enabled me more effectively to distance myself from my teaching and describe what actually occured. It has also, on occasions, allowed me to distinguish between my understandings when I was teaching these sessions and my realizations at the time of writing this study. The Dungeon Drama was the eighth session in a series of twelve in which the students were in role as "knights and ladies." The session took place over a period of 48 minutes on the afternoon of February 22, 1989. The drama was part of a six week medieval unit of study in my own third and fourth grade classroom. The students, among other things, made castles and shields, wrote stories, made medieval-looking documents including an oath of loyalty to the king, had a banquet one lunch time, listened to mediaeval music, and read dozens of books. Our room was always filled with displays of students' 126 completed stories and poems, paintings, and other art work. At the time of this session, illustrated stories were being written, castles were being constructed in the hallway, and shields with heraldic designs lined the walls.
The Students and the School As the teacher of this group of 29 third and fourth grade students. I had many ongoing educational aims for this class in addition to aims for a drama session. Though my classroom was self-contained, I was teaching in a school which was mostly "open plan" both philosophically and physically where students were expected to be able to work quietly without direct supervision, social learning was of paramount importance. This was particularly important for the six students in the class who had transferred that year from "traditional" schools. I had worked hard to promote student self-control, and by February I was pleased with the way students had learned to work in small groups, to share, to take turns, to discuss, and to respect each other's opinions and needs. At the beginning of the year, the class members had agreed on their own rules and despite the arrival of two new students (one in November, the other in January), the class were well able to monitor each other and handle problems which arose in working together. There was generally a happy working atmosphere in the classroom with much laughter and satisfaction. I was able to leave the room or work with small groups without being concerned that a major problem would arise. These perceptions were shared by the principal and staff development teacher who had each on several occasions observed the class both with and without me in the room. In their written assessments and informal feedback they had been very complimentary of my rapport with the class and my accomplishments in enabling students' social and academic achievements, especially with the more "difficult" students. Several boys and two girls had 127 stopped hitting others when they were annoyed, the new students had settled in well, and the two "loners" felt less outsiders and more accepted by the group. In addition, several parents had expressed their gratitude to me. However, this did not mean that I had the ideal class. One boy had been transferred to the school after violent behavior in his previous classroom; one girl had been referred to a psychologist by her previous teacher for help with seeing other people’s points of view. I also had several students who were withdrawn. There had been an incidence of theft early on in the year, one girl had run out of school rather than go to work at the office, and we regularly had meetings about how to treat each other with respect. I realize in retrospect that I had successfully promoted student-centered learning in the classroom by teaching the students specific rules and principles of behavior. For example, the students knew how to share materials, ask for assistance from each other, conduct discussions, share their completed work or their work in progress, and how to listen and ask thoughtful questions when a story or poem was read. However, even at this stage in the year I did not regard this class as "easy" to work with as a whole group. Drama, of course, requires students to work together as a whole group. It also requires students to imagine that they are in a different world. They have to behave and interact as if they are in situations in the drama world which may require very different social mles of behavior from the situations which they are used to. For example, knights and ladies do not put up their hands in a discussion, or tell each other that behavior is inappropriate. In talking with the king or when they are in a dungeon they will interact differently than when they are asking questions about another studenfs writing. This class needed structure especially in whole group situations. However, in reviewing the tapes of drama sessions with the class, I realized that in general I was probably more controlling of the class in drama sessions than I was at any other time and 128 that this type of structuring was actually debilitating rather than empowering in terms of students’ reflection and learning. This was particularly so in more open-ended tasks. In earlier drama work with the class I had felt that some students had taken advantage of the changes in social rules to return to more antisocial behavior. Some students had yelled at each other, rushed around the room, and a few had been pushed. My intention was to enable the students to have significant drama experiences. However, as will be seen in my analysis of the Dungeon drama, this did not always happen. Though I now realize that there were many sessions which were successfully enabling the students to reflect and learn, and also that students wrote and created art work as a result of their drama experiences, the Dungeon Drama is an example of teacher structuring which is largely disempowering. I had become wary of allowing students to take the lead and had not at that time realized how structuring the tasks and interactions can still be controlling of student behavior but also use the students’ ideas and responses and promote their reflections. In the Dungeon Drama the students are not consulted adequately, they are ignored, and the teacher’s reflections are, by implication, presented as more important than the students’. My practice in this instance was inconsistent with my overall stance as the teacher of this class. My intentions were to enable the students to create their own drama and to promote the students’ reflections, but it is clear in retrospect that in this session my practice had a reverse effect
Description and Analvsis of the Dungeon Drama The Dungeon Drama can be considered on its own as it was only loosely connected with earlier sessions. In the drama world which had been created, knights and ladies lived in a castle with a king who had received a note threatening that he would be killed. They had met the king (the teacher in role) and found out that he used his power arbitrarily by 129 sending people to the dungeon if they displeased him. These people included the jesters, the cooks, and servants. One student had made an oath of loyalty to the king which had been read in role; the students had all formally taken the oath. Brief Description of the Dungeon Drama. The session begins with some preliminary activities. The students play a game; they talk in pairs about the banquet which they just had; the teacher narrates the story of the banquet and the students add on details. The teacher and students take on their roles as the knights and ladies in the castle. One student reads the oath of loyalty and the others repeat the words and swear obedience. The teacher, in role as a servant of the king (referred to as "the servant"), tells the knights and ladies that the king is so pleased with the banquet which they organized that he is going to reward them by taking him to his new castle. The students imagine what the new palace is like. The servant tells the knights and ladies that before going he has asked them to go down into the dungeon and move some prisoners to another dungeon. They agree. They go through a secret passageway and down a staircase to the dungeon where they find the prisoners asleep. They chain the prisoners and then move them. They discover that the door to the dungeon has been closed and they they are locked in. One of the jesters is heard outside the door, she tells them that she will not let them out. The session ends. The Dungeon Drama will now be more fully described and analyzed in Table 9. In Table 9 the different type faces in the diagram of structuring for reflection (which is reproduced as Figure 2 in Appendix 1) are used in both the description and analysis columns to highlight whether students are making objective meaning and/or drama text in the Playmaking Cycle or constructing subjective meaning in the Interpreting Cycle. Different type faces are underlined when it is the students who are initiating or responding. 130
The time elapsed is shown in minutes and seconds after the task number. Table 3, below in the conclusion, shows the diagram of structuring for reflection redrawn for the Dungeon Drama. 131
Table 9: Description and Analvsis of the Dungeon Drama
Description A nalysis 1(1) 0:00. The group stands in a circle to 1(1) This preliminary game is a connecting play a crossing the circle game. They have to link with the previous session where there had ask a person of the opposite genderwhat been a banquet. Individuals perform and the they liked about the banquet. Some few details which are referred to are accepted students find it difficult and seem embarrassed implicitly as part of thedrama text. about performing. 1(2) 8:20. The students are asked to speak to 1(2). The students are able to talk in role to their neighbors about the banauet. All their neighbor without doing so in front of the participate for a minute or so. whole group. They create objective meaning in pairs.
1(3) 9:33. Teacher narrates the story o f 1(3) The teacher performs and the students the banquet. They add details of what only have to perform by adding details which made it such a wonderful banquet. The is less demanding than having to tell a story to teacher warns students that they may be sent someone else. ’Die teacher and students create out if they do anything which gets other drama text out of role which is implicitly students to laugh. accepted by the rest of the group. 2 16:00. One student reads the oath of 2 The students are explicitly agreeing to the loyalty and the others repeat the words oath as part of the drama te x t by solemnly. performing the words. 3(1) 16:56. The teacher in role as a servant of 3(1) The teacher in role is performing and the king tells them that the king was so intending to create drama text which the pleased with the banquet that the king said students seem to tacitly accept he would take the knights and ladies with him to his new royal palace. They receive the news enthusiastically.
3(2) The students are asked to imagine what 3(2) Now some students perform ideas and the palace is like. Some students create drama text which the others tacitly describe it It is a lavish place with gold accept everywhere.
3(3) The servant adds that the king "wants 3(3) The teacher performs the ideas of future us to move the prisoners in the action and is intending that the students agree dungeon and I thought we could go down to further drama text which they seem to now." They are eager to go down to the give. dungeon. 132
Table 9: (continued)
Description Analysis 4 21:49 They all go down to the dungeon via 4 Students have an opportunity to create a secret passageway and staircase. The objective meanings alone or with whomever students all foUow the teacher. Some describe they talk. what they see in a . vassageway, others are uninterested. 5(1) 25:11 When they reach the dungeon the 5(1) The teacher is performing more of his servant says, "Listen and you should be able objective meaning the ideas of which the to hear the prisoners sleeping." Some students accept as drama text, when they students make snoring noises. pretend to snore. 5(2) The teacher insists that they are quiet and 5(2) The students are required to imagine asks them not to touch the prisoners because snores rather than listen to actual sounds. they are sleeping. Some students are Some students are creating objective meaning giggling, others are describing bones and as they see bones etc. O&ers seem not to be other things they see in the dungeon. engaged. 5(3) 29:18 The teacher comes out of role and 5(3) The teacher goes out of role to reestablish tells them to stop woricing on "other stories." the agreement to the creation of the drama He tells them that, "This story is about going world. He implies that their ideas have been down into the dungeon to look at prisoners. inappropriate and are not accepted as part of When you can see prisoners lying there open the drama text. your eyes." 5(4) A student asks an (inaudible) 5(4) This student in performing is asking question in role which presumably questions for clarification of the drama text . why they are in the dungeon. 5(5) The servant replies, "I don't know. 5(5) The teacher performs and repeats what The king has just asked us to move the he had earlier said. He does not check with prisoners." the group that there is explicit agreement but assumes that there is implicit acceptance.of the drama text. 5(6) Alan is removed because he is giggling; 5(6) The teacher deals with a perceived he cries. The teacher asks the group if they discipline problem by removing the student. can imagine that the sound of his crying is He suggests in performance that the other coming ftom the prisoners. students listen in role to his crying and some do. 133
Table 9: (continued)
Description A nalysis
5(7) Emily says, "The prisoners are 5(7) This student is incorporating the crying hungry.. .tears are running down their eyes." into her objective meaning and performing this. It is objective because she is describing external details (even though they are emotive).
5(8) The servant replies, "Well, they have 5(8) The teacher demonsttates an unconcerned been well fed now," and adds, "It attitude as he perform s his stib jo ctiv o be better where we move them to." meanlBg. This is subjective because he is interpreting the future conditions as being better for the prisoners. Students' objective meanings are acknowledged but passed over.
5(9) Shelly responds by saying,"I don't 5(9) This student is performing an know how they can stand it." interpretation of the situation. She has formed subfestive moaaaipg.
6(1) 32:35 The servant tells them that there 6(1) The teacher performs his objective are chains on the wall which they need to meaning and is suggesting drama text use on the prisoners. He says, "Turn and get which the students implicitly accept by the chains. Unfortunately we have to chain reaching for the chains. them up when we move them. And gently, without waking them up, put them on." 6(2) One student responds, "Mine woke 6(2) This student offers a problem as part of his performance of objective meaning. This could become part of the drama text
6(3) The servant responds, "He'll go back 6(3) The teacher attempts to solve the problem to sleep don't worry. I was told they would but he also implies that the performance of not wake up and indeed they have not." the teacher's objective meanings take precedence in the creation of the drama text.
6(4) The teacher continues, "Put the key in 6(4) In his performance he tells the students your pocket." what to do. The role/teacher distinction is disappearing. 6(5) One student says, "I out it in mv sock." 6(5) This student performs an idea which is objective meaning consistent with the drama text but is in opposition to what the teacher/servant has told the students to do. 134
Table 9: (continued)
Description Analysis
6(6) The servant says, "Check you all put 6(6) The teacher continues to tell the students the chains on. Put the key in your pocket exactly what to do in his performance of his (some are pretending they are in their hands) objective meanings. The students are expected and very gently and carefully get them to their to pantomime as instructed. feet you'll find they are very sleepy and won't speak to you" 6(7) The teacher comes out of role and 6(7) At least one student is uninvolved. removes another student, Jason, who is giggling. 6(8) 37:05 The teacher redirects their 6(8) The teacher is imposing tight control over attention. "Shut your eyes again. When you behavior to ensure that it is all "appropriate." can see that p riso n er in your arm or He is also implying that they must see the however you're holding them and the prisoner and chains as part of thedrama text. chains, I would ask you not to talk and put your eye up here and then I know you are ready to begin." 7(1) The following conversation, in 7(1)- 7(1) This student performs her objective 7(10), occurs in role between the teacher and a meaning of what it is like in the tunnel. She is girl who speaks quietly. She cradles her clearly engaged. arms as if she is carrying a baby. Leslie: (whispering) It's dustv in the tunnel. 7(2) Servant: It is dusty. It is dark. There 7(2) The teacher affirms her idea but are torches up on the walls. performs details of his objective meaning that detract from what she says by suggesting that at least they can see even if it is dusty.
7(3) Leslie: (slightly louder) It isn't dgjht 7(3) She is clearly interpreting the situation treatamg TPrisomers like that. and now performs her snblective meaning.
7(4) Servant: Well I'm not very happy either, 7(4) The teacher interprets what she says by but it's just what we've been asked to referring to what he assumes is previously do... agreed drama text.. 135
Table 9: (continued)
Description Analysis
7(5) Leslie: E ut thty> e bmbîes. Can we 7(5) Now she is questioning the previous feed theml agreement by implying that it may not apply because there are babies in the dungeon. Again she interprets and performs This is subjective because she is justifying why it is not right to be treating the prisoners in this way. By mentioning babies she is, however, also performing objective meaning. She also suggests a future action for everyone. She accepts the servant's higher authority by asking for his permission.
7(6) Servant: I kmow they are Mbics. 7(6) Again the teacher agrees, but he is almost telling her not to reflect by not responding to her concern. He implies tiiat his subjective meaeimg (or the king's) is best.
7(7) Leslie: Bmt they didn’t do amvtlhmg. 7(7) She persists and explains a reason behind her interpretation. She continues to perform meamimg.
7(8) Servant: TSacyll be wlith their 7(8) The teacher performs his subjective paxeaits they'll be elright. meammg which is offered as an alternative but again as a more reasonable interpretation.
7(9) Leslie: Mo they wom't (She hangs her 7(9) For the fourth time she extends her head and looks at the baby in her arms) subjective meanimg and questions the interpretations of the teacher in role. Here she reinforces her position with her gesture which appeals to the reality of a baby who needs feeding. 7(10) Servant: The king is leaving this 7(10) The teacher again does not respond to afternoon we've jtist got to get this the student. He performs his subjective dome. We're just going to move them meamiug implying that nothing can change from here into this area here through his mind. Again he repeats the previously the secret passageway, put them agreed dram a te x t rather than down, and then turn round and come acknowledging that it could be amended. out again. OK? 136
Table 9: (continued)
Description Analysis 7(11) Leslie plays with a friend's hair. 7(11) The student gives up. The baby has Another person talks out of role to die teacher. disappeared for her since she is no longer pretending to hold it as she turns to the actual world of tiie classroom. 8 The students pantomime moving the 8 For some students, to varying degrees, this prisoners to the inner dungeon and returning. will have been an experience in role of moving The levels of engagement seems to vary. the prisoners. For others it will not have been Some are very careful with their movements, such an experience. others hardly bother. 9(1) Leslie says, "The door is locked." 9(1) The same student who had attempted to question the teacher in role now performs ohiective meaning,
9(2) The teacher in role as the servant asks if 9(2) The teacher accepts her objective meaning anyone has another key. and as this is tacitly accepted by the class it becomes part of the drama text. However he allows for the possibility that there may be a simple solution
9(3) Three hands go up. 9(3) Three "helpful" students follow his lead and may be about to solve the problem. 9(4) Teacher does not acknowledge the hands. 9(4) He chooses to ignore the students and In role, he asks "Who is playing a jokel" instead he performs his objective meaning as a question which invites objective reflection in response.
9(5) Most students look towards the 9(5) At least one student performs objective (imaginary) door. One student says, "The meaning which offers a dramatic direction for prisoner has the key"" Others call "Help"; still the development of the drama text others are sitting and talking quietly.
9(6) The servant speaks to the whole group. 9(6) Again the teacher does not respond. "I am sure there is a very reasonable Instead he suggests that there is a simple explanation" Does anyone have an idea? solution and in his performance asks for faither objective r^ection to produce that. In the following exchanges a possible drama text, of what to do and/or why they may have been locked in, is waiting to be agreed upon. However, the teacher does not stmcture so that this happens. 137
Table 9: (continued)
Description A nalysis
9(7) Shelly says, "How are we going to get 9(7) This student clarifies the dramatic tension out?" which is inherent in the situation and in directing attention to a detail of the external world of the drama she is performing her objective meaning and suggesting others respond with ideas.
9(8) The servant replies "I know we will, 9(8) Again, the teacher down-plays the but I am wondering how we got in here." problem. He attempts to shift attention to why they might have been locked in. His performance is inviting objective reflection,
9(9) Some students say that the servant has 9(9) The students' attention is still on where the key in his hand: others say that he has not. the key is. Alternative objective meanings are performed.
9(10) The servant says that someone has 9(10) The teacher implicitly rejects the ideas locked the door. that the servant has the key. He returns to the problem by restating the drama text. accepted in Task 9(2). He has still not responded to what the students are saying.
10(1) Rod speaks to the servant to say that 10(1) Another student perform s some he heard the door slam and heard footsteps. objective meaning He speaks directly to the teacher whereas those in the previous task had spoken as part of the group. He seems to recognize that if he is to influence the creation of the drama text, he will have to address the teacher directly. 10(2) The teacher makes the class listen to 10(2) Here the teacher is assisting the student Rod, who repeats what he said. Most to perform his objective meaning, (which students look at Rod as he speaks. the teacher has found acceptable). It is implicitly accepted by the students as part of the drama text. 10(3) The students seem interested. Shelly 10(3) This student's objective meaning seems says that she saw a jester and that "he was to be picking up on the teacher’s in Task 9(4). ulsmgjunM” 10(4) John says, "We can use our swords to 10(4) This student's performance suggests break down the door." drama text of possible action by the group. 138
Table 9: (continued)
Description Analysis
10(5) The teacher says that "we don’t have 10(5) The teacher blocks the student who our swords with us." He asks the students if suggests swords by performing alternative they know the jesters and if this is the kind of objective meaning. Rather than moving into joke they’d do. Then he asks them to be quiet action, he redirects the students' attention to and to listen. the possibility of interpreting this as a joke.
10(6) A student says, "It mav be the new 10(6) In performing, this student’s objective fester" meaning offers another possible drama text. 10(7) Out of role the teacher congratulates 10(7) The teacher comes out of role in order to them for keeping their attention on the redirect the whole group’s attention to what problem. Jenny a ^ the teacher if she can be may happen. However he does not seek their the jester. He gets them to close their eyes agreement on a possible future direction for the and listen. drama. He implies that whatever they hear can be part of the drama text.
10(8) The teacher says he can hear footsteps 10(8) He does not wait for a student to respond but performs objective meaning.
11(1) Jenny has moved to stand as if she is 11(1) The student who asked to be the jester outside the door. The servant asks, ''Will has taken on this role. The teacher performs you open the door, please? " more objective meaning as he speaks to her. 11(2) "NO." she replies, ’’becaiose yoti're 11(2) The student creates drama text mean." because the students accept this in their response. She also performs snb^ective moaning in her response which is quite appropriate in the situation. It is subjective because she is interpreting their actions as being "mean." 11(3) The other students veil at her to 11(3) They too are creating drama text open the door. through their actions. There is no negotiation; the students inside the dungeon respond by demanding that they be let out Some of the students have moved toward the door including John who has brought a torch from the wall which he wants to use to bum the door down. 139
Table 9: (continued)
______Description______A nalysis ______
11(4) The teacher says, "I dom’î thimk 11(4) The teacher responds to the sJaoBtiog at the jester is going to confrontation by interpreting their response as . , „ not useful. He performs this sobjective meaning.
11(5) 48:00 The teacher comes out of role 11(5) The teacher reflects with the students on and talks with the students about their how they managed to sustain the drama world, behavior. They do not share any interpretations.
Teacher Structuring of Tasks My educational aim for the Dungeon Drama was to have the students question the king's arbitrary use of power. In a previous session the students had been prepared to take an oath of loyalty to the king despite the fact that they had objected to what he had done by throwing people in the dungeon. The phases planned for the drama session were as follows. Phase A: The students will need to connect this session with previous sessions. Phase B: The students in role will again take the oath to obey the king. They will create the details of the reward they will be given if they do carry out the king’s commands. They will agree to move the prisoners in the dungeon. Phase C: They will carry out the king's specific command to move the prisoners. Phase D: They will reflect on what they have done, find out more about the prisoners, and consider what to do about the king. Though he wanted them to question the king, the teacher did not want the students to find it easy to do so. This was the thinking behind his structuring of the tasks, but as will be shown, this created problems of ownership. Phase A: Students connecting this session with previous sessions. In Task 1 the teacher enables the students to create objective meaning and drama text through their 140 agreement on the story of the banquet which had occured in the previous session. He moved from a public structure which the students found embarrassing in 1(1) to more protected ways of allowing the students to share ideas. In 1(2) all the students could talk without having the whole class listen and in 1(3) students could add on to the teacher’s retelling. However, despite this, the students gave very little input. In Task 1(1) it was difficult for students to interact productively. Task 1(2) lasted for barely a minute and in Task 1(3) the teacher did most of the talking. Also, the only connection with the previous session was a retelling of what had happened. There was no discussion of how the students felt about what had happened in the castle in general or how they felt about the king. Thus this phase only very superficially connected with previous sessions. Phase B: Agreeing to obev the king: creating their reward: agreeing to move the prisoners. The purpose of this phase was so that the class would agree in principle to carry out the king's instructions, would feel a reason for doing so, and would then agree to carry out something specific. These are this drama's basic preliminary agreements. The class in role took the oath again in Task 2. Though the teacher was assuming that the students had agreed to obey the king, there had been no subjective reflection about the oath. No one had said what they thought it meant for them (subjective meaning) or in what circumstances they might or might not obey the king (objective meaning) or why they would or would not do so (subjective meaning). Thus any agreement was very abstract By contrast, the Heathcote Drama began with the students sharing their initial interpretations of the phrase which was written up on the blackboard. In the Dungeon Drama, a discussion on the oath could have clarified or led to interpretation or the creation of drama text by the students. 141
In creating the details of the new castle they would be going to [in Task 3(1)] my intention was to give some students the possibility of later using this as argument in favor of carrying out his orders. The original plan had been to have them describe the palaces he would give them, but this was altered inadvertently which reduced the appeal of the "reward." The teacher does not ask the students, in or out of role, to agree specifically to move the prisoners in the dungeon. Instead, the teacher presents this to the class quite casually in Task 3(3). I was partly concerned that they would disagree and thus reject the plan. However, by not ensuring that the students were in agreement, the students had not made a public commitment to their actions. Phase C: Thev will carry out the king's specific commands. I had planned that the students would go down in the dungeon and move prisoners from one dungeon to the other. I wanted them to carry out the orders and then question what they did after they had done this. (I was planning for structure R3 but ignoring the possibility of using structure R4.) Consequently, I assumed that students who were not doing what I had planned were being difficult or that it would be appropriate for them to withhold their reservations temporarily. I was afraid that the drama would dissipate if they aU stopped to question. In fact, this could have been much more dramatic with students wondering whether or not to go on. Instead, the teacher began to require the students to be like marionettes doing what he told them to do. A pervasive problem with the structuring of this drama was that the teacher did not check that the students were in agreement. Consequently, the teacher could not know to what extent the students understood or agreed with what they were doing.. In Task 4(4) at least one student was unsure of the reason for being in the dungeon. In Task 7 there was a serious questioning by one student of why they were moving prisoners. The students were 142 being pushed or almost tricked into accepting this basic principle of the drama and then carrying out the orders of the king. Though they might be doing what the "teacher" wanted, they might not be voluntarily doing what the drama situation demanded. Though this might have been possible if there had been tacit acceptance, it caused problems when there was passive rejection (for example in Task 6 when a student’s prisoner wakes up) or actual questioning (as in Task 7) of what they were asked to do. Once this had happened, the teacher was in the position of requiring the students to act rather than it being what the students felt thev had to do in this particular drama situation. I actually wanted the students to question the arbitrary use of authority by the king, but paradoxically structured the drama so that the students were not allow to question my authority as the teacher who had planned the drama. Phase D: Thev will find out what thev have done, find out more about the prisoners, and decide what to do about the king. My intention was for the students to do what the king had wanted and for them then to create drama text about the prisoners' past, and present, so that they would be in a position to question the king. Th;_y never reached this stage. However, as will be discussed in more detail in the section on reflection, in their subjective reflections students were already questioning the king's decision but the teacher did not make these public and promote reflection by the whole class. Rather, he promoted those comments by students that supported the teacher's drama text In his structuring of the tasks, rather than enabling the students to create and interpret drama text, the teacher was actually restricting the students' involvement. The structuring of the tasks in the Dungeon Drama may seem similar to the Heathcote Drama because in both dramas the plan is for the students to do something and then reflect about what they had done. However, there is a significant difference. In the Heathcote Drama the students all explicitly agreed to the division of the land and to the need to communicate, 143 whereas in the Dungeon Drama there was no agreement to move the prisoners. The teacher did not ask for explicit agreement, and further there was at least one student who was undermining any implicit acceptance. The students were participating in the teacher's drama rather than the teacher enabling the students to use their ideas to make up their own drama. Teacher Structuring of Interactions In the Heathcote Drama the teacher was continually asking underlying questions either explicitly or implicitly. Though the teacher was structuring the drama sessions tightly, the ownership for the work remained with the students. She invited or required the students to "answer" those underlying questions. Whatever their answers were was acceptable and was part of the process of enabling the students to reflect She responded to whatever the students said or did by posing another question as part of the same or subsequent task. At times the teacher reflected publicly as a probe to see if the students were ready to reflect The underlying questions which the students asked in the Dungeon Drama are in bold face type in Table 10. Underlying questions which the teacher posed are in regular type face. Some of the underlying questions listed in Table 10 record the actual words used by the teacher or students; most have been rephrased to indicate the question which is implied. 144 Table 10: Underlying Questions in the Dungeon Drama Note: Student underlying questions are in bold type; teacher underlying questions are not. Brackets are used when the actual words used in the Dungeon Drama are not reproduced.
TASK UNDERLYING QUESTION 1(1} What did you like about the banquet? (2) What happened at the banquet? (3) Why was the banquet so wonderful? 2 [Will you take the oath of loyalty to the king?] 3(1 ) [Do you want to go with the king to his new palace?] (2) What is the new palace like? P) [Will you accept that we have to move the prisoners?] 4 [What do you see in the passageway?) 5(1) [Can you hear the prisoners sleeping?] (2) [Will you accept not to touch the prisoners? ] [What do you see?] (3) [Will you accept that this story is about looking at prisoners?] (4) Why are we here? p) [Will you accept that we have to move the prisoners?] (6) Can you imagine the sound of his crying is coming from the prisoners? (7) [Can you see that the prisoners are hungry with tears running down their eyes?] (8) [Do we need to worry about the prisoners?] (9) [How can the prisoners stand it?] 6(1) [Will you accept that there are ctiains and put them on the prisoners?] (2) [Will you accept that on e woke up?] (3) [No. Will you accept that he has not?) (4) [Will you accept that you should put the key in your pocket?] (5) [Will you accept that I put It in my sock?] (6) [No. Will you accept that it should be in your pocket and that the prisoners wont wake up when you move tfiem?] (7) none (student removed) (8) [Will you accept that you are holding a prisoner in chains?] 7(1) [Will you accept that It Is dusty in the tunnel?] (2) [Yes. Will you accept that it is dark but there are torches on the walls?] P) [is it right to treat the prisoners this way?] (4) (Do we have to think about that if we agreed to do this?] (5) [Is It right if they are babies? Can we feed them?] (6) [Does it matter if ttrey are babies?] (7) [Is it right if they did nothing wrong?] P) [Does it matter if they are with their parents?] (9) [Doesn't it matter to you?] (10) [Do we have to think about that if we agreed to do this?] (11) none 8 [What happens when you move your prisoner?] 9(1) [Will you accept that the door is locked? (2) [Yes.] Does anyone have the key? P) [Do you want to hear my response?] (4) [No]. Who is playing a joke? p) [Do you accept that the prisoner has the key?] (6) [No. What is the reasonable explanation?] (7) How are we going to get out? (8) I know we will, but I am wondering how did we got in here? P) [Will you accept that the servant has the key?] (10) [No.] 10(1) [Will you accept that the door slammed and there w ere footsteps?] (2) [Will you accept that the door slammed and there were footsteps?] P) [Will you accept that a jester w as playing a joke?] (4) [Will you accept that we can use our swords to break down the door?] (5) [No. Might the jesters play a joke like this?] p) [Will you accept that It Is the new jester?] (7) What can you hear? P) Can you hear footsteps? 11(1) Will you open the door, please? (2) Why should I? You're mean? [one student] (3) [Why won't you open the door?] (4) [Do you think shouting will help?] p) [What did you think of the way you behaved?] 145
Though the teacher is asking underlying questions, mostly implicitly, he is not accepting many of the students' contributions. On the contrary, he is repeatedly avoiding, ignoring, blocking, or rejecting students' responses. Though reservations about the underlying questions asked in Phases A and B were noted above, in Tasks 1-4 the students are to an extent able to invent details of the banquet, the new palace, and what they see on the way down to the dungeon. Whatever answers the students give are accepted and do lead to the creation of some drama text However, in Tasks 5-11 rather than asking underlying questions which invite student responses the teacher is mostly asking for student acceptance of his ideas. Rather than enabling them to create or interpret text, in 18 out of the 26 underlying questions posed by the teacher these were "will you accept" questions mostly posed during his narration. The teacher was asking the students indirectly to accept that his objective meanings (which he refers to in his underlying questions) should create drama text For example, he wants the students to accept that the prisoners have to be chained and that they are asleep. The teacher already has a strong image of the drama world and he wants the students to accept his picture. The other underlying questions were in order to discipline, or as will be discussed below, to disagree with a student about her subjective meaning. Clearly, to an extent, narration by the teacher can help students visualize the drama world. However, if the students are not actively involved in the imaging then even if they are silent they wül not be creating the drama world. Some students also ask underlying questions. The teacher responds in various ways. Occasionally he accepts an idea immediately, as in Task 9(2) where he accepts that the door is locked. 146
Most of the time, however, he does not accept their ideas. On some occasions he may even reject an idea outright. In Task 6(3) he tells the student whose prisoner woke up that the prisoner was still asleep. He may also block a response. A student in Task 5(7) said, "The prisoners are hungry. Tears are running down their eyes." His response in Task 5(8) was to say, "Well they have been well fed now. It will be better where we move them to." He was thus implying that she should not worry about the prisoners. Sometimes he redirects student attention as in Task 6(6) where he tells the students to put the keys in their pockets even though one boy had just said that he put it in his sock. Sometimes he just ignores what a student says. For example, in Task 9(3) he ignores three raised hands, and in Task 9(10) he ignores the suggestion that the servant might have the key to the locked door and well as Leslie’s underlying questions about babies. I am not implying that none of these strategies should ever be used. Especially where some individuals make facile or over-simplistic suggestions, or suggest a different direction for the drama which is inconsistent with the teacher's educational aims, then ignoring or redirecting could be used effectively. However, if rejection or blocking are used without hearing the students' opinions about decisions then the teacher becomes the one doing all or most of the playmaking. Many of the students may feel marginalized and may consequently lose interest and involvement. At least five of the students in the Dungeon Drama became uninterested; they barely responded even when the door was found to be "locked." In the Dungeon Drama, however, the teacher was asking underlying questions, which were mostly closed questions in the sense that each only had one answer known to the teacher. The teacher had a clear idea of his drama text and he was seeking student acceptance of for his ideas rather than inviting the students to share their ideas. It was implied that the students had to get the teacher’s approval for details of the drama text. 147
Rather than having students’ ideas or actions performed and accepted implicitly by the rest of the group [as in Tasks 9(1) or 10(2)] or agreed to explicitly (there are no examples in the Dungeon Drama), the teacher is monitoring their responses for his approval or rejection. This undermines any suggestion that it is the group as a whole which creates and interprets the drama text through responding collectively to the underlying questions posed in interactions. This further implies for the students that the session is about creating the teacher's drama in which the students are merely taking part
Performing/Public Sharing In the Dungeon Drama, the teacher placed the students in a potentially highly emotional situation which would be demanding of any participants' attention and their human concern. By asking the students to imagine that they were moving prisoners, the teacher was putting these students in a position where the effect of the king's power had become very concrete. Now their concern about those who had been sent to the dungeon had become much more specific and personal. They would not only see the prisoners but also have to move them and lock them up again. The teacher’s role, however, dominated the drama and rather than enabling the students to question the king's authority, he actually stifled their thinking. The main performer in the Dungeon Drama is the teacher in role. For the most part the teacher does not allow students' responses to be performed or publicly shared. Consequently, it is only the teacher’s or the teacher’s approved performances and public sharing on which the students as a group are able to reflect Whereas in the Heathcote Drama, the teacher's performances are to enable the students to respond so that whatever they say or do will be acceptable, in the Dungeon Drama, the teacher is mostly performing his objective meanings which he wants the students to accept as drama text. Rather than being at the service of the group, he is 148 imposing his id:as on the group. This could well be appropriate at the beginning of the drama or even if the students were tacitly accepting his objective meanings as drama text, but not where there was clearly questionable tacit acceptance and some obvious opposition. He makes the students move the prisoners despite opposition both in and out of role. For example, when they reach the dungeon the teacher has to insist that they are quiet, he removes a student, Emily and Shelly worry about the prisoners, one wakes up, one of the knights puts a key in his sock, and Leslie is prepared to argue about the morality of what they are doing. Leslie's concerns in Task 7 will be discussed in more detail in the subsection on subjective reflection. Though some of these performances were wisely passed over (e.g. the key in the shoe), in rejecting, blocking, or ignoring other student responses, important questions which could have been pondered by the students were missed. For example, "What will we do if they aU cry, or wake up?" or "Should we move babies?" The students were expected to do what the teacher told them rather than thinking responding performers. The teacher is essentially asking them to move without questioning what they are doing. He is also asking them to do this even if they realize that there are inconsistencies which could undermine the "reality" of the drama world. For example, how could you possibly move a prisoner without waking him up? Though I wanted the students to reflect, I actually repeatedly rejected the reflections the students offered as performances. It is, however, important to be aware of my feelings of insecurity and being afraid of "losing control." My intention was to maintain control through the use of role [a strategy suggested by O'Neill & Lambert (1982)] to enable the students to have experiences within the drama. I did not realize at that time the importance of using students’ reflections to create and think about the drama text 149
It is also important to realize that though I was feeling insecure about noise and the progress of the drama and rejected student ideas, the class remained, for the most part, both cooperative and interested. This can be illustrated by the two exceptions to the teacher’s rejections of student's ideas: Rod in Task 10(2), and Jenny in Task 11. In both cases the students as a group were engaged, and responded in role. I enabled Rod to perform his idea for the class in much the same way that the teacher did in Task 14 in the Heathcote Drama. I required the students to pay attention to Rod as he repeated an idea which they did. Unlike Rod, who briefly shared his idea for the class to consider, Jenny was given the power to create drama text Though giving one student so much power could have caused problems depending upon what she invented, it actually united the entire class in their desire to get out of the dungeon and she also raised an important question which could have then been considered: whether or not they were being "mean." Thus performances in the Dungeon Drama were rarely used to enable the group as a whole to reflect. Rather than ownership being mostly with the whole group, it remained with the teacher and a few students.
Reflection Structures All four reflection structures were used in the Dungeon Drama. Table 9 lists the frequency of their use. Table 10 (like Table 8) lists the tasks and questions in the Dungeon Drama with the teacher's underlying questions in bold type. The table adds whether a question promoted objective or subjective reflection, along with which of the four ways of structuring for reflection was used. 150
Table 11: Frequency of Use of Reflection Structures in Dungeon Drama
structure # used R1 out of role before or after the drama 2 R2 out of role during the drama 2 R3 in role after an experience 4 R4 in role during an experience 47 151 Table 12: Reflection Structures used in the Dungeon Drama
REFLECTION TASK OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE REFLECTION; UNDERLYING QUESTION STRUCTURE 1(1) obj: What did you like about the banquet? FB 1 (2) obj: What happened at the banquet? R3 1(3) obj: Why was the banquet so wonderful? Rl 2 obj: [Will you take the oath of loyalty to the king?] Rt 3(1) subj: [Do you want to go with the king to his new palace?] FU (2) obj: What is the new palace like? F* (3) otÿ: [Will you accept that we have to move the prisoners?) FM 4 obj: [What do you see in the passageway?) FW 5(1 ) obj: [Can you hear the prisoners sleeping ?] FW (2) obj: [Will you accept not to touch the prisoners? ) F* obj: [What do you see?] (3) subj: [Will you accept that this story is about looking at prisoners?) FE (4) obj: Why are we here? R2 (5) obj: [Will you accept that we have to move the prisoners?) FB (6) otq: Can you imagine the sound of his crying is coming from the prisoners? FW (7) obj: [Can you see that the prisoners are hungry with tears running down their FW e y e s ? ] (8) subj: [Do we need to worry about the prisoners?) none (9) subj: [How can the prisoners stand it?] F% 6(1) obj: [WU you accept that there are chains and put them on the prisoners?) F% (2) obj: [Will you accept that one woke up?) FM (3) obj: [No. Will you accept that he has not?) FU (4) obj: [Will you accept that you should put the key in your pocket?) FM (5) obj: [Will you accept that I put It In my sock?] FW (6) obj: [No. Will you accept ttrat it should be in your pocket and that the prisoners won't wake up FW when you move them?) (7) none (student removed) (8) obj: [Will you accept that you are holding a prisoner in chains?) A* 7(1) obj: [Will you accept that It Is dusty In the tunnel?) F% (2) obj: [Yes. Will you accept that it is dark but there are torches on the walls?) FW (3) subj: [Is It right to treat the prisoners this way?] FM (4) subj: [Do we have to think about that if we agreed to do this?) FW (5) sub): [Is It right If they are babies? Can we feed them?] Rt (6) sub): [Does it matter if they are babies?) FM (7) subj: [Is It right If they did nothing wrong?] Rt (8) sub): [Does it matter if tfrey are with their parents?) Rt (9) sub): [Doesn't It matter to you?] Rt (10) subj: [Do we have to think about that if we agreed to do this?) Rt (11) none 8 obj: [What happens when you move your prisoner?) At 9(1) obj: [Will you accept that the door Is locked? Rt (2) otj: [Yes ] Does anyone have the key? Rt (3) obj: [Do you want to hear my response?) (4) obj: [No). V lho is playing a joke? Rt (5) obj: [Do you accept that the prisoner has the key?] Rt (6) obj: [No. What is th e reasonable explanation?) Rt (7) obj: How are we going to get out? Rt (8) obj: I know we will, but I am wondering how did we got in here? Rt (9) obj: [Will you accept that the servant has the key?) Rt (10) obj: [No. ) 10(1) obj: [Will you accept that the door slammed and there w ere footsteps?] Fit (2) obj: [Will you accept that the door slammed and there were footsteps?] At (3) obj: [Will you accept that a jester w as playing a joke?] Rt (4) obj: [Will you accept that we can use our swords to break down the door?) Rt (5) obj: [No. Might the jesters play a joke like this?) Rt (6) obj: [Will you accept that It Is the new jester?) Rt (7) ol^: What can you hear? Rt (8) otj: Can you ftear footsteps? Rt 11(1) otj: Will you open the door, please? Rt (2) obj/subj: Why should I? You're mean? [one student] FB (3) ob): [Why won't you open the door?) Rt (4) subj: [Do you think shouting will help?) Rt (5) obj/subj: [What did you think of the way you behaved?) Rl 152
Objective Reflection Which Leads to Creating Drama Text The students in the Dungeon Drama needed to be playwrights as well as actors. The teacher's educational aim was to have the students question the king’s decision; he wanted them, in role, to carry out the king's command and then in subjective reflection consider what they had done. At the time he did not realize that the students not only could have been reflecting, but that they needed to be allowed to do this in order to create the drama text In the Heathcote Drama the students created the drama text through their objective reflections. The teacher structured the drama so that they used structures R2, R3, and R4. The teacher used her performances to enable the students to reflect and students were also enabled to perform their objective meanings for whole group explicit agreement or tacit acceptance. The group as a whole repeatedly functioned as playwright A table of the explicit agreements in the Dungeon Drama would be blank. As was noted above, the students did not actually agree in Task 3 to move the prisoners. Also, the amount of tacit acceptance by the students was doubtful. Though the students may have tacitly accepted that they would all go with the king to his new castle, as has been noted, tacit acceptance of moving the prisoners was questionable because of the student responses in the dungeon. There was subsequent tacit acceptance that the door was locked and that a jester was outside the door. The teacher’s performances in Tasks 1-3 helped the students to create drama text. Initially the students tacitly accepted the details; some were even explicitly enthusiastic. A past was created through referring to a promise that the king would give the students what they wanted if they were prepared to move some prisoners for him. The students accepted this idea as part of the drama text and then interacted in pairs to create their own ideas of 153 what the palace might be like. These ideas became part of the drama text as the students referred to them in role. After this task there was very little student interaction allowed or supported. The rest of the drama took place almost entirely in the present time of the drama world as the students, in role, went down into the dungeon and moved the prisoners. However, the students hardly interacted at all. The teacher used narration as he created the staircase and dungeon. He also gave instructions in role. Their requirement to follow these instructions was not only implied in role, but reinforced in the actual world of the classroom, when students were removed if they were considered to be uncooperative. In realizing that there were students who might misbehave, I insisted on the whole class following instructions. My intention was that the students would have an experience in role which they could reflect upon later but to achieve this I used my performances to tell students what to imagine and what to do rather than enabling them to reflect and create their own objective meanings. The lack of student interaction must have affected the students' creation of individual objective meanings. Though my narration worked for some students, especially early on in the session, these students (they were between the ages of eight and ten) would have benefitted from more talk. For example, as the teacher in role I could have asked them what they saw rather than telling them, and once they were in the dungeon they could have gone exploring to see what they found there. When students did perform or suggest ideas in public which could have become part of the drama text, as was noted above, most of these were passed over or rejected by the teacher. For example, students who saw bones in the dungeon in Task 5(2), were ignored by the teacher. Instead of responding in this way, he could have shifted the class’ attention to the bones and asked the class a question which would lead them, to wonder 154 where they came from. He regarded the bones as an unimportant detail, without realizing the importance of the fact that this was a detail of the drama world which a student had seen and which might have been extended by the students in their interpretations, for example, into a chilling realization that they might end up as bones too. At this point the teacher did actually stop the drama and reflect (structure R2) with the students. However, rather than using this structure to consider posing a question about the bones, he used it to impose his own direction for the drama. Though all four structures were used by the teacher, they were used very lestrictively. Structure Rl was used at the end of the drama but only to reflect on behavior rather than to review or create drama text. Structure R2, as was noted in the previous paragraph, was used to impose the teacher’s direction for the drama in Task 5(3). A student then used structure R2 in Task 5(4) to ask for clarification for why they were in the dungeon. The teacher, however, did not use this to reflect with the whole group out of the drama and check if everyone knew what they were being asked to do. Structure R3 was used effectively at the beginning of the drama to create drama text in Task 1. It was also used once by the teacher [in Task 5(5)] to refer back to what he regarded as their agreement to move the prisoners. Structure R3 was then used by the student, Jenny, in Task 11(2) to refer back implicitly to what they had just done when she said she would not open the door, "because you’re mean." Because the drama was stopped, the structure was not used to promote student reflection. Most of the reflection by the students was with structure R4. However, as has been noted in detail, the reflection required of them was at a very superficial level. With very few exceptions the teacher merely wanted the students to accept the objective meaning he had already referred to or had accepted. 155
The teacher was clearly in charge of the content of the drama world. He monitored the creation of the drama text, provided much of the detail himself, was selective about agreeing to the details which students suggested, and assumed that if he accepted an idea that the students would (or should) too. For the most part he was performing and controlling the creation of the drama text. When he did allow students to perform, he did not help the class to consider what to do by posing a clear question for them. When he allowed Jenny to perform he relinquished the playmaking to one student In stopping the drama, he structured the students interactions so that they talked about their behavior rather than enabling them to reflect and create drama text. What he did not do was to check that there was implicit acceptance, nor did he ask the class explicitly if they accepted what he or other students were sharing or performing. Though some students continued to create their own objective meanings, some students lost interest. The class as a group lost ownership of the creation of the drama text which was held on to, for the most part, by the teacher, and relinquished to only a few students. Thus, it was only the teacher and a few students who were functioning in the Dungeon Drama as playwrights.
Subjective Reflections Though some subjective reflection did happen with all four reflection structures, the teacher did not use the structures to promote interpretations of the drama text by the whole class. 156
Table 13: Subjective Reflection in the Dungeon Drama Note: Student underlying questions are in bold type; teacher underlying questions are not Brackets are used when the actual words used in the Dungeon Drama are not reproduced.
REFLECTION TASK SUBJECTIVE REFLECTION; QUESTION STRUCTURE 5(3) subj: [Will you accept that this story is about looking at prisoners?] R2 6(8) subj: [Do we need to worry about the prisoners?] none 7(3) subj: [Is It right to treat the prisoners this way?] R4 (4) subj: [Do we have to think about that if we agreed to do this?] R4 (5) subj/obj: [Is it right if they are babies? Can we feed them?] A4 (6) subj: [Does it matter if they are babies?] R4 (7) subj: [Is it right if they did nothing wrong?] R4 (8) subj: [Does it matter if they are with their parents?] R4 (9) subj: [Does it matter to you?] R4 (10) subj: [Do we have to think about that if we agreed to do this?] R4 11(2) subj: Why should I? You're mean [one student] R3 (4) subj: [Do you think shouting will help?] R4 (5) subj/obj; [What did you think of what happened and what you did?] Rl
The students brief subjective reflections at the end of the drama (structure Rl) were only about how they had behaved rather than how they had felt in role. In a similar way in Task 11(4) he used structure R4 to ask the students to reflect about their yelling. The teacher only reflected outside the drama once (structure R2) but, as was noted above, this was to redirect the students to his interpretation of what the drama was about It was a student Jenny, who used structure R3 to promote subjective reflection, but the students were not given the opportunity by the teacher to reflect on what she said. The teacher was worried at that point that the class was "out of control", however, he did have other options apart from ending the session. For example, he could have pulled the whole class together to reflect out of role about the question raised (structure R2) or they could have been in role (structure R3) planning what they would say to the jester without actually talking to her. Even though the teacher kept such a tight control of the creation of the drama text, some students were still interpreting. In Leslie's performances she shared her worries about the fate of the babies whom she had seen. He used structure R4 with Leslie as they 157 exchanged interpretations in Task 7 about the morality of treating prisoners, especially babies, in this way. I had wanted the class to question the king's arbitrary use of power. Unfortunately I did not realize that Leslie was actually doing this. She was questioning what she had been asked to do, though she was doing this very quietly. If her performance had been made more public and I had required the class to reflect on what she was saying, then they would at that moment have at least begun to reflect in the very way I wanted them to do. The class might have created drama text around the babies and they might also have interpreted what she had said. Students might have begun to question the wisdom of following this king's orders. They might have considered the morality of treating babies in this way. They might also have found themselves in a dramatic dilemma as they decided what to say to the king. However, because the class did not consider Leslie's response the potential for some thoughtful subjective reflection was lost just as it had been at the end of the session with Jenny's question. Ironically, though I had been holding on to control with the aim of giving the students an experience about which they could reflect, on two occasions students gave the class opportunities to do just that.
Summary There were advantages and disadvantages to being the regular classroom teacher of these students. The fact that Leslie and Rod spoke to me quietly in role and Jenny spoke to me out of role, are examples of the way that students felt able to approach me as their teacher with an idea. Also, even though I was not responding to many of their ideas this did not affect my relationship with each student in the class which remained warm and productive. They seemed to recognize that the way I might behave in role did not carry over into my everyday attitude to them. 158
However, as their teacher I had a history of interactions with every student in the class and brought my knowledge and expectations to each session. Though in sessions earlier in the year a few students did abuse the change in social expectations in drama, this did not happen in this session. Though I was feeling that some students were close to being "out of control", it is quite clear from the video tape that the students are actually very cooperative. Those who must have been bored or disinterested are not disruptive and simply talk quietly during periods of action by others. Both students who were removed were almost certainly enjoying "playing" rather than being deliberately difficult. However they had been disruptive previously and I was quick to assume that they were being so again. Similarly, I expected certain behaviors of other students. Because I knew that Leslie found it very difficult to be told that she could not do something and that Jenny was the girl who had been referred to the psychologist, with both these girls, I was unable to actually hear the potential of what they were saying in role. I only had half an ear on what they were saying because I was also thinking ahead as well as attempting to monitor the mood and behavior of the class. I expected both of these girls to be unreasonable and I responded to my expectation rather than the actual underlying questions which were present in what they said and did. Though this drama session had the potential for reflection by the students, there was actually little playmaking and interpreting happening. Just as in Table 8, the Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles are shown in Table 14 across five columns. The cycles are shown diagrammatically in Figure 2 in Appendix 1. In Table 14 the abbreviations "t" and "s" are used for teacher and student respectively. The table lists the performing and public sharing by teacher and students and uses capitals to show when teacher or students are in role. It notes the creation of objective 159 meaning (the abbreviation "obj" is used) and drama text in the Playmaking Cycle. The drama text appears in parentheses when there is doubt about whether or not it was implicitly accepted by the group. The table notes when students appeared to be finding subjective meanings in the Interpreting Cycle. The amount of the teacher structuring is emphasized by showing this in bold type. Explicit participation by students is indicated by noting how many of the students were performing, playmaking, or interpreting. 160
Table 14: The Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles in the Dungeon Drama Note: Student underlying questions are in bold type; teacher underlying questions are not. Brackets are used when ±e actual words used in the Dungeon Drama are not reproduced. The abbreviations "t" and "s" are used for teacher and student respectively. Capitals show when teacher or students are in role.
PERFORMING/ •TC5R OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE REFLECTION; PLAYMAKING PUBLIC SHARING INTERPRETING UNDERLYING QUESTION 1(1) Obj: What did you like about the banquet? drama text som eS (2) obj: What happened at the banquet? obj - all S (3) oty: Why was the banquet so wonderful? drama text t/some s 2 obj: [Will you take the oath of loyalty to the drama text alls k in g ? ] 3(1) sub] : [Do you want to go with the king to his new (drama text) T palace?] (2) olq: What is the new palace like? drama text som eS (3) otq: [Will you accept that we have to move the (drama text) T prisoners?] 4 obj: [What do you see in the passageway?) obj - some S 5(1) obj: [Can you hear the prisoners sleeping?] drama text T (2) obj: [Will you accept not to touch the prisoners? ] obj-T T obj: [What do you see?] obj-some S (3) subj: [Will you accept that this story is atrout looking n/a t at prisoners?] (4) obj: Why are we here? obj - one S oneS (5) obj: [Will you accept that we have to move the (drama text) T prisoners?] (6) obj: Can you imagine the sound of his crying is coming T h'om the prisoners? (7) obj: [Can you s e e that the prisoners are obj-one S oneS hungry with tears running down their eyes?] (8) subj: [Do we need to wony about the prisoners?] T T (9) subj: [How can the prisoners stand it?] oneS oneS 6(1) obj: [Will you accept that there are chains and put (drama text) T them on die prisoners?] (2) obj: [Will you accept that one woke up?] obj-one S oneS (3) obj: [No. Will you accept that he has not?] obj-T T (4) obj: [Will you accept that you should put the key in ob)-T T your pocket?] (5) obj: [Will you accept that 1 put It In my obj - one S S s o c k ? ] (6) olq: [No. Will you accept that it should be in your obj-T T pocket and that the prisoners won't wake up when you move tfiem?] (7) none (student removed) (8) obj: [Will you accept that you are holding a prisoner in (drama text) T chains?] 7(1) obj: [Will you accept that It Is dusty In the obj-S oneS tu nnel?] (2) obj: [Yes. Will you accept that it is dark but there are obj-T T torches on the walls?] (3) subj: [Is it right to treat the prisoners this o n es o n e s w ay?] (4) subj: [Do we have to think about that if we agreed to do T T this?] (5) subj: [Is It right if they are babies? Can we oneS oneS feed them?] (6) subj: [Does it matter if they are babies?] T T (7) sub]: [Is It right if they did nothing wrong?] o n e s oneS (8) subj: [Does it matter if they are with their parents?] TT (9) subj: [Doesn't it matter to you?] oneS oneS 161
Table 14: (continued)
PERFORMING/ TÂ §R OBJECTIVEÆUBJECTIVE REFLECTION; QUESTION PLAYMAKING PUBLIC SHARING INTERPRETING (10) subj: [Do we have to think about that if we agreed to do this?! (11) none 8 ot^': (What happens when you move your prisoner?] 9(1) obj: [Will you accept that the door is locked? obj-ones oneS (2) obj: [Yes.] Does anyone have the key? obj-T T (3) obj: [Do you want to hear my response?] obj - three S (4) obj: [No]. Who is playing a joke? T (5) obj: [Do you accept that the prisoner has the obj - one S k ey ? ] (6) obj: [No. What is the reasonable explanation?] obj-T T (7) obj: How are we going to get out? obj - one S o n e s (8) ot^': I know we will, but I am wondering how did we got obj-T T inhere? (9) obj: [Will you accept that the servant has obj - one S o n e s the key?] (10) obj: [No. ] obj-T T 10(1) obj: [Will you accept that the door slammed obj-S o n e s and there were footsteps?] (2) obj: [Will you accept that the door slammed drama text T+S and there were footsteps?] (3) obj; [Will you accept that a jester w as obj-S oneS playing a joke?] (4) obj: [Will you accept that we can u se our obj - one S o n e s swords to break down the door?] (5) ofj: [No. Might the jesters play a joke like this?] obj-T T (6) obj: [Will you accept that it is the new obj - one S oneS Jester?] (7) obj: What can you hear? T (8) obj: Can you hear footsteps? obj-T T 11(1} otÿ: Will you open the door, please? ofj-T T (2) obj/subj: Why should I? You're mean? [one drama text o n e s oneS stu d en t] -on eS (3) obj: [Why won't you open the door?] drama text a lls (4) subj: [Do you think shouting will help?] t (5) obj/subj: [What did you think of the way you t som es behaved?]
Conclusion In this chapter I have analyzed in detail a drama session which I taught with my third and fourth grade class during the first year I gathered the teaching data. This session is representative of sessions which "did not work" in terms of structuring for reflection because it contains examples of the main difficulties which I have come to realize were present in my teaching and which I dealt with over the course of this study. In some drama sessions the students were playmaking but not interpreting; in others they were interpreting but had little to reflect on because they had had created little drama text. In this session the 162 students were hardly ever creating drama text, or interpreting. The diagram of structuring for reflection is reproduced in Figure 3 but amended to illustrate the teacher structuring in the Dungeon Drama. 163
PLATUAXrm crcLE (pUcfimgktfiaKâan) y
iruüviAtirti im aa Uxt objecUve meanings (shared ot^ctive meanings)
DRAMA ! WORLD |ï(EXrERNAL>
petfoaaâig (actor fonction)
Il PERSONAL ff WORLDS [(INTERNAL)
4f\t iatUvidoal tabj«cUT* aaasiat* iabj*et>T« i«fl«etioa (iat«tpr«tatioai)
IHTESntBTlNQ CYCLS (tB^iaaM foactioa)
EDUCATIONAL AIMS
Figure 3: Teacher Structuring for Refection in the Dungeon Drama 164
The teacher is performing throughout the drama. In his actor function he is pafbrming his objective meanings and expecting the students tacitly to accept these as part of the drama text in their objective reflections. Though all students do accept much of this and, for example, agree to the existence of the dungeon and prisoners, some students publicly object to details like the fact that the prisoners are asleep. Almost certainly other students are privately disagreeing with what the teacher is demanding. The reality of the drama world is thus undermined because the group as a whole is not agreed on the details of what is happening. Many students will be creating their own individual objective meanings but only a very few are allowed to perform these. However, drama text is never explicitly agreed to by the group in objective reflection on these performances. These performances may or may not have been implicitly accepted. The students’ actions suggest that, for example, they all accepted the fact that the door was locked though there were still some students who seemed uninterested and thus probably outside the drama even at this tense moment Because the teacher is not structuring so that students can perform their objective meanings, it is neither possible for students' ideas to become shared meanings and thus part of the drama text nor for the students to question or change what the teacher is imposing on the group. Consequently, though there is a drama text being generated there must also be many inconsistent details of individual objective meanings and meanings agreed between one or two students which have not been shared with the whole group. For example, some students may have assumed that the key for the locked door was with a prisoner or with the servant and may therefore have felt that it was unnecessary to negotiate with the jester. This is illustrated in the diagram by the way the thick solid line (shared objective meaning) does not continue to form drama text but rather unravels. The thick solid line 165 becomes a thin solid line (the teacher's objective meaning) as well as potentially conflicting dotted lines (other students' individual objective meanings which they may regard as drama text.) The drama text is not created by the whole group. The teacher is creating drama text and asking students to accept this but ignoring or rejecting the students responses which is represented on the diagram by the thin solid arrow which opposes the dotted arrow which represents the students’ attempts to perform/publicly share their objective meanings. Thus the Playmaking Cycle is not really functioning, as such, in the Dungeon Drama. Only a few students are functioning as actors but the class as a whole is not functioning as a playwright. There is no cycle because students' ideas are not performed for objective reflection by the whole group. Consequently, there is almost no creation of drama text from students' ideas which can in turn be performed leading to further reflections. Similarly, the Interpreting Cycle is not functioning publicly. Though, as always, students may be creating their individual subjective meanings, the teacher is neither structuring so that there can be subjective reflection nor so that students have an opportunity to perform their subjective meanings. The students are not functioning as an audience except to the performances of the teacher. This is represented in the diagram by the dotted lines in the Interpreting Cycle (unplanned structuring by the teacher) and the thin solid line (teacher structuring) which opposes the dotted line coming from individual subjective meanings to performing/public sharing. Though the teacher is doing most of the performing he does not probe for or encourage explicit subjective reflection by the class. The students who do attempt to reflect and perform subjective meaning which could have led to subjective reflection by the class, are blocked in their attempts and the class are not allowed to reflect publicly together on what they say. 166
Though there is little structuring for reflection by the teacher in the Dungeon Drama, this does not mean that this could not have happened. In fact it would have been very easy for a teacher to begin to do that at any point up to the end of the session. He could have stopped the drama and reflected out of role in order to agree on drama text and share interpretations. He also had two especially rich opportunities for both objective and subjective reflection inside the drama, when the question of babies arose and when the door was found to be locked. However, to be able to do this the teacher needed to be more aware of how the Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles operate. This was much more the case in the example which will be discussed and analyzed in the next chapter. CHAPTER VI APPLICATION OF THE MODEL TO THE ARTS DRAMA A SESSION TAUGHT BY THE TEACHER-RESEARGHER
Introduction The model for structuring drama for reflection was presented, analyzed, and applied in chapter IV to a drama session which had been taught by Dorothy Heathcote. In Chapter V the model was used to analyze "the Dungeon Drama," a session which was representative of drama sessions I had taught which I felt did not promote student reflection. In this chapter the model will be used to analyze "the Arts Drama", a session representative of drama sessions I taught which did promote student reflection. The rationale for choosing the two sessions which I taught was outlined in Chapter V. I had felt very satisfied with the Arts Drama. When I used the model to review this drama, 1 realized that I had been enabling the students to use the Playmaking and the Interpreting Cycles. The Arts Drama took place in June, 1990, as part of a summer institute course on teaching through drama at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. I incorporated the 12 teachers who were taking the course into drama sessions which I taught with students and which were video taped. The teachers and 1 reviewed and analyzed each session; they also helped with planning. It is important to stress that though I used 12 other adults in this drama, that they were not necessary for the success of this drama. Students or the teacher could have taken
167 168 their place in role, or other strategies could have been used to provide similar experiences and encounters for the students. On four mornings, Tuesday June 7 - Friday June 10,19901 taught two groups of students for sessions of about 70 minutes each. The students were grades 6-8 and were all considered "gifted" in one or more of the arts. They had been chosen by their local school districts to participate for several hours each weekday in a five-week arts camp. The students were in their first or third week of taking classes in dance, music, movement, and painting. They did not necessarily stay in the same group for each class they had in the Arts Camp. Some students were also absent for some sessions. The groups of students which I worked with would have been doing "painting" if they had not been working with me. I had been asked to work with the students on the value of ait in society. I will be describing and analyzing my work with the first group of eleven students in detail though I will make reference to my work with the second group of ten students. Though the dramas with either group could have been used to illustrate the model for structuring for reflection and learning in operation, the work with the first group has more useful examples of the structures for reflection in operation. As I did in Chapter V with the Dungeon Drama, in order to provide some distance from the fact that I was the teacher of this drama, and to allow me to distinguish between my understandings when I was teaching these sessions and my realizations at the time of writing this study, I will on occasions refer to "the teacher" of the Arts Drama, and describe what I (as an observer of these dramas) now see and understand about "his" actions and intentions. 169
Brief Description of the Arts Drama The eleven students I worked with did not initially have a "group identity." Some students had just begun their summer arts camp while others were half-way through. I was unable to tell which students had been together for some time and none of the students seemed to know each other very well. When I first met the group their energy level was low and their attitude was polite but rather detached both from engaging with each other and with me. The students were quiet and reticent to answer my questions. This group of eleven students was comprised of six girls (three African American and three European American) and five boys (two African American and three European American.) Twelve teachers were also part of the group for some parts of each of the four sessions of approximately 70 minutes duration. The educational aim for the drama was for the students to consider the value of art in society. In the first session the students agreed that they would imagine they were going to leave Earth on a mission into space to a planet. The students decided what they would take with them and what they had to leave behind. The watched video tapes of applicants who wanted to go on the trip and considered who they would take. These were actually represented by the teachers who had prepared presentations by applicants who had both functional and artistic abilities. The students took most of the applicants. In the second session the students began to create the history of their life on the planet. They began to make up a story together and then drew and noted events on chart paper which had happened over the first hundred years on the planet. After this the students used the teachers to represent photographs of moments of danger and the students shared these with the whole group. After a short discussion the students dictated their story of what had happened on the planet to one of the teachers. . . 170
The third session began with the teachers reading the students' writing aloud with the students all listening. The students decided that they would want their stories to last a million years. They thought that they would be stored in a time capsule and would be viewed only by people who were ready to hear the stories. In the drama the students went to the capsule and heard the planet’s history and told some of the truths they heard in what they had heard. After returning they made a musical celebration together. In the fourth session as the people on the planet the students apprenticed themselves to those artists whose abilities they did not want to disappear. The teachers represented those people again. The students considered how to make a work of beauty and quality and shared some of their thoughts. Then they imagined that the artists had died and their apprentices had taken over. They shared the one thing which they had made which would be remembered by the society. The session ended with the students singing a song together which had just been written. 171
Table 15: Description and Analysis of the Arts Drama Note: The tasks of three sessions will be described and analyzed. Some parts of each task will also be described and analyzed. In the table, 3-2(1) means the first part of the second task in the third session. The type faces firom the diagram in Figure 2 are used. Underlining is used to emphasize student processes.
Description A nalysis 1-1(1) The teacher talks with the students, 1-1(1) The teacher and students are not in asks their names, and introduces the role. He encourages snabjective teachers, the camera, and himself. The leftectàom in order to discover initial students are very reticent to speak or move. interpretations of what art may mean for The teacher refers to the arts camp they are them. One student publicly shares an on and asks the students, "Have yon idea others give brief responses and name thongM abont why art is imgpoitamt?" some of the arts. They hardly respond. A few list arts and one boy says, "You can express your feelings without offending anyone else." He and the teacher briefly discuss what he means. 1-1(2) The students are asked to imagine that 1-1(2) The students are asked to make they are going to be travellers going on a prelirninary agreements to create a drama spaceship to another planet The teacher world. They are also asked to agree on imposes some restrictions at this point:they aspects of tire drama text. will be away for a "very long time;" they have no idea what will be on the planet except that the scientists believe it is very like Earth. 1-1(3) The teacher asks the students to 1-1(3) The teacher moves into role and in im a ^ e they are meeting one of the talking to the students perfoims as if he is adimnistrators of the mission, who is the in the drama world. Again, more details of teacher in role. He asks the students if they the drama text are created as students need to know anything else about the tacitly accept what he says. However, the mission. They ask how long they will be teacher does not answer all their questions. away, why they are going, and what they By being evasive he is encouraging can take with them. He is evasive in his students to reflect on possibilities which replies and says that they can takeonly a will be individual objective meanings. few personal items. He says that they should plan on being away for a long time, but that he does not know the reason for the mission. 172
Table 15: (continued)
Description A nalysis
1-1(4) The administrator asks them to agree 1-1(4) objective meanings are on the things they had wished they performed and implicitly accepted by the had taken but had not been able to take group and thus become drama text. The because they were too heavy or too bulky. teacher also creates a piece ofdrama text Students make suggestions and these in telling them they have the space for either items are listed on the blackboard. These the applicants or other things. By listing include: a car, clothes, their houses, things they wished they had taken he has families, and friends. He tells them that enabled them to create an alternative to the there is enough room to take some more applicants which they might consider taking things but that they are going to have to instead. This will tighten the choice to choose between applicants and other things come. equal to tiieir weight or volume. 1-2(1) The students are asked to agree that 1-2(1) They are out of role. This is the other teachers will represent people who another preliminary agreement so that the have applied to join the mission. They agree students accept the convention that the to imagine that when they look at the teachers are using. The teacher is also teachers who are seated at desks that they modeling so that the students know how to will see prepared video taped presentations use the convention and so that they know by the applicants. The teacher demonstrates the requirements of the task. how to operate one of the video tapes and they watch the teacher who is pretending to be the historian. The teacher shows how the tape can be stopped and replayed. He refers to the questions on the chart paper and a few students respond when he reads the questions. 1-2(2) The teacher encourages the students 1-2(2) The teachers are performing as the to woric together, to talk, and to complete the video tapes are played. The students are statements on the chart papers, "We need A engaged in snbjectivo reflection as they because.. .We don't need A because.. .We consider whether or not they need each may need A because.. .We need to know applicant. In considering whether they more about..." They are allowed to view need additional information students are the video trq»s for about ten minutes and engaged in objective reflection. The lifitt together. students have the authority to stop and rewind as necessary. 173
Table 15: (continued)
Description Analysis
1-3 The teacher in role as the administrator 1-3 The students are engaged in asks the students to consider each applicant subjeeîive îeîlecîàon and objective in turn. He rereads their comments reflection in the same way as above except from the chart papers. He asks them if they that now they are performing so they are really need each candidate and presses for talking in public. They can also interact reastms. He reminds them that they could with each other and with the teacher who is bring anything of equal weight or volume performing and challenging their ideas. inst^d. He asks them if they are agreed They canreflect on what he says and on whether or not to take each candidate. They what others say. The students create some ggrgg to take four of the five they drama text. consider. Only the poet is left behind because they agree that the already have a "storyteller. 2-1 The teacher sits with the students in a 2-1 Though the teacher creates drama circle on the floor. After a brief review of text but he is doing so from what the the previous day's work he narrates that all students had agreed in the previous session. the applicants they had chosen to take on the He attempts to get the students to share their spaceship had agreed to come. He suggests ideas and thereby publicly share objective that they might like to make up the story of meaning and create more drama text by what happened next but they have difficulty telling a story. The students are unwilling inventing ideas and only a few students to do so. The teacher switches tasks. speak some phrases. 2-2 The teacher gets out chart paper and 2-2 Now the students can create objective starts to mark a time-line which stretches meanings out of role but not have to ^eak over a hundred years into the future. He them publicly. The students use their ideas asks the students to write or draw on the from their drawings and writing in the next chart anything which happened which we task. The suggestion about difficult or (the people on the planet) overcame. He dangerous moments gives the students a adds that they can make these as difficult or more dramatic way of thinking about as dangerous as they like. They work with events. more enthusiasm now. All write or draw though some finish quickly and need help to think of possibilities. Ideas in pictures and writing on the chart include: a picture of some "weird rocks" which can attack; a drawing of a "body of water"; writing noting "birth". 174
Table 15: (continued)
Description A nalysis
2-3 The teacher models for them how they 2-3 The teacher is helping the students to can take one idea from the chart and use create images on which they will then be themselves and some of the adults to show a able to reflect Using the adults is less photograph which might have been taken of threatening than having to be in the a moment of great danger when something photograph themselves. The students will terrible might have happened. He allows be drawing on their ideas of objective students the freedom to choose the adults meaning and periiaps their SS&3SSÉSJS they want to work with and set up the ameanSags as they tell the adults how to tableaux. He encourages the more reticent move and what to do. students to use adults. Some students really take to the idea of creating a photograph others need encouragement but all work to create one. Moving bodies around seems to be something new for most of these students but dûs is easier for most of them than telling a story. Now the students are moving and ttdkinq with each other and to the adults about their ideas of what happened on the planet. 2-4 (I) The photographs are shown to the 2-4(1) The photographs are performed by rest of the group. The rest of the group add the adults and students. It is the students’ details to the stories which were implied in ideas which are performed. As the group the moments depicted. Photograph 1: looks at them they reflect Objective grabbing weird rocks. One girl describes reflection leads to ideas about the external that the five of them (three students and two world of the drama. As these are implicitly adults) are representing a human and accepted they createdrama text. The "weird rocks" which she found when teacher’s performances help the students they went to burv a dead plant. The to reflect Students are now performing teacher asks what the terrible danger was and reflectimg where before they had and students watching say that they could been mostly silent and still. have been erahbed and that she was rescued. The teacher asks them to show what happened. Some students move as thev narrate. The teacher asits the whole group to show how they rescued her. They move and some giggle. 175
Table 15: (continued)
Description A nalysis
2-4(2) Photograph 2: Confronting the rocks. 2-4(2) The; Two boys describe the two adults whom meaning which is accepted as drama text. they have set up to show dangerous In SBhiective raflectioat smdents living rocks. The teacher asks the group interpret and perform. The teacher’s to say how they were saved from this iatetpietatioai shows that he is taking danger, but the boys say they will show their ideas seriously and is part of the them. They show how they walked up to group. the rocks and thev curled no "like a turtles" into their shells. The teacher tells the others that these two have saved us from tCTiible danger and ask what it is that they did. Two say that "thev rum awav** amd "they kept em goàmg." On being asked if they are doing anything else to keep us out of danger a girl says that she is being "altra camtÊoms". The teacher says how glad he is to be with them becamse theie aie people heie who are caatiotis amd do mot mm away,
2-4(3) Photograph 3: Rescuing the potter 2-4(3) The teacher reminds the group that from the water. The teacher insists on drama text is created by everyone. TTie everyone sitting widi the group in a position students and adults perform student where they can see and he reminds them that objective meamne which is accepted as they are aU making the work together. The drama text. In smbiective reflectiom two girls who have set up two adults students interpret and perform The teacher describe how someone is being pulled peifonm and projects forward to imagine out o f the water. Someone adds that they what it would be like without the potter and are using a rope. Another notices that she promotes students’ objective and was the potter. The teacher asks what snbiedtive leflectioms. would have happened if she hadn't been rescued. "She would have drowned." He asks them wàaî dif?«3wmce it wotald have made if she had died. They say that thev would not have had any plates and that "it womld have beem dmll" without her decorations. The teacher asks how her art will not be lost when she eventually does die. Two girls say that theywould learn from her how to be a potter. 176
Table 15: (continued)
Description Analysis
2-4(4) Photograph 4: The birth. Two boys 2-4(4) Again, students create drama text as have set up ±e photograph and have put they perform theirobjective meanings. themselves in it. As one of the adults is holding a blanket to represent the baby it is very clear what this is about The teacher asks them to hold still and asks the others what they see. One says,"Dad and two kids." Others speak some of the thoughts o f the people in the photograph. 2-5 The teacher gathers the students in a 2-5 Though the teacher was suggesting the circle and asks them what they might want to students move into a more active mode, the celebrate. After one boy says they should students were agreed that they needed to not celebrate until "we establish ourselves" write down their history. The teacher the students talk about preserving the history follows this ideas and encourages the of the planet so far. One boy sayswe need students' subjective reflections on why to know "who we are and how we sot it was important to write down the history. here." On being asked "Womîd it amalke amy diffeitesice if we didn't write the history" the same boy says "Onr children meed to fcraow what A girl says "We'd never Irwiffiw what hapipened ourselves."
2-6 The teacher asks each student to chose 2-6 The students create their individual an adult and dictate his/her history of the objective meanings and as they interpret planet. Evervone dictated for the full what happened they record their seven minutes left of the session and over sublectàvo They do not have half continued to dictate after the time to end. to create in public.
3-1 The students are sitting in chairs along 3-1 The adults perform the students ideas one wall and the teacher has the adults stand and in the students objective reflections in a semicircle to read their stories in a very they agree on drama text. formal maruier. The students Zirrened as their stories were read, considered their chronological order, and checked that they had been accurately recorded and that they had nothing to add. 177
Table 15: (continued)
Description A nalysis
3-2(1) The teacher sits with the students on 3-2(1) In out of role reflection the students the floor and discusses why stories might be publicly share and exchange ideas and preserved, and how long they wanted theirs then agree on drama text. to be remembered. They agree that they want theirs preserved for a million years. They discuss the problems of keeping stories for a million years. The decide that they will be in a time capsule preserved in stone. 3-2(2) They discuss under what 3-2(2) The students so not have a specific circumstances people should be allowed to role but perform as if they are on this go into the capsule and hear the stories. planet. They agree ondrama text and Students agree that there needs to be testing share interpretations which touch on the of how "knowledgeable" the people purposes of testing. are, but they disagree about hov/ shomM be tested.
3-3 The students agree to pretend that they 3-3 The adults perform the students ideas are a million years in the future of the planet. and the students interpret them. The The students meet the teacher in role as their teacher promotes their subjective guide. They are led into the time capsule to read the stories which had been written in reflections. the earliest times of the planet. The tone is very formal and the students go to the statues to hear a story (not their own). After all have heard their stories told they are asked "Wlhat mmst mot be foTgeîîem aboet ÜÎÎS story?" Replies include: "There -was life before we same," "People comld die im the water." "They helped os." "Thev did everything together." "Without friendship we wonldn't have made i L l 178
Table 15: (continued)
______Description______Analysis ______
3-4 The students are told that they have 3-4 The students create drama text by passed the tests and that now they will return perfbmdng music together. through a secret door. They are asked to prepare a celebration by making music with percussion instruments which had been laid out for them. The teachers join them in making music.
Teacher Structuring of Tasks The teacher’s overall educational aim for the Arts Drama was for the students to consider the value of art in society. Each drama session was planned separately. Planning for the first session happened before meeting the group of students and the other three sessions were planned after the each preceding session. Since sections of the first three sessions are used throughout the rest of this chapter, teacher planning for the first, second, and third sessions will be considered in detail in this section. Only the first three sessions were used for the example in this chapter because they could be considered as a unit without the last session. In addition, using the fourth session would have added little to the analysis. In the Dungeon Drama the teacher had structured the drama with no explicit agreements, with little concern for students’ implicit objections, and with severe restrictions on the students’ involvement By contrast, in the Arts Drama, the teacher structures so that the students agree with the premise of the drama and so that their involvement is extensive. The teacher is sensitive and responsive to the students' demonstrated abilities and preferences. He increases his demands on the students within and between sessions, but he always does this within the 179 limits of what they are prepared and able to do. Any restrictions on what the students’ are asked to do can actually be seen to enable the students to create and interpret drama text. Within the restrictions, the students can respond freely and their ideas will be accepted though often challenged by the teacher in and out of role.
Structuring the Tasks in the First Session In the first session I wanted the students to share their initial responses on the value of art. I would ask them to consider this directly and then ask it through the drama. Three phases were planned for the first session. Phase lA: Preliminary agreements. The students will be asked directly what they think art is and if it is important; they will be asked explicitly to agree to the premise of the drama. They will be asked which things they wished they could have taken. Phase IB: Viewing applicants’ video tapes. The students will encounter teachers in role as applicants to go on the mission. The teachers will prepare ’’video tapes” of presentations by applicants for the students to watch. The applicants will have functional and artistic abilities. The students will record some of their thinking as they watch the video tapes on charts placed by each teacher. Phase 1C: Considering the value of applicants’ artistic abilities. The teacher will work with the students to enable them as a group to decide which applicants to take, and why. The teacher will want the students to consider the "value” of the applicants’ functional and artistic abilities to their future ’’society” on the planet. Phase lA: Preliminarv agreements. In Task 1(1) the teacher talks with the students asks their names, and introduces the teachers, the camera, and himself. The students are very reticent to speak or move. In Task 1(2) the students are asked to imagine that they are going to be going on a spaceship to another planet. The teacher imposes some restrictions at this point: they will be away for a "very long time;” they have no idea what will be on the 180 planet except that the scientists believe it is very like Earth. The purpose of these restrictions is to make planning for the trip feel less like preparing for a vacation and more like a colonization. The students would have to take with them whatever they would want to be there; the lack of electricity would reduce their reliance on technology. However, to avoid them taking eveiything, the teacher also asked them to agree on the things they had wished they had taken but had not been able to take because they were too heavy or too bulky. Also, by agreeing that there would probably be no electricity they would be unlikely to expect a technological utopia. Within these restrictions the students had the fteedom to agree to take whatever they wanted. Phase IB: Encountering applicants. The teachers had prepared their "video tapes" with the following guidelines. (1) They had to show, rather than just tell, why they would be suitable for going to the new planet; (2) The video tape had to make clear that they had artistic abilities as well as functional abilities; (3) The tape had to be short and concise. I was imawaie of the arts being studied by the students and no attempt was made to restrict the arts demonstrated. The 12 teachers showed the following: A. historian who also plays the guitar and sings songs B. cook who also tells stories C. newspaper writer who also writes stories for children D. seamstress who also makes quilts E. puppeteer F. poet who can describe Earth G. photographer H. stonemason who is also a sculptor I. documentary film maker J. potter who makes beautiful dishes 181
K. doctor who also composes songs at the piano L. comedian. In Task 2(1) the students agree that the other teachers will represent these applicants on video tape so that when they look at them in Task 5 they know what they are representing. In Task 2(1) the teacher is modeling for the students how they will be able to operate the other video tapes and what they are about to do in Task 2(2). Charts were placed in front of each teacher with four statements for the students to complete as they viewed the video tapes: "We need A because...We don't need A because.. .We may need A because.. .We need to know more about..." The purpose of the charts was to structure the students’ thinking so that they would have to begin to think of reasons for "needing" these applicants. Phase 10: Considering the value of the applicants' artistic abilities. In Task 2(2) the students were allowed to watch the video tapes and record their ideas in a much less public task. Tliough the teachers were still all in the room, the students now could control what they wanted to watch and were not being required to do or say anything apart from completing the task. Having watched the video tapes, and having responded in private or to another student, the students were then asked to respond publicly in Task 3. With the teacher they were enabled to consider the value of the applicants' artistic abilities. The students were restricted by the teacher in Tasks 1-4, however, as was explained above, these restrictions were so that the students would have to plan for a trip where they would begin to consider what they "needed" on the planet They had to choose carefully because they could not bring everyone or everything from Earth but within these limitations they did have the freedom to choose whatever they wanted. By drawing their suggestions on the blackboard and checking that they were in agreement, the teacher was promoting ongoing implicit acceptance as well as explicit agreement to their own ideas. 182
Similarly, though the video tapes were a preparation in advance of most of the drama text by the teachers, the students did have the freedom to decide between these applicants and between them and anything else of equivalent weight or volume. Thus, the students were also creating drama text It should also be noted that in the classroom these video tapes could have been prepared by students either from another class, or by all the students in the class who would then switch roles in order to view the tapes. The students were also interpreting the drama text of the video tapes. Though the session began with an unenthusiastic mood, it ended with much enthusiasm, and all the students seemed eager for us to return. All students had been involved in watching the video tapes, and in the discussion in Task 3 the students volunteered opinions in a way in which they had not earlier on. Also, it is significant that in working with the parallel group on identical material the students in the other group reached quite different decisions for different reasons. Structuring the Tasks in the Second Session. In reviewing the first session it seemed that the students seemed to value art. Though only two people had volunteered a response to what art is during the discussion in Task 1, everyone (with the exceptions of Julie and Heather) had been involved in the discussions of the video tapes in Task 3. They had wanted to take four of the five applicants they discussed, despite teacher support for those who argued against taking them. Only the poet was to be left because they thought that they already had a "storyteller." In planning for the subsequent sessions I wanted the students to think about art more specifically. Whereas in the first session they had encountered people talking about making things, I wanted the students to make art and then reflect on its value. In the second session I wanted the students to begin to create a history of the planet which would lead them into creating some art. I was interested to see how they might 183 incorporate art into the life of the planet. I suspected that though the students had become very lively by the end of the first session, that by the next day they might well be reticent to share again. Consequently, I planned to have chart paper available for them to draw on if talking was unproductive at first. I planned two phases. Phase 2A was to be a generative phase. Depending on the group response I had planned to use one or all of the following: storytelling, dramatic playing, drawing, talking about their drawings, making tableaux, sharing tableaux. Phase 2B would be a culminating phase where they would transform whatever they had experienced in Phase A in some way into art. Unfortunately I could not ask students to work at painting or writing during the rest of the day and I could not get access to paints. However, I did have paper, markers, and access to percussion instruments. I had thought that they might celebrate in words, and/or movement, and/or music an event which they decided had happened on the planet. Or that they might write down what happened and perhaps do this together, in groups, or individually. I wanted to make the decision on what precisely would happen in Phase 2B during the session and depending on the students' preferences. In contrast to the planning for the Dungeon Drama which had no flexibility, the planning for this session did. I was ready to follow the students lead and wanted them to decide on the history of the planet they wanted. I also wanted them to create some art together. I saw my purpose as enabling both of these to happen. I was continually watching the students to see what they were ready and able to do and what they were not Phase 2A: The Generative Phase. 1 began the session with storytelling but abandoned that fairly quickly when students seemed to have few ideas or images of the journey or life on the planet. The group did not seem like they wanted to pretend together because they hardly interacted and were so quiet and shy. Thus I moved to the task of drawing which allowed students to work alone or with another. To structure students’ 184 ideas and to help them think of more possibilities and to help generate some images, I laid out chart paper which I divided into ten sections each representing ten years on the planet. I also asked them to draw or note times when there was great danger. I thought that if they concentrated on danger that they might create possible dramatic moments to pick up on later. I also thought that danger would allow me to structure for reflection on how they had overcome it. As they drew I was able to encourage them to talk with each other about what they had drawn and then share publicly with the whole group. Their drawings had generated many more ideas than the attempt at storytelling. I was surprised that they were not more "artistic" or self-motivating (the drawings were very average and many students ran out of ideas very quickly.) They had still not "taken o ff as they had by the end of the previous session. I was sure that these rather stiff students would not want to pretend they were exploring the planet and I was unsure how well they would respond to putting themselves on show in a tableaux. Consequently, I asked the teachers to be "mannequins" for the students and let the students choose whomever they wanted to work with. I again asked them to show a moment of danger using the teachers in a tableaux. They formed themselves into four groups. It was interesting that they used ideas from the drawings in their tableaux. Someone had written "weird rocks" on the paper which became rocks which were alive and could attack. A drawing labelled "body of water" led to a tableau showing the rescue of the potter from the water. Another piece of writing noting "birth" became a family photograph after a birth. The students became much more engaged with this task and began to talk with each other as they instructed the teachers how to move. Phase 2B: The Culminating Phase. After sharing the tableaux I gathered the students together to decide on what to do in Phase 2B. My sense was that a celebration would get them moving and would be a contrast to the rather static tableaux work. In an 185 out of drama discussion I began to talk about celebrations they know and the reasons for celebrating, but after Martin said we should not celebrate until "we establish ourselves" and Derek said we need to know "who we are and how we got here," I shifted their attention to the history of the planet. They seemed agreed that it was important to write down the stories of what had happened On being asked, "Would it make any difference if we didn't write the history," Martin said, "Our children need to know what happened" Harriet added, "We'd never know what happened ourselves." So as to release the students to compose more freely, I asked the students to dictate their stories (which would form part of the history of the planet) to whichever one of the teachers they chose. In their writing they drew on, extended, and elaborated on the events which had been presented and extended in their reflections on the tableaux.
Structuring the Tasks in the Third Session Having written parts of the history of the planet, I wanted the students to think about their "art" in a wider context. Since they had chosen to write history, I thought they could consider it more historically. I wanted, therefore, to promote the students' subjective reflections on what they and the others had written, but as if they were historical documents written by other people. I planned three phases. In Phase 3A the students writing would be shared so that everyone would hear it. They would also be able to change or add to it if necessary. Then they would plan for the next phase. In Phase 3B they would hear their writing read aloud again but this time they would hear it as if they were the descendants of the people who originally came to the planet. I would structure a task so that they (in role as the people in the planet's future) would reflect on the significance of those "historical documents" for them. There had to be a very special reason for going to see them but I thought I would leave that decision up to the students. In Phase 3C the students would 186 respond to the experience in some way to make some group art. I wanted to see if they could manage to use the instruments and also wanted to give them an ensemble experience which would involve even the two quiet girls (Julie and Heather). Phase 3A: Sharing the students' writing. The students were again quiet and reserved though slightly more animated. They were less interested than I had thought in hearing each other’s writing read aloud. Not having been together as a group for long, of course, meant that they hardly knew and probably only minimally cared about each other's work. I asked the adults to read what they had written down which gave their writing an air of importance as well as anonymity. Tony had not finished dictating his story on the previous day, so I asked him if he would mind speaking his work ftom memory. He was pleased to and did so in this phase as well as the next. In their discussions about the next phase, the students suggested and agreed that the writing would have been preserved for a million years on stone tablets and that people would read them once in their lives. They could not decide whether this would happen at a particular age though they were agreed that they had to be "knowledgeable" and that others would have decided they were ready to read them. Phase 3B: Hearing their writing read as if in the future. I wanted the students to experience going back in time and so I walked them round in a circle as if they were going deeper into the capsule. If I had described the place before and as we entered, I might have avoided having to come out of role in order to explain that the chart paper on the wall (which they looked at) was not in the capsule. The students had talked about testing and how you consider a person "knowledgeable" so I wanted to make the experience in the capsule echo that in some way. That was why I asked them to discover the "truths" that had to be remembered. Whatever their answers were would have meant they had "passed" the test. In doing that the students were, of course, responding to their writing and 187
summarizing the "main idea." However, the students also had the possibility of imaginatively seeing how a person's work can have meaning to other people in different circumstances and times. They had been in a position of critiquing the applicants' work and now they were in a similar position to their own work. Phase 3C: Responding to the experience as a group. I would have liked to have worked with the students to create a celebratory dance with words and music, but there was not time to let them work on this for longer than a couple of minutes. The fourth session ended in this way with the students singing a song which had been composed. At the end of the third session, however, I wanted the students to feel some closure to the journey to the capsule and also to work together. I helped to structure this by asking Tony to direct a rhythm and then to shape their percussion sounds by indicating a crescendo and decrescendo. As will be discussed in detail below, in the Arts Drama the Playmaking and Interpretation Cycles were functioning. Planning was responsive to students' needs as well as to the educational aim of the teacher. Planning how to structure tasks provided structure in the classroom and yet left the teacher with the flexibility to respond to students' reactions to tasks and each other by providing the structure necessary to enable the students to work together and with the teacher in order to create drama text and interpret it. Teacher Structuring of Interactions In my analysis of the Heathcoie Drama I demonstrated that in every interaction the teacher was asking the students an underlying question which gave them the opportunity for objective and/or subjective reflection. These underlying questions were often asked directly, when a response was almost required, or they were asked more tentatively, when a response was encouraged. The teacher also asked underlying questions indirectly through the use of statements directed to the students and also asked indirectly through her 188 own reflections which "probed" to see if the students would also reflect When students raised underlying questions these were supported by the teacher and the students were enabled to perform so that the group could reflect on their ideas and create drama text or interpretations. In my analysis of the Dungeon Drama I demonstrated that, though the teacher was asking direct or implied questions, the teacher was frequently not prepared to accept students' responses. Though some of his underlying questions enabled students to create or interpret drama text, most of his underlying questions were asking students to accept his objective meanings as drama text, to control behavior, and to disagree with a student about subjective meaning. When students raised direct or implied questions, the teacher occasionally accepted these but more frequently rejected, blocked, redirected, or ignored what the students had said. The teacher was repeatedly implying that he had control of the creation of the drama text and the interpretations which were acceptable. As has been noted above in the section on "Structuring Tasks," in the Arts Drama the teacher is much more sensitive and responsive to the students' needs and abilities. The questions which are asked or implied in the tasks in the Arts Drama enable the students to create and interpret the drama text. The teacher has structured tasks, but within the structure the students are able to respond and whatever they say and do is accepted. He does redirect students and occasionally ignores behavior but he never rejects or blocks students’ responses. The implication throughout this drama is that the teacher is using his control to enable the students to create the drama. All interactions in the Heathcote Drama and the Dungeon Drama were noted in the tables in Chapters IV and V. The video tapes of those dramas were respectively 35 and 48 minutes long, but because the Arts Drama took place over four sessions and was recorded on over four hours of video tape, it will not be possible to analyze the entire drama. In the 189 tables in this chapter, all the tasks (and a few of the interactions) in the first three sessions will be analyzed to show the teacher's underlying questions. In subsequent sections the teacher's underlying questions will be analyzed to show whether or not they were encouraging objective or subjective reflection, and which reflection structures were being used. Interactions will be discussed in more detail by using transcript extracts. It would have been possible to analyze the interactions in only one session of the Arts Drama, but this would have resulted in limiting examples in both number and range. Table 16 lists the questions which are implied by the teacher in the tasks in the Arts Drama. 190
Table 16: Underlying Questions in the Arts Drama
SESSION/TASK UNDERLYING QMEgTlON 1-1(1) Is art important? 1 -1 (2) [Do you agree to the drama premise?] 1 -1 (3) [What do you need to know about the mission?) 1 -1 (4) What would you have liked to have taken with you? 1 -2(1 ) [What do you need to know about how to view the video tapes?] 1-2(2) [Should we take these applicants with us?] 1 -3 [Do we really need this applicant? ] 2-1 [Can you tell what happened?] 2-2 [Can you draw what hsRjsnad?] 2-3 [Can you show what happened?] 2-4 [What happened and how did you fee!?] 2-5 What should we do now? 2-6 [Can you dictate your story of what happened?] 3-1 Did the teacher record your ideas accurately? 3-2(1 ) What will the circumstances be when these stories are read in the future? 3-2(2) Under what circumstances should a person go into the capsule? 3-3 What is the truth of this writing that must never be forgotten? 3-4 [How will we make music together?]
In the Dungeon Drama the teacher was repeatedly asking questions like "Will you accept that this story is about looking at prisoners?" or "Will you accept that there are chains?" which were asking the students to accept the details of the teacher's images of what was happening in the dungeon and implied that there was really only one answer to the question. By contrast, the questions in the Arts Drama are very open and are encouraging the students to respond. Whatever the students respond is accepted. In the first session they can list whatever they want in response to "What would you have liked to take with you?" or give any answer to the question "Should we take these applicants with us?" In the second session the students are asked, "Can you tell what happened?" but when they are unable to do this to any extent the teacher switches the implied question to "Can you show 191 what happened?" The students' responses had not been rejected though the teacher realized that they were insufficient for his purposes of enabling the students to decide what had happened on the planet In the third session the students are asked to check on the accuracy of the teachers' record of their dictation, to decide on the circumstances of going into the capsule, and to give the "truth" as they saw it. The following extract from the third session illustrates how the teacher invites and accepts responses from the students, but also how he presses the students to think more deeply. Session 3 Task 2(11 The students are discussing with the teacher how the written histoiy of the planet might have lasted into the future. They had just agreed that they wanted their writing to have lasted a million years. Teacher: What sorts of things last for a million years? Michael: Memories Teacher: Memories can last for a million years. Now, if we want the memories to last, what do we have to do to them? Michael: Write them down. Teacher: You've written them down. Now, is the paper going to last for a million years? (General agreement that it would not last) Teacher: Well what does last for a milhon years. Derek: Stone. Chisel them out of stone. (General agreement) Though he accepts and supports their responses to what he asks, the teacher is of course also directing their attention through his questions. They had wanted their work to 192 last for a million years so he gets them to think about how something might last for that long. However, he does not just accept the first idea of "memories," interesting though it is. When paper is suggested, rather than saying, "Paper is not going to last that long," he asks them what they think. They realize paper will not last and on being questioned again, Derek comes up with a possibility which they all like. The teacher then takes this idea and suggests that in the capsule there are statues holding tablets of stone. It is also important to note the tone in which these questions were asked. As the teacher, I was well aware in this drama that I did not want to have a tone which suggested that I already knew the answer to the questions. The tone in this extract caimot be captured in print, but it was one of genuinely wondering with the students how their writing would be preserved. The previous extract shows the teacher using direct questioning. The following extract from the second session shows how he uses statements in reflection to ask questions of the students.
Session 2 Task 4(31 The students have just been looking at a photograph of when the potter was rescued from the water by a person who threw her a rope. Teacher: (Sitting down with the students) You know, we're going to be on this planet for a long time and one day she is going to not be here any more. Student: She can train somebody. Teacher Who would be interested in being an apprentice to the potter? (To Sara and Julie who raise their hands) You would. And you would. There are at least two in our community who would give up hours 193
and days and months and years of their lives to learn the ait. And if you do then her skills and her art will not die. So in the future we will have to thank you for the time you have given.
In the teacher's statement, "You know, we're going to be on this planet for a long time and one day she is going to not be here any more," he is reflecting and telling them that though the potter was saved from drowning that her eventual death is inevitable. He is implying the underlying question, "What will happen when she is dead?" A student responds by suggesting that she could train someone. The teacher then asks directly who would be interested in being an apprentice. In response to the two who raise their hands he again reflects in a statement. He tells them the consequences of apprenticeship in terms of the time involved and what it might mean for the community. He also implies that this will be a choice by saying, "And if you do..." In the fourth session the students all do agree to become apprentices, and then reflect for themselves on how to create worics of beauty and quality. Though the teacher asks "genuine questions" which invite responses from the students which will be accepted, in role the teacher also asks questions which may appear to reject student responses. The teacher may question the group but is doing so not to reject their ideas but to support them. He may support a minority opinion against the majority. He also uses questions to press the students to reflect as they oppose him. He is not blocking their ideas but on the contrary is supporting them but asking them to think more deeply. In the following extract from the first session the teacher is using questions in both these ways. 194
Session 1 Task 3(41 The students as a group are about to watch their fourth video tape. With minor reservations they have decided to accept the previous applicants. Applicant: "Perhaps you've seen my pictures in "Time" or "Newsweek" or the "Chicago Tribune." But I can also catch your special moments for you, the tear on a child's cheek, the raindrop on a rose, the glorious colors of a sunset, the magic in you. Let me capture the special moments of your new world for you. I'm also Devon’s mother." (The teacher then read students' comments which had been written on the chart "We need her because.. .we could use her to keep memories, she would also be in commercials; she could take pictures of our families for us to remember, we need memories; we need memories for our trip. We may not need her because.. .we can capture pictures by ourselves.") Teacher: Couldn't we just take the camera? (General inaudible talk including mention of "developing") Teacher Do we need her? ("Yes" and "No") Teacher: Why? You can take the camera. (General inaudible talk including "She's good.") Teacher Well aren't you good at taking pictures? (General inaudible discussion including "She knows about lighting") Teacher She knows about lighting. 195
(General inaudible discussion including mention of "developing" again) Teacher Well I know how to develop pictures. I've done that, I could help you with that. Couldn't we just take the camera? Wouldn’t you rather take all her weight in film? (Pause. One student says "No") Teacher Look at all the pictures we could take. We don't need her do we? (General "Yes" shouted out.) (General discussion) Harriet: Some of that film mightn't turn out. It wouldn’t look good. If she did it might look better. Teacher Why would it look better? Harriet: Because she's a professional Teacher: So you're saying that you'd rather have one of her pictures rather than a thousand of yours? (General agreement including "She's the best in the country") Teacher Does anyone disagree with that? Does anyone think we shouldn't take her? (No response)
Though students had written down reservations about taking the previous applicants, and though 1 (as the teacher) had read these aloud, in the subsequent discussions the students who had written these questions had hardly spoken out. That was why 1 began this reflection by asking "Couldn't we just take the camera?" and "Do we need her?" I was deliberately supporting the minority position which had been written on the sheet of paper, "We may not need her because we can capture pictures by ourselves." 196
However, I was careful not to antagonize the group into just opposing me. I flattered the group by suggesting that they were good at taking pictures, thinking that others might support the minority opinion. When they all seemed to want to take her (they were emphatically saying "Yes"), I continued to be skeptical, but was now doing so as a devil's advocate. I wanted to push them to think in more detail why they wanted her. I "solved" the technical reason for wanting her which I had heard someone give by telling them that I could develop film. Then I suggested the choice between a photographer and her weight in film. In response, Harriet gave a more detailed reason for wanting her; she mentioned her abilities. I rephrased her idea and presented it to the group for their response checking that everyone agreed, which they did. I was satisfied that they had thought more deeply than if I had just asked them an open question like, "What do you think?" As much as possible as the teacher of the Arts Drama I structured interactions in order to promote and respond to the students' ideas. My questions were genuinely asking the students what they thought or felL Sometimes these questions would be asked directly, at other times they would be asked indirectly. However, my aim was always to support the students’ ideas and to help them create the drama together.
Performing/Public Sharing In my analysis of the Dungeon Drama I demonstrated how dominating the teacher was in the drama. He did most of the performing and only allowed some students' responses to be performed. Consequently he had a tight control on the creation of and reflection on the drama text. By contrast, in the Heathcote Drama the teacher performed very little and did so in order to give students the opportunity to reflect. The teacher also enabled the students to 197 publicly share their ideas and to perform when they wanted to do so. I demonstrated that the teacher set three types of tasks all of which used performance or public sharing and which then enabled student reflection. These tasks were: responding to the teacher in role; making something; and student performances. The teacher in the Arts Drama also used these tasks. The students were responding to teacher performances for most of the first session. The video tapes were performances by teachers in role as much as the preliminary agreements with the teacher and the teacher interactions as the students watched the video tapes. (In a regular classroom the teacher might have prepared a performance as a video tape to show the class, or he could have had students prepare them.) Because the students could not talk with the applicants the teachers could not dominate the students and the students were fi’ee to control the "video playback" and to talk with each other in response. As was illustrated above in the extract firom the first session, the teacher was interacting with the students to elicit their responses and not to restrict their reflections on the applicants. In the second session the teacher hardly performed at all. He was encouraging the students to create a history for the planet through talking, drawing, and making tableaux. As the extract above from the second session illustrates, in his interactions with the students he was again encouraging them to reflect. In the third session the teacher was publicly sharing in his discussion about the circumstances in which the history would be read. Again as is clear from the extract above the teacher was encouraging the students to reflect. Similarly, in the following task where they go into the capsule, the teacher is again performing, but only to direct the students attention to each statue's story and to press the students to reflect about the "truth which must not be forgotten." 198
The teacher also required the students to make things which subsequently became part of performances. In session 2 the students drew on chart paper and used these images when they made their tableaux. The drawings were looked at together and the tableaux were performed. As the students reflected briefly on the drawings and as they reflected on the tableaux they were creating and interpreting drama text. Unlike the video tapes in session 1 which had been made by the teachers, the tableaux had been made by the students. The students' writing was read publicly and then became part of the performance in session 3 as the students reflected on the meaning of their own writing. The teacher never set a task which required the students to initiate a performance. Instead students responded to teacher performance in session 1 and no students were "put on the spot" and asked what they thought. In session 2 the students were required to explain what was happening in their tableaux but this was not a performance because they were describing something they had already thought about and were not having to improvise in front of others. The students had the option of using the teachers in their photographs. In sharing them some students introduced movement to bring them to life; but they volunteered to do so. In session 3 when the students entered the time capsule, again they did not have to perform, but only respond. Tony, the student who told his story as if he were a statue, volunteered to do so and was also not having to improvise on the spot but rather recall the story he had dictated the previous day. In the Arts Drama the students were enabled to create their own ideas and to perform these so that they could reflect on their meaning. The teachers' performances also enabled the students to reflect 199
Reflection Structures As was noted above, because the Arts Drama took place over four sessions and was recorded on over four hours of video tape, it will not be possible to analyze the entire drama for reflection stmctures. All the tasks (and some of the interactions) in the first three sessions have been analyzed to show the teacher's underlying questions. In this section those tasks and interactions in the first three sessions will be analyzed to show which reflection structures were being used and whether or not they were encouraging objective or subjective reflection. Transcript extracts will be used to illustrate details of interactions in more detail. All four reflection structures were used in the tasks in the Arts Drama. Table 17 lists the frequency of their use. Table 18 lists the tasks and teacher implied questions in the Arts Drama. The table adds whether a question promoted objective or subjective reflection, along with which of the four ways of structuring for reflection was used.
Table 17: Frequencv of Use of Reflection Structures in the Arts Drama
structure # used R1 out of role beginning or end of the drama 2 R2 out of role during the drama 3 R3 in role after an experience 3 R4 in role during an experience 13 2 0 0
Table 18: Reflection Structures in the Arts Drama
SESSION/ REFLECTION TASK OBJECTIVEÆUB.JECTIVE REFLECTION: UNDERLYING QUESTION STRUCTURE 1-1(1) subj: Is art important? R1 1-1(2) subj: Do you agree to the drama premise? R1 1-1(3) obj: What do you need to know about the mission? R4 1-1(4) obj: What would you have liked to have taken with you? R4 1 -2(1 ) ot^: What do you need to know about how to view Üie video tapes? R2 1 -2(2) obj/subj: Should we take these applicants with us? R4 1 -3 subj: Do we really need this applicant? R4 2-1 obj: Can you tell what happened? R4 2-2 obj: Can you draw what happened? R4 2-3 obj: Can you show what happened? R4 2-4 obj/subj: What happened and how did you feel? R4 2-5 obj: What should we do now? R4 2-6 obj/subj: Can you dictate your story of what happened? R3 3-1 obj: Did the teacher record your ideas accurately? R3 3-2(1 ) obj: What will the circumstances be when these stories are read in the future? R2 3-2(2) subj: Under what circumstances should a person go into the capsule? R2 3-3 subj: What is the truth of this writing that must never be forgotten? R3+R4 3-4 subj: What music will we make together? R4
Objective Reflection Which Leads to Creating Drama Text In the Heathcote Drama the students were functioning as playwrights. The teacher used structures R2, R3, and R4 so that the students were repeatedly creating objective meanings. As individual objective meanings were performed, the group implicitly accepted and explicitly agreed on the drama text In the Dungeon Drama, though the teacher used all four structures, and though some students created objective meaning, the group as a whole agreed on little drama text and seemed not to accept implicitly much of what the teacher wanted them to. The teacher was doing most of the performing and restricting the amount of performing and public sharing by the students. Consequently there was little opportunity for students to create drama text 2 0 1
In the Arts Drama the students were functioning as playwrights and the group created drama text throughout from performances and public sharing by both teachers and students. Though including the teachers there were 23 participants in this drama, since there were only 11 students it was fairly easy to monitor for students’ tacit acceptance of objective meanings as drama text At the beginning of session 1 1 did make sure that the group explicitly agreed to the premise of the drama; the students agreed to imagine that they would be going off on a spaceship to another planet and that they would be choosing what and who would go with them. However, after this preliminary agreement, I only occasionally felt the need to check for explicit agreement. What I did check for continually was whether the students’ attention was on what was being performed or publicly shared by the teacher or by other students and that there seemed to be tacit acceptance. In session 1 the students tacitly accepted the drama text of items they wished they had taken with them which was written on the blackboard, and they clearly accepted the video tapes as they interacted with them and reflected on the applicants’ abilities. In session 2 they tacitly accepted the details of the drama text as others performed their tableaux and talked about them. This was clear from their engagement in the task. On occasions I would stress to the students that they were all creating the ’’story” of the drama and that consequently everybody's contributions and acceptance was important An example follows of when I did this during the second session.
Session 2 Task 4(31 The students have used the teachers to represent people in photographs which had been taken at moments of great danger. The group has already looked at two photographs 2 0 2 and are just about to look at a third. The teacher has just asked two girls to move so they can see the photograph which is being presented. He gathers the group together and sits on the floor to speak to them. Teacher: Who's making up this story? Student: We are. Teacher We are. And Tm afraid if someone is sitting off in a comer that they are going to be left out and I don’t want that to happen because this is ours. (Standing and going to the two girls who had set up the photogr^h) And this bit they have made up for us. (To the two girls who are standing near the two teachers in their photograph) You need to come out of the photograph unless you are actually in it (they begin to move) and tell us what we are to look at. Come outside and tell us (they move further towards the rest of the group). We're looking at this photograph, tell us what to look for. What was the terrible danger? (Pause in which girls look at the teacher.) Tell us what it is. Julie: (almost inaudible and pointing to the drawings on the chart paper) She's fallen into the body of water and she's trying to help her out (The photograph shows a person being pulled out of the water by a rope.) A student: What? Julie: (slightly louder) She's fallen into the body of water and she's trying to help her out. In session 3 Task 1 the students' writing was performed by the teachers and the students were asked to agree that what had been written was accurate. Then in Task 2 the students were asked, out of role, to decide on the circumstances under which a person in 203 the future would read their stories. Mostly this was tacitly accepted since the students were all prepared to share ideas in discussion. Thus I felt that I did not have to check continually for explicit agreement by the group as a whole. When there was apparent disagreement, I did check for explicit agreement if this seemed to be important to the students. For example, after several ideas were suggested about deciding when a person would be ready to go into the capsule, I asked, "Are you all agreed that everyone should go to the capsule when they are 20? Does anyone disagree?" A fascinating discussion about qualifications began which showed that they were not in agreement at all. Some wanted everyone to go while others wanted only those with "qualifications" and they could not agree on how to decide on those. This will be discussed in more detail below in the subsection on "Subjective Reflections." As in the Heathcote Drama, structure R1 was used at the beginning of the Arts Drama for preliminary agreements. It was also used very briefly at the end of each of the first three sessions in order to review that the students had found the work satisfying and to check that they wanted us to return. Structure R2 was used in session 1 when the teacher stepped out of die drama to tell the students about the teachers representing the applicants and asking the students what they needed to know in order to operate the video tapes. The discussion at the beginning of the second session about the circumstances in which the history of the planet would be read was all conducted out of role using structure R2. Structure R2 was also used briefly throughout the Arts Drama when the teacher addressed students out of role if it seemed necessary to deal with something which was or could blur the boundary between the actual world of the classroom and the drama world which was being created. For example, in session 1 one of the pairs of students who were viewing the video tapes were misusing the power of their role by tiying to stop/start/stop 204 the tape. I spoke to the students out of role to remind them that the "video" was actually a person and that what they were doing was making it difficult for the teacher to represent the applicant As another example, in the second session though the students were viewing the photographs as if they were the people on the planet remembering the dangers they had overcome, as was noted in the extract above, I stepped out of role in order to stress the need for everyone to be part of the "playmaking." I also stepped out of role to deal with the technical matter of making sure that the students presenting the photograph were separated from what the other students were to look at. Structure R3 was used when students were creating objective meaning as they reflected on what they had experienced in the drama. The students were doing this when they wrote at the end of the second session and when they checked that what the teachers had written was accurate at the beginning of the third session. An example of what the students dictated follows:
When we first arrived we unloaded the plants fir^t and then our other things. We must have brought water since we didn't find the first body of water until the fifth year. We used the water to water the plants. Next we had to figure out where to live. We made houses out of small pebbles, stones, and tree leaves from the planet. Many started wandering around and discovered a strange fruit The doctors tested the finit for poison. We also found clay that the potter and the sculptor could work with. We all felt unsure, cautious, and non-trusting.
This student has noted some of the agreed facts of the drama text (the potter, the sculptor, the plants which were brought on the space ship), details which were drawn on the chart paper (the houses), and those which became part of the tableaux (the body of water). However, she has extended and elaborated these and created more objective meaning in her reflection in role on her experiences in the drama. Because finding water was drawn on the chart as happening in the fifth year, she must have felt that the people 205 would have brought it with them. Similarly, she must have decided that the potter and sculptor would need clay. In addition she invented that the people searched for food which might have been poisonous and made houses out of whatever was on the planet Most of the students' objective reflection happened with structure R4 as the students reflected during their experiences in role. In session 1 the students asked what they needed to know about the mission, they decided on what they would have liked to take with them. They also considered and decided whether or not to take the applicants with them. In session 2 as the students told, drew, and showed in tableaux what had happened on the planet, they reflected and created objective meanings which were performed or publicly shared and led to the creation of drama text They also did this in session 2 as they looked at the tableaux and continued to perform objective meaning. For example, the extract from the second session given above continues with a student suggesting a possible future event in the drama text:
Session 2 Task 4(31 Teacher: What do you think she is doing? A student: She's pulling on a rope. Teacher: She's pulling on a rope. Right Now what you need to do is when you make up a story like this where you don't have every thing is you can see it in your imaginations. Can everyone see the rope? (General agreement) Teacher: Right Now, if she hadn't rescued her, what would have happened to this person? A student: She'd have drowned. 206
In session 3 the students created the drama text of the oath taken before entering the capsule as they imagined they were standing outside it.
Session 3 Task 3 Teacher You will return to the time capsule where the chronicles of our people are held. This is a special day in your life, it is not one to be taken lightly. Have you been told of the special things we do before we enter the capsule? What have you been told? (Pause) What do we all do? Michael: We are serious. Derek: We have to take an oath that we won't steal anything and ... Teacher Do you have the words of the oath there? Derek: (giggles) No. Teacher (whispers) You can make that up. Derek: Oh, OK. Teacher Do you have the words of the oath there? Derek: Yes. (He comes to stand facing the group.) Everybody raise their right hand. (The teacher and students all raise their right hands.) (Derek laughs, so does the Teacher.) Teacher (to Derek) You have to be serious that’s the important thing. Derek: (stumbling over the words) We, the people of the planet Jeridian... Teacher (and students join in): We, the people of the planet Jeridian... Derek: S wear that we will not vandalize... All students: Swear that we will not vandalize... 207
Derek:.. .or disturb the sacred tablets. All students: ...or disturb the sacred tablets. Teacher Was it enough that we said that? (General agreement) As the students agreed and accepted that performed or publicly shared objective meaning was shared they were creating drama text throughout the Arts Drama. Having created drama text, the students were then able to inteipret it
Subjective Reflections In the Dungeon Drama the teacher missed opportunities to promote student subjective reflection on drama text and on students' subjective meanings which they were trying to perform. In my analysis of the Heathcote Drama I demonstrated how the teacher was repeatedly structuring for student subjective reflection. At the end of the session the students were reflecting using structure R3 and at other times the teacher worked to enable them to reflect with structure R4. In the Arts Drama the teacher was able to promote students’ subjective reflections as is shown in Table 19.
Table 19: Subjective Reflection in the Arts Drama
SESSION/ BEELECUfiN TASK SUBJECTIVE REFLECTION: IMPLIED TEACHER QUESTION 5TRVÇ.TVRE 1-1(1) subj: Is art important? R1 1-1(2) subj: Do you agree to the drama premise? R1 1-2(2) obj/subj: Should we take these applicants with us? R4 1-3 subj: Do we realty need this applicant? R4 2 -4 obj/subj: What happened and how did you feel? R4 2 -6 obj/subj: Can you dictate your story of what happened? R3 3-2(2) subj: Under what circumstances should a person go into the capsule? R2 3-3 subj: What is the tnrth of this writing that must never be forgotten? R3+R4 3-4 subj: V/hat music will we make together? R4 208
Structure RI was hardly used for subjective reflection. In the first session the students agreed to the premise of the drama but they were very reticent to speak at the beginning of the drama and say what they thought art was apart fiom one student who said, "You can express yourself." Reflection out of role at the end of each session was very brief and mostly just as a transition back to the actual world of the classroom. At the end of the fourth session the teachers and apparently the students were very satisfied with the whole drama, however, there was no formal reflection. The students had to rush off to another class and though I suggested that they might write down some of their responses since the last session was on a Friday morning and as they did not see the teacher with responsibility for the group until Monday, little if anything was written down except thank you notes which were sent later and suggested that they had indeed found the work rewarding. Structure R2 was used in the third session in Task 2 when the students discussed out of role the circumstances in which they thought the history of the planet would be read in the future. The students objective reflection at this point has been discussed above. There were also subjective reflections. What follows is a description of part of Task 2.
Session 3 Task 2(2) They agree that every generation will go to the capsule to see the tablets but that they must be preserved and not destroyed. They agree that the people should go down when they would be, as Michael said, "old enough to understand but not too old to forget." They were also in agreement that they should be "knowledgeable enough." Different suggestions about how this would be decided, included: the CTBS test (California Test of Basic Skills); IQ tests; not being "dumb"; watching how the people acted; choosing them if they are "willing to learn"; choosing only the "smart" or "qualified" people who would then 209 pass on what they found out to the "dumb" or "unqualified" people in order to avoid "rumors." On a show of hands the group was approximately evenly divided between those who felt everyone should eventually have a chance to go down and those who felt there should be a test. They agreed that they would be people who were about to go into the capsule to read the history of the planet Knowing that these students had been labelled "gifted" makes their interpretations particularly interesting. They had a lot to say about what it meant to be "knowledgeable enough." They did not reach any agreement, though as they publicly shared their ideas they began to share different attitudes. For example, Harriet argued that what was important was that the people should be "willing to learn" whereas Derek said that only "smart" people could be trusted. It is important also to note that as this exchange was happening part of me was feeling that we needed to "get on with the drama." However, I was also aware that this was an important moment of reflection which was enabling these students to articulate and clarify some of their feelings about testing and ability. Structure R3 was used at the end of the second session to enable students to reflect in role on their experiences when they wrote down their stories of what had happened on the planet Each student was then able not only to write down the objective meanings which they had created for the life on the planet but they were also able to draw on their interpretations as they did so. Some students actually wrote down some subjective meaning. For example, the student whose writing was reproduced above concluded her story by saying, "We all felt unsure, cautious, and non-trusting." As another example, as part of the discussion which led the students to decide to write, when they seemed agreed that it was important to write down the stories of what had happened, the teacher asked, "Would it make any difference if we didn't write the history?" 210
Martin replied, "Our children need to know what happened," and Harriet said, "We'd never know what happened ourselves." Those two students were reflecting in role about the need to write stories of what happened. After the students heard their writing read aloud in the capsule they were asked to reflect in Task 3 on "the truth that must never be forgotten." In role they were able to reflect on the experience they had had when they responded to what had been read. This was structure R3. Some students also reflected at the same time as they picked up on what was said so that for them they were reflecting with structure R4. Another extract from the session follows:
Session 3 Task 3 So let us go on past your great grandparents, your great great grandparents, your great, great, great, great, (he continues to say "great" softly as they walk around and then stop back again in the place where they began) great grandparents who were the ones who first came to this planet. And here etched in stone are their pictures (pointing to the teachers who are standing still.) They are in fact sculptures of the people who told the first stories. It is customary that you will go to one of the people to hear one of the stories. And when you listen to that story to test whether or not you are wise enough to be here, you are to say the truth that must be remembered for this story. Do I make myself clear? (General agreement) Teacher Will someone explain? Michael: (An inaudible explanation of what they are to do.) 211
Derek: Try to find yourself worthy enough. Teacher: Try to find yourself worthy enough, yes, in what you hear in the story. There will be something in the story that you can hear. Do you understand? You may go to one of the stories and when you stand in front of it, the stone will move back, and when it stops it will start to speak to you.
(The students move to the statues who move back leaving more space between each one. The stories are read solemnly by the teachers to the students. Having heard one story, students move to listen to others. Break in the tape during which the teacher has gathered the students together in front of the first statue.)
Teacher: Of this story what is the truth that must not be forgotten? Harriet: (mostly inaudible but including "life before") Teacher There was life before we came. We didn't know this before. Teacher Of this story, what is the trath that must not be forgotten? A student: We planted the seeds. Teacher: That we planted the seeds. Teacher And of this story? (Five second pause. No one speaks.) Teacher: Not all truths are known. Teacher: Of this story? (To two boys who are about to bump into Tony who is representing a statue) Be careful of this person, of this 212
statute, because this is a very important one. Be careful you do not touch it. Of this one, what are the truths? A student: (mostly inaudible including mention of the body of water) Teacher: What must they remember about the body of water? Students: General responses including "They could die." Teacher: They could die in that water and they must know that. Teacher And this story? Students: (inaudible) Teacher So what is the truth we must know about the scientists? Students: (inaudible including "they helped us") Teacher They helped us. Without them...? Student: (inaudible) Teacher And they taught our ancestors. Teacher Of this story what is the truth that must be remembered. Derek: (inaudible including "everything that happened... a diary") Teacher: A diary. And what do you need to keep during your lives? Students: Diaries. Teacher Diaries. This is the time when you must realize that you must keep diaries and remember. (Break in the tape) Teacher The stories that you heard that it was easy are not true. The truth is that life is hard as well as celebratory. Teacher And this one? Student: (inaudible) Teacher That is about (inaudible.) Is there another truth in this one? 213
Student: (inaudible) Teacher: As I said, not all the truths are shown to everyone. Not all are capable of knowing them.. Even those who think they are capable of knowing all truths are sometimes not capable of hearing them. [Pause] Teacher And Anally we hear again this story for there is a deep truth in this one which only you will know now. Listen carefully to this for this is the final test. You have passed the previous one. Tony: (as if reading) "That day we arrived me and a friend took a walk into the woods. We saw an unusual thing happening. Two women and one man were giving birth. I didn't know which one was giving birth but I saw a pod come out of the woman's belly button and they started chipping away at the crust of the pod. After that they took some black powder and covered up their belly buttons with it" Teacher What is the great truth? Michael: Friendship. Teacher Friendship. What about it? Michael and Martin: Together. They did everything together Teacher Without friendship... Martin: We would not have made it Teacher Without friendship we would not have made it. Never forget that when you go back to your time. Teacher: Is there another truth there. Martin: Yes. How the others give birth. teacher And how do some other beings give birth? 214
Michael: People do things differently. Teacher: People so things differently. Never forget that. Not everyone is the same. These people (inaudible) and who can tell what will happen to us in another million years. Well done. We will go back through the secret door here and you will find special instruments which have been left for you.. This is a day of celebration for you have found the truths of our culture. Find the instruments and your last test is to make a celebration together which is new. Something new from nothing.
Students’ subjective reflection was promoted by the structuring of the drama in this task. The question asked was an interpretative one, the students had been given the opportunity to hear the stories read aloud, and then they were asked as a group to reflect. Some students repeated details which had already been written when they said there was "life before we came", and that "we planted seeds." Some students did not reply, but others did begin to interpret their writing which was part of the drama text In reflecting on the last piece one student volunteered that a truth was that "People do things differently." The teacher pressed for reflection by asking, "What must be remembered about the body of water," which resulted in one student saying, "They could die." When he pressed them to think of the importance of friendship one student said that without friendship "we would not have made it." He also extended what they said and shared his own interpretations by saying, "you must keep diaries and remember," and, "life is hard as well as celebratory." When there was silence in response he used this to pick up on the theme of knowledge which had just 215 been the topic of the out of drama discussion. He commented that, "Even those who think that they are capable of knowing all truths are sometimes not capable of hearing them." At the end of the third session the students made some music together. For some students this might have been simply a chance to make some noise and movement as a contrast to the previous hushed intense sharing. However, other students might have transformed some of their feelings from the previous tasks into musical subjective meaning which was then performed as students shook rattles and tambourines to celebrate their return from the capsule. Structure R4 was used for subjective reflection. In the section above on "Teacher Structuring of Interactions" illustrations were given of the way in which the teacher invited, accepted, and responded to the students' contributions by asking direct and implied questions. Some of these illustrations also show how the teacher was promoting subjective reflections using stmcture R4 to enable the students to reflect at the same time as they were experiencing. In the first session the students were reflecting on the teacher’s performances in the video tapes.
Session 1 Task 3(4) The students as a group are about to watch their fourth video tape. With minor reservations they have decided to accept the previous applicants. Applicant; "Perhaps you've seen my pictures in "Time" or "Newsweek" or the "Chicago Tribune." But I can also catch your special moments for you, the tear on a child's cheek, the raindrop on a rose, the glorious colors of a sunset, the magic in you. Let me capture the special moments of your new world for you. I'm also Devon's mother." 216
The teacher then read students’ comments which had been written on the chart. "We need her because.. .We could use her to keep memories, she would also be in commercials; She could take pictures of our families for us to remember; We need memories; We need memories for our trip. We may not need her because.. .We can capture pictures by ourselves." Teacher: Couldn't we just take the camera? (General inaudible talk including mention of "developing") Teacher Do we need her? ("Yes" and "No") Teacher Why? You can take the camera. (General inaudible talk including "She’s good.’’) Teacher Well aren’t you good at taking pictures? (General inaudible discussion including "She knows about lighting") Teacher She knows about lighting. (General inaudible discussion including mention of "developing" again) Teacher Well I know how to develop pictures. Fve done that, I could help you with that. Couldn’t we just take the camera? Wouldn’t you rather take all her weight in film? (Pause. One student says "No") Teacher Look at all the pictures we could take. We don’t need her do we? (General "Yes" shouted out.) (General discussion) Harriet: Some of that film mightn’t turn out. It wouldn’t look good. If she did it it might look better. Teacher Why would it look better? 217
Harriet: Because she's a professional Teacher: So you're saying that you'd rather have one of her pictures rather than a thousand of yours? (General agreement including "She's the best in the country") Teacher Does anyone disagree with that? Does anyone think we shouldn't take her? (No response) The students respond to the teacher and share their subjective meanings. They should take her because she knows about lighting, because she is a professional and would take better pictures than they would, and finally they agree that it would be better to take her than her weight in film. As was noted in the section on "Teacher Structuring of Interactions," this example also illustrates how the teacher can press the students to reflect more deeply rather than taking their first response. An example of reflection using structtue R4 in the second session was when the students reflect on the tableau which two of the students have made by using two of the teachers to represent the potter being rescued from the water. A student interprets that it would have been "duU" if the potter had died. When the teacher said at this time When they reflected on another photograph which showed how two people had confronted and overpowered "living rocks," interpretations included "they were cautious", "they didn't run away," and "they kept on going." The teacher was then able to respond and add that because of the way they had overcome these dangers he was very glad to be with them. In the fourth session the students chose to apprentice themselves to one of the people they had brought with them in the first session. As they pantomimed (for example sculpting) or actually worked with the person (for example, by writing a song) the students 218 were asked to consider how the people created works of beauty and quality. The students' subjective reflections occured as they were experiencing being an apprentice (structure R4) though most would also have probably have been reflecting on their previous experiences when they had made art (structure R3). The students performed their subjective meanings, and then reflected on what others had said in an Interpreting Cycle. The following subjective meanings which were performed demonstrated that at the very least the students were more articulate about art than they had been at the beginning of the first session. It may well have been the case that some students had real insights during this performance of interpretations. "You have to practice; you have to be dedicated and put a lot of effort into it," said one student "You have to want to learn," commented a student while another said quietly that, "You have to be prepared to mess up." The student who had worked with the sculptor noted that, "You must have a picture in your mind to focus on to make the sculpture and you have to want to make the sculpture." Three students agreed that they also had a picture in their mind and on being asked if anyone did something different, the girl who had chosen to work with the doctor who composed at the piano said, "I have a tune in my mind." Two students agreed that you don't just go with the first idea you have when you make something. A boy who had worked with the comedian talked about writing a joke and said that he wondered about what would happen if he changed one word. Another boy responded that, "sometimes if you change one word, you can change the whole poem." Summary In this chapter I have analyzed in detail three sessions of a drama which I taught over four days with a group of eleven students. This drama was representative of sessions in which the teacher structuring enabled the students to reflect. In using this drama I was 219 able to illustrate all of the points I wished to make in my analysis. Most of these points could have been made by reference to other sessions but no other session would have given me as many examples for my purposes. This drama "worked" for a number of reasons. The small number of students was in some ways easier to work with than a large class. However, I had had problematic dramas with smaller classes and realize that small groups are not a guarantee of good work. The group dynamics were very different from the Dungeon Drama. In the Arts Drama the students were quiet and withdrawn and none of the adults had worked with any of the students before. However, this presented its own problems as I had to woric hard to get the students to open up, share, and work together. It was certainly significant that I was not trying to juggle another teacher’s schedule or any other competing agenda with my teaching of the class. On the other hand I was trying to juggle the needs of eleven students with those of twelve adults. Having twelve extra teachers might seem to make it easier to use drama, however, this actually made my structuring more complex because I was also having to think of how to involve the teachers in ways which would not overpower the students but would still allow the teachers to remain engaged. As I hope this chapter has demonstrated, I am convinced that the most important factor in making this drama successful was its structuring for the creation and interpretation of the drama text by the students. I had a clear educational aim which enabled me to be much more rigorous about my selection of tasks and in my interactions than I often was when a teacher had asked me to "do drama" with a class or when, in my own classroom, I might begin some work with a very hazy idea of what my aims were. In selecting tasks and in my careful interactions with students I now realize that I was promoting the Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles which have been discussed throughout this study. 220
In Table 20 the Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles are shown in tabular form. The abbreviations "t" and "s" are used for teacher and student respectively. The table lists the performing and public sharing by teacher and students and uses capitals to show when teacher or students are in role. It notes the creation of objective meaning (the abbreviation "obj" is used) and drama text in the Playmaking Cycle. The table notes when students were creating subjective meanings in the Interpreting Cycle. Explicit participation by students is indicated by noting how many of the students were performing, playmaking, or interpreting.
Table 20: The Plavmaking and Interpreting Cycles in the Arts Drama
SESSION/ OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE REFLECTION; PERFORMING/INTERPRETING TASK UNDERLYING QUESTION PLAYMAKING PUBLIC SHARING
1-1(1) subj: Is ait important? n/a t 1-1(2) subj: [Do you agree to the drama n/a t premise?] 1-1(2) obj: [What do you need to know about the drama text T mission?] 1-1(3) obj: What would you have liked to have drama text T taken with you? 1 -2(1) obj: [What do you need to know about drama text t/T how to view the video tapes?] 1-2(2) obj/subj: [Should we take these obj-Ts TS all individual S applicants with us?] 1-3 subj: [Do we really need this applicant?] T some 8 2-1 obj: [Can you tell what happened?] drama text some S 2 -2 obj: [Can you draw what happened?] obj - all s 2 -3 obj: [Can you show what happened?] obj - all s 2 -4 obj/subj: [What happened and how did drama text Ts/some S some 3 you feel?] 2 -5 obj: What should we do now? drama text some S 2 -6 obj: [Can you dictate your story of what obj - all S happened?] 3-1 obj: Did the teacher record your ideas drama text T accurately? 3 -2 (1 ) obj: What will the circumstances be when drama text T/S these stories are read in the future? 3 -2 (2 ) subj: Under what circumstances should a T/S some S person go into the capsule? 3-3 subj: What is the truth of this writing that T some 8 must never be forgotten? 3-4 subj/obj: [What music will we make drama text a lls together?] 221
Conclusion The Playmaking Cycle was functioning in every session of the Arts Drama. In the first session the students explicitly agreed to the premise of the drama, details of the mission, and the content of the video tapes. Though the teachers had prepared the presentations for the video tapes, it was the students who were deciding whether or not to take the applicants. In the second session the students were playmaking as they created and talked about their photographs of the history of the planet Then they actually wrote down the history they wanted which was performed and integrated into the drama text in the following session. During that third session the students functioned as playwrights as they decided on how their stories had survived, how they would be shared in the future, and as they created the entry into the capsule. Students were able to reflect on the performances of the teachers' and their own objective meanings and thereby create the drama text The Interpreting Cycle was also functioning in every session. Though the teachers had prepared the video tapes it was the students who interpreted them. The teachers helped the students create their photographs but were moved and told what to say by the students. The teachers read their writing, but this was only to enable it be heard by everyone and to give their work dignity. Then in reflecting on the video tapes, the photographs, the stories of their history, and the ways in which beautiful works of quality may be made, the students were both performing their interpretations and able to interpret others' responses. The Playmaking and Interpreting Cycles are also interconnected in the sense that a performance or public sharing will (depending on whether the students function as playwrights in objective reflection or as audience in subjective reflection) lead to the creation of objective meanings and drama text or subjective meanings. For example, when 222 the photographs were performed, students created more details of the drama text and also interpreted.
Session 2 Task 4(2) Martin and Derek describe the two teachers in their photograph as "dangerous living rocks." The teacher asks the group to say how we were saved from this danger, but the two boys say they will show us. They show how they walked up to the rocks which curled ed up "like a turtles" into their shells. The teacher tells the group that these two have saved us from terrible danger and asks what it is that they did. The boys say they were lucky and want to tell us what they did rather than to reflect on the meaning of it Two of the others, however, say that "they didn’t run away" and "they kept on going." On being asked if they are doing anything else to keep us out of danger, Harriet says that she is being "ultra cautious." In response the teacher says how glad he is to be with them because of the people who are cautious and do not run away. In their reflections on the same performance, the students created drama text (how the rocks curled up) and interpretations (they didn't run away; they kept on going). The teacher can direct the students' attention and thus influence which the students do. The underlying question the teacher asks will be significant Another way in which the two cycles are interconnected is that in reflecting on a performance, students would often create more details of the drama text and then interpret what was accepted as drama text For example, in the extract above when the students who had created the photograph looked at it, they moved to show more details of the drama text. This was then interpreted by the other students. Though the teacher enabled the students to create and interpret drama text in the Arts Drama this is not to imply that this is a perfect drama. It could have been improved in 223 countless ways. However, taken as a whole and in contrast with the Dungeon Drama, the Arts Drama did enable students to think about an important topic in ways they would not have done if they had not worked together for these four sessions. Even though this was intense and demanding work the students were consistently involved in thoughtful work and by the end of the fourth session they were clearly deeply engaged and had become more of a group. It was perhaps significant that one student commented, "I wish we could do something like this during the school year," and that one of the teachers noted, "I never took part in any kind of drama where this type of commitment was present It was touching and energizing!" CHAPTER Vn CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
The Model of Structuring Drama for Reflection and Learning The model which was developed in this study will be of value to both novices in using drama as well as experienced teachers. Though others have written about structuring for reflection this is the first teacher-researcher study of structuring for reflection and the first model proposed. I will begin this chapter by summarizing the main points of the model of structuring drama for reflection and learning which is shown diagrammatically in Figure 2 in Appendix A. When we reflect on our experiences we leam because we construct meaning. We can reflect on our experiences of the events in a drama world as well as on those in the actual world. Reflection is thinking about experiences after or as we are having them. In drama, students may be constructing meaning without teacher involvement, however, they may not The teacher's structuring of tasks and interactions will affect the experiences, the reflection, and thus the learning of the students. The meaning of a drama for participants can be divided into the objective meaning and the subjective meaning. Participants constract their individual objective meanings as they make sense of their experiences of what happens in the drama world. In doing so they create the events and facts of the imaginary external world of the drama. When individual objective meanings are shared by the whole group, drama text is created. The drama text is
224 225 created in students' objective reflections. Over the course of a drama as students create drama text they function as playwrights who are playmaking. A student's subjective meaning is an interpretation of the drama text (or of his individual objective meaning). As students interpret they each discover the personal meaning of their experiences. These subjective meanings are part of each student's internal personal world. Interpretations happen in students' subjective reflections. As students interpret, they are functioning as an audience to the events in the drama. They may agree on interpretations though they may not Students are in role when they speak or move as if they are in the drama world. When they are in role with the rest of the group watching they are performing. When the rest of the group is watching but they are not in role they are publicly sharing. Objective meanings are performed (or publicly shared) as students move and/or talk about the external action of the drama. Subjective meanings are performed (or publicly shared) as students move and/or talk about their internal responses and what the external action means for them personally. When the teacher or students perform (or publicly share) the rest of the group may respond as playwrights by creating drama text (i.e. shared objective meaning); they may respond as audience by creating subjective meaning. They may do both. As the group continues to create drama text the Playmaking Cycle is functioning. Teacher and students perform (or publicly share) and the group either tacitly accepts or explicitly agrees to the drama text Objective meanings may continue to be performed (or publicly shared) and drama text can be created without any interpretations ever being performed (or publicly shared). The group can concentrate on the plot of the drama and only think about the external actions of the people in the drama world; interpretations can be glossed over or ignored. 226
Intopreting happens as students reqjond personally to their own e>q)eriences in role or to others' performances and public sharing. Some students may be interpreting throughout the drama while others may not. Students may clarify or modify their subjective meanings as they are performed (or publicly shared). The responses of the teacher and other students may affect their construction of subjective meaning if these interpretations are reinterpreted. Significant aspects of the model will be described in this final chapter. This study analyzed three drama sessions in depth and these dramas provided representative examples for the model. However, examples from other dramas are used in this chapter, where necessary, to illustrate points which cannot be so clearly argued from the three drama sessions analyzed in detail. This model provides a "deep structure" for drama in education. It does not tell the teacher in a step-by-step way what to do, but rather provides essential basic principles which all teachers who wish to use drama for learning will need to be aware of. The model will be useful both in planning dramas and in making decisions during and after drama sessions. It both allows the teacher to decide which cycle he is promoting and which cycle he needs to promote next. It also provides principles and guidelines for many of the details of promoting these cycles. This model is not presented as a complete guide to structuring. No model could do that In particular, this model does not address the essential aspect of aesthetic structuring in drama. Drama is a group art form in which the teacher is structuring so that students will have aesthetic experiences. The principles used by the teacher for aesthetic structuring need to be the subject of further research. 227
Structuring for Reflection in Drama is Essential "Teacher imposed structure and intervention are not antithetical to successful improvisation; in fact they are critical ingredients. The trick is in knowing what kind, how much and when to impose structure" (Wagner 1990, p. 195). In discussing drama in education, Wagner stresses the necessity for structuring, but unfortunately does not suggest how teachers can know when and how to structure. A major finding of this study is that teacher structuring of tasks and interactions with the students can enable the students individually and as a group to create meaning, but that teachers can also prevent or obstruct the students' meaning making. In this final chapter, as I draw conclusions, I will address the question of how and when the teacher structures the drama. The model which was developed in this study reemphasizes and makes central the need for reflection in drama. Students' movements and interactions can be worthwhile pursuits in themselves, but if students do not also create drama together and interpret what they are making, then there will be no reflection and thus no learning from their experiences. Students could perform but never work together as playwrights or interpret as an audience. In their performances students may reflect, but they may not However, in order to work as playwrights and as audience all students will have the potential to reflect and thus leam fiom the experiences they have in a drama session. Four different ways to structure for reflection were outlined in chapter H. With structure R1 students reflect outside the drama, either after a session or before another. Students can stand outside the drama and look at it as a whole. With structure R2 the students can stand outside the drama temporarily. They can step out of role in order to plan, make agreements, or interpret Structure R3 allows students to plan, agree, interpret etc. in role. They will be reflecting about events in which they are not actually engaged, but now they will be thinking as if they are the people in the drama world. Structure R4 228 requires the students to reflect at the same time as they experience being in an event This is the most difficult structure to maintain because the students are being asked to interpret at the same time as they have the power to act and change the circumstances about which they are reflecting. This study has analyzed how to use these four structures, but has neither systematically analyzed what specific teacher structuring places the students in positions where they reflect in each way, nor analyzed the value of one structure over another at particular phases of a drama. In the Playmaking Cycle the students’ reflections are about the external world of the drama. The students' objective reflections lead them to share their objective meanings and thus create drama text. As the students respond to performances and make suggestions about the external world of the drama and as other students continue to respond to these ideas the students are learning. They are constructing a world together which is formed out of what they already know about the actual world, but is also a new creation formed out of what the students choose to include. The people in the drama worlds in the Heathcote and Arts Dramas faced difficulties and dangers, interacted, told stories, and made decisions. The process of constructing those details required the students' objective reflection and was in itself educational. Wondering how to rescue a person from the water, or how to talk to a person who was upset, or how to test for being ready to read history, all of these required the students to rethink what they already knew, think of new ideas, and thus construct new imderstandings for the particular circumstances in the drama world. In doing all of this creation of the external world of the drama the students were not only drawing on their individual objective meanings and understandings about the actual world, they were also drawing on all their subjective meanings which include their feelings, assumptions and attitudes about tlie world outside the classroom. Their assumptions and attitudes to testing, or the division of land began to be shared in these 229 dramas. Students' feelings about art or about how to deal with someone who is upset informed their decisions about the drama text which was being created. All of these result in the students not only taking actions and decisions in the drama but also having experiences. However, for learning to occur, experiences are not enough; the students must reflect upon their experiences. In the Interpreting Cycle the students begin to reflect about what the events in the drama mean for them; they interpret the drama text which they are creating. In the Heathcote and Arts Dramas the students constructed subjective meanings as they thought about about how they had changed since coming to the new land, or about what dividing land meant to them, or what needed to be remembered about a story, or how valuable a photograph would be on a trip to a new planet They began to think about v at all these events meant for them and this was subjective reflection. If they had created the drama text some students would also have been able to interpret their own ideas and attitudes which had led to particular decisions becoming objective meaning. Those students were able to examine and interpret their own meanings which had become part of a performance or public sharing. In interpreting, the students were learning because they were looking beneath the external details to the meaning for them. In some cases the students might have begun to rethink what they had assumed or they might have begun to look at a problem in a new way. Though the teacher can never be certain what experiences and realizations students are having, what is important is that if the drama is structured so that the students have opportunities to reflect, then the teacher knows that the students will at least have the opportunity to make connections, clarify ideas, or reach new understandings. If teachers do not structure drama for reflection then they are leaving students to do so on their own. 230
Some students will, but many will not. For drama to be educational, the teacher must create opportunities for every student to reflect and this model illustrates how teachers can structure for this to happen. Thus, though drama can be used for other purposes including language use, the study of information, movement, and presenting a script, unless the teacher structures for reflection the students will not be learning by constructing new ideas or discovering what their experiences mean for them. The model of structuring for reflection and learning proposes that students must reflect Their objective reflections enable them to create the drama text and their subjective reflections enable them to interpret Though this model usefully separates out the objective and the subjective, it also suggests the interplay between them. Students draw on both their ideas and feelings as they perform or publicly share ideas and responses. They may be thinking about the external world of the drama but often be making internal realizations which are never shared. In moments of subjective reflection the students may respond in a way which leads them to act in a particular way or make suggestions about what should be done in the drama. Much of this will be unconscious, but because of the students' awareness of the dual reality of the drama and the actual worlds, much will be conscious. In drama however, rather than just talking about their ideas and feelings, students can carry those responses into actions in the drama which can then be examined for meaning in reflection. In their reflections as students construct their "personal knowledge" (Polanyi) there is no genuine distinction between the meaning for students of the external world of the drama and their personal internal realizations. However, for the teacher it is extremely important to distinguish between the two. 231
Distinguishing Between Objective and Subjective Reflection I began this study knowing that I wanted students to reflect I knew that if I structured dramas so that the students were thinking about the events in the drama world then they would be reflecting. However, I did not distinguish between objective and subjective reflection. I was not looking for opportunities to promote subjective reflection nor was I listening to see if students were interpreting or might interpret particular events. Further, I did not even recognize when students were interpreting; the Dungeon Drama was an example of this. When Leslie began to question the morality of what she was being asked to do with the prisoners, she was interpreting. However, rather than being ready to support and encourage subjective reflection, and hearing that this was exactly what she was doing, I responded by thinking that she was taking the drama in a different direction. Not being aware of the difference meant that I could not be aware of the need to structure for both types of reflection. When I was structuring drama effectively and enabling the students to reflect, what I did not realize was that when students are reflecting they may only be thinking about what they have done, are doing, or might do, rather than how they respond personally to these actions. In other words, they may be only making objective as opposed to subjective meanings. It did not occur to me that even if I structured for reflection that the students could spend their whole time reflecting about present details, past events, or possible actions but never reflect about what all this action might mean for them personally. The Heathcote Drama illustrates how skillfully the teacher may have to structure in order to bring about subjective reflection; students resisted this and repeatedly return to the facts and events themselves rather than how they felt about what happens on the drama world. 232
When I was unaware of the importance of the difference, I structured for reflection but the students often did not interpret For example, in one kindergarten I worked in, the children made most of the decisions about where they should search foi a lost girl and what they would find. They found her footprints on the sand, searched for her in a boat, and rescued her from drowning. However, they never thought about what all this meant for them as children or as the police officers they were imagining they were. They did not speculate about why she might have left her parents nor did they advise the parents or the little girl about their behavior. The students were reflecting but this was apparently only objective reflection. The drama was educational because the students were problem solving and creating a great deal of objective meaning. However, the drama was not structured for students' subjective reflections since the students were never asked to interpret what was h^pening in the drama. As another example, a third grade class set up tableaux which showed different group plans for how they might steal a magic wand. They shared and enthusiastically talked about their tableaux for over an hour without ever wondering why the magician might be misusing the power of the wand, or justifying why they had the right to take it The meanings each group of students created were all objective in the sense that that they were all to do with external actions in each drama world. The students never publicly touched on how anyone felt about such past, present, or proposed actions. Though their responses were individual, no one ever really shared their personal feelings. No subjective meanings were shared. By contrast, as I showed in my analysis of the Heathcote Drama and the Arts Drama, both dramas ended with drama text being performed which led to students' subjective reflections as they interpreted. In the Heathcote Drama the students agreed on exactly how the land would be divided; then they were asked to interpret if in doing so they 233 had communicated. In the Arts Drama the students' histories of the planet were read aloud and then interpreted for the truths contained in them which must never be forgotten. In both cases these subjective meanings were performed as students spoke allowing for the possibility of furiher interpretation. It was at these points in the drama that the students had the opportunity as spectators to think more deeply about "communication" or "what must be remembered." If the dramas had not been structured for interpretation, the students would have made up their plays together but they would not have been enabled to construct some personal meaning about such important matters as they contemplated their actions. Heathcote (1984) has noted the importance of such moments when "we reflect upon nature, people's affairs, ideas and behaviour. What a force for a nation, apparently to stand aside, but in reality take an inward look at events" (1984, p. 177). A major difference between my structuring of the Dungeon Drama and the Arts Drama was that I was only intending to structure for reflection in the former, but consciously structuring for subjective reflection in the later. During data analysis I have become even more aware of how teachers need to be aware that students may interpret at any time, that they should support interpretations when students volunteer them, promote interpretation when possible, but also stmcture specifically for it to occur. As was noted in chapter II, Bolton categorizes subjective reflection into "personal," "universal," and "analogous." Categorizing the meanings students construct in reflection further than the broad categories of subjective and objective was beyond the scope of this study, however, further research could be carried out into the usefulness and inclusiveness of Bolton's categories. I now realize that it is important for the teacher to structure drama so that both the Playmaking and the Interpreting Cycles are functioning. Left to themselves the students will tend to be concerned with plot. However, teachers may also inadvertently keep 234 directing student attention to events in the drama world and stop students thinking about what these events mean for them personally. Further, the teacher needs to be aware of which cycle he intends the students to be engaged in as well as which cycle they are actually engaged in. The Heathcote Drama showed how the teacher may attempt to promote interpretation while the students continue to create drama text Every interaction could lead to objective and/or subjective reflection. Even though the students are reflecting in one way does not mean that they will continue to do so. Teachers needs to know what they want the students to be doing and why they want them to do that. They need to be aware of the students' responses in order to assess whether there was objective or subjective reflection. Teachers need to decide whether or not to set a task or interact to promote one or the other types of reflection. The students are "spectators" of performances or public sharing. As spectators they may reflect as playwrights and begin to create drama text, or they may reflect as an audience and begin to interpret The two cycles in the model of structuring for reflection reminds the teacher of these two different directions which the drama can take at any moment Teachers may want the students to create drama text or they may want to see if they will interpret. Also, though teachers may plan for interpreting, the students may actually continue with playmaking. Teachers need to listen carefully and watch how students respond in order to know which cycle a student is on and which direction to take the drama in next.
There Must be a Drama Text Created bv All the Students Every drama has a drama world which is created in the imaginations of the students. Students will create their individual objective meanings as they imagine the drama world but there will also be many shared objective meanings of certain facts and events of the drama world. This is the drama text which is created throughout the drama 235 and which students will be able to interpreL If there is little or no drama text created by the students, then they will be very limited in what they may interpret because each student will be restricted to whatever ideas they each have rather than being able to interpret other people's ideas. Also, by sharing ideas and allowing the students to interact this results in more complex and interesting ideas which everyone can think about The model of structuring for reflection is useful because it emphasizes that drama text is shared meaning and that it is continually created throughout a session. The model also emphasizes the centrality of ideas becoming public. Though students will think of their own ideas about the drama world, these will not be shared ideas unless they are performed in role or publicly shared. Students create drama text together as they reflect on the performances or public sharing of the teacher or students and tacitly accept it or explicitly agree to it
Wavs in which drama text can be created It is useful for teachers to be aware that there are thus eight ways in which drama text can be created. There are four ways in which objective meaning can be made public: The teacher performs objective meaning; Student(s) perform objective meaning; The teacher publicly shares objective meaning; Student(s) publicly share objective meaning; and two ways in which the whole group shares objective meanings: The students tacitly accept the drama text; The students explicitly agree to the drama text. The first session of the Arts Drama is an example of how much tacit acceptance there can be in a drama when teachers were performing (as applicants on video tape.) 236
However, the Dungeon Drama is a reminder of how the teacher can be imposing ideas on the students rather than making suggestions for their acceptance. The second session of the Arts Drama is an example of tacit acceptance when students were performing (viewing the tableaux). The drama about the lost girl referred to above is a more active example. No one in the kindergarten class disputed that one of them had seen footprints in the sand, or that there was a boat they could borrow. These details were all tacitly accepted as part of the drama text The students came up with these ideas as they imagined they were searching for the girl In the Dungeon Drama the teacher came out of the drama and attempted to create drama text through public sharing (the fact that there were prisoners in the dungeon), but what would have been more appropriate would have been asking for the students to explicitly agree to drama text so that they could have been part of the decision and ihey could have made suggestions. This happened in other dramas, for example in the drama about the lost girl the students agreed that they wanted to find the little girl alive. Similarly, I have found that as teacher when I want to redirect the students one way in which I can do this is to narrate a basic idea which gives a direction for the drama text but allows the students to create whatever details they want. For example, "The police officers looked out to sea. And what did they see?"
Explicit agreements are important The teachers in all three dramas asked out of role for explicit agreement at the beginning of the dramas. Apart fixjm these preliminary agreements, explicit agreements are important if there is likely to be confusion, disagreement, or if there is no apparent tacit acceptance. It is also important if the teacher intends to structure for students' subjective reflections on particular details of the drama text. 237
Confusion could have probably been avoided in the Dungeon Drama if I had stopped the drama and reached an explicit agreement on what the students wanted there to be in the dungeon and what they wanted to happen after they found the door locked. The consequences of such confusion in the Dungeon Drama was a loss of interest; in one drama with a group of first grade girls, however, confusion lead to a collapse of part of the drama world- We were "up the beanstalk" together. I had narrated a story of how Jack had gone off to the big city and thought that the students had accepted that Jack was no longer around. When I, in role as the giant, had locked up the students in role as villagers, I suddenly discovered that half of the students thought that Jack was still up the beanstalk and that rather than coming up to take the giant's gold, they said that they had come to rescue Jack. At this point they began to talk out of role and the dramatic moment dissipated. Because I had not asked the group explicitly to agree to an important premise of the drama there was confusion at this later crucial stage which could have been avoided. In the Dungeon Drama there was disagreement about what to do once the door was discovered locked. The teacher could have asked in or out of role whether the students agreed to a particular course of action. By not doing so there was a danger of slipping into students yelling ideas at each other, separate action by different students (both of which occured in other dramas), or the teacher waiting until a solution he favored was mentioned (as h^pened in the Dungeon Drama). The Dungeon Drama is an example of a drama where there was clearly no general tacit acceptance of the drama text that there were prisoners who needed to be moved in silence. An out of role discussion could have clarified matters and avoided some of the student opposition which began to develop. Thus, teachers need to be aware that they may diink that there is tacit acceptance when them actually is not I have learned to check all the eyes of the students because this usually indicates if there are those who may be 238 unacceptmg in which case the teacher can come out of the drama and negotiate an explicit agreement Discussing the concern in role, or coming out of role, actually strengthens the commitment to the work since students who are unsure about a decision have been allowed to share their concerns and in many cases influence the drama text by sharing other interesting ideas which the group agreed to. For example, in a drama with third graders about settlers and natives, when I noticed a student who looked unsure about our agreement to be friends with the natives, I stopped to ask what he thought He suggested that we should take an oath not to attack each other which they all agreed we should do. In the Heathcote Drama the teacher was careful to have student explicit agreement to the division of land before asking the students to interpret what they had done to consider if they had communicated. Having got their agreement any subsequent actions had to be consistent with any agreement and all the students had to take responsibility of their decisions. In the second session of the Arts Drama the students writing also fixed certain events which the students could then interpret in the following session. By contrast, in the drama about settlers and natives, I omitted to get their agreement that new settlers had already bought land in the only place left for building: the land they had exclusively reserved for the natives. When the newcomers arrived, the existing settlers took them into their homes and avoided my plan of them having to choose between honoring their agreement with the natives and the newcomers need to build homes.
Protection for the students The need for students’ objective meanings to be made public either in or out of role, raises the whole question of protection for the students which is hardly addressed in this study. Heathcote (1984) and Bolton (1984) touch on the need to protect students but much more research could be done to discover how students may be protected from feeling exposed and yet allow them to fuUy experience and reflect within the drama. 239
During this study, as I noticed students who were shy, embarrassed, or "showing- off” in front or their peers I realized more deeply the importance of protecting the students. Though performing or public sharing is essential, this can be done in many different ways apart from students talking in role. For example, students can make something and then refer to it in their performance. They can prepare and then perform tableaux, they can talk about a map they have made, or read an oath they have written. Also, if teachers are asking students to perform then they must consider the demands different tasks make on the students. Teachers need to be aware of how they can vary demands as necessary for particular students or circumstances and be sensitive to students' apparent abilities. Students can also perform in words only (for example as if on the radio) or in movement only (for example in a dream sequence).
Structuring for Reflection is Not Dominating Students During the course of this study I learned a great deal about the difference between teacher structuring which enables students to experience, perform, and reflect and teacher structuring which dominates and stifles the students' responses. The model of structuring for reflection does not suggest that the teacher takes the students through particular processes. On the contrary, it is the students who must experience, reflect, agree to the drama text, and interpret Though the teacher will reflect, perform and publicly share, this is to enable the students to reflect and not to tell the students what to do or how to interpret Different aspects of teacher structuring will now be considered: student experiences, the purpose of teacher reflection, the purpose of teacher performances/public sharing, educational aims, and students questioning domination. 240
The students must have experiences Students create meaning when they reflect on the experiences they have in the drama. The teacher cannot make students have experiences nor can he reflect for them. The students must do these for themselves. What is significant for the students is not taking action in the drama or being present at an event, but having an experience which they may then reflect upon. It is not enough for the students to appear to be involved in the drama or to be following the teacher's instructions. There are two ways in which students can have experiences: as participants and as spectators. The students must be sufficiently engaged so that they have experiences as participants in the tasks which are inside the drama. As well as this when there are performances or public sharing, the students can experience as spectators. Thus the students must not merely witness events or just be physically present, the students must have experiences as the drama is created. The Dungeon Drama illustrates what can happen when the teacher wants the students to have an experience about which they can reflect but ignores student responses which suggest that the students are not engaged. The students may lose interest if their ownership is undermined. Though the teacher can prepare material and activities hoping and expecting that the students will become engaged, if the students are not interested then the teacher has no alternative but to change the task. The second session of the Arts Drama is an illustration of that. In the second session of the Arts Drama the teacher was structuring so tiiat the students would experience what it was like to be on the planet by being in the tableaux and also by looking at others' tableaux. In the third session the students were both inside the 241 time capsule and spectators of the writing when it was read. They had the opportunity to experience as participants and as spectators.
If the teacher reflects this is to enable the students to reflect The teacher’s objective reflections can lead to the creation of drama text when these are performed. The Dungeon Drama illustrates how this can lead to student loss of interest if the teacher is not sure that the students are tacitly accepting this. The Heathcote Drama illustrates how little the teacher actually needs to perform; this same drama and the Arts Drama illustrated how students can be helped to create drama text if they are reticent about performing. The teacher’s subjective reflections are probes to see if the students wiU interpret and are not to tell the students what they should think. The underlying question which the teacher asks should be "How do you interpret?" rather than telling them "I interpret this way. Do you agree?" In the Dungeon Drama the teacher imposing his interpretations and even tried to stifle student subjective meaning by performing his own interpretation. By contrast, in the first session of the Arts Drama when the students interpreted the video tape of the photographer, the teacher pressed for further reflection by opposing students ideas as he performed his subjective reflections; he did so, however, for the purpose of promoting students' interpretations.
Performances/Public Sharing are to enable the students to reflect In drama in education the teacher cannot avoid performing or publicly sharing because he is a participant in the process of creating the drama both in and out of role.
Equally he cannot avoid making decisions about what students pay attention to. The Arts and Heathcote Drama are filled with examples of how the teacher performed and thereby enabled the students to reflect There is a danger, however, that 242 rather than enabling students to create drama text and interpret that he can dominate the drama by imposing his ideas on the group or rejecting the students' ideas. My analysis of the Dungeon D rama illustrates how in my interactions with the students I used my status in role (and out of role) to dominate the students and reject their ideas and interpretations. I was did not hear what some students were actually saying and thus ntissed moments of interpretation. In the Dungeon Drama the underlying questions were asking students to accept what I was presenting to them, whereas in the Arts Drama the underlying questions were asking students what they thought and felt Domination by the teacher can also be more subtle, however. Part of the reason why I rejected students ideas in the Dungeon Drama was because I was waiting for responses which I considered appropriate answers to my underlying questions. Rather than accept the first ideas which they suggested and seeing if they were all agreed, I waited until I heard a suggestion which fitted with my idea and accepted that As another example of this, in a drama where the students were in role as villagers who had killed all the tigers in a forest, in my analysis I discovered that when the students were in role as animals in the forest, I rejected many of their ideas because they were violent I realized that I was actually waiting for a student to propose a solution of which I approved. Other teachers have related similar stories or rejection where, for example, they actually say "No" to the students' plans to kill the giant by "wondering" if that is a good idea. It is interesting to compare these interactions with what Rogers, Green, and Nussbaum (1990) illustrate can happen in literature "discussions." These may actually become little more than the teacher asking questions in order to direct the students to the teacher's interpretation which is the "preferred response" she is waiting for. 243
The educational aim is a constraint on students' responses and experiences Though the teacher wants the students to experience and reflect, this does not mean that the students can do anything they want When the teacher has a clear educational aim this guides the teacher’s structuring and leads to imposing limits which will enable the students to create drama text and/or interpret In all three dramas it was shown how the teacher's structuring of tasks into phases was guided by the educational aim for each session. Each task constrained student responses as to what might be appropriate. However, without a clear educational aim the teacher cannot assess whether or not a response is appropriate or potentially useful and cannot choose an appropriate next task or interaction. For example, in one session of a drama, the students who were in role as villagers met me in role as a stranger. 1 had no clear idea of why we were meeting. During five minutes the students' attention shifted between suggesting they show me the village, wanting to buy my Jeep, wondering how 1 had been able to drive there, seeing if 1 had a gun, and becoming suspicious. The teacher sets the students tasks and also shifts their attention during interactions by asking different underlying questions. In doing so he decides (or allows) when they move from one activity to the next and he decides whether and how to intervene in any interaction. For example, in the second session of the Arts Drama, the teacher's educational aim was for the students to create a history of the planet. When the students had difficulty in telling a story together, he shifted them to the task of drawing. Once some images were shared he shifted them to creating tableaux. The underlying question during the sharing of the tableaux was, "What happened and how did you feel?" He shifted their attention during the sharing of all four photographs, but was always enabling the students to answer the same underlying question and thereby have an experience of part of their history of the planet 244
Though it is the educational aim which guides the teacher in these decisions, at the same time the teacher must balance this with being open to new possibilities which the students suggest The Dungeon Drama illustrated how closed the teacher may be to new possibilities. Thus, there is a danger to be avoided that the teacher may be manipulating the students to respond in ways in which the teacher wants. Practices like this have led educators like Boomer to criticize Heathcote as being a "manipulator" and drama in general as not being an open negotiation about what is to be learned. He argues (1982) that in "negotiating the curriculum" with students that the teacher should be open about any principles and concepts which are aims for a lesson. As was discussed in chapter II however, Heathcote has stressed that structuring to enable students to respond is not the same as manipulating the students to a predetermined position or viewpoint "I spend my time structuring to leave holes very carefully, so that people fill them with their own moment of discovery. It looks like interfering because the structure is there" (1982, p. 41). Teachers need, therefore, to keep their attention on both the students' interests and on the educational aim. Then they can see how the students are responding, ensure that they are accepting what is happening, and enable the students to reflect. The Heathcote Drama and the Arts Drama both illustrate how much freedom within constraints the students did have to interpret and create drama text. What those constraints and limits are and how the teacher knows how to impose them is a topic for further research. However, though the teacher may be able to structure without manipulating, the question also remains if and how the teacher can do this and yet remain open about the concepts and principles which she wants the students to consider. To what extent would it have been possible, for example, to tell the students in the 245
Heathcote Drama in advance that they were going to consider the question of their communication over the division of land? Though the teacher needs to be wary of dominating the class, a related concern is the danger that by allowing students to perform or publicly share that they will actually end up dominating others in the group or the group as a whole by imposing their ideas. How the teacher structures so that this does not happen is another topic for further research.
Students in reflection can actuallv begin to question domination Paradoxically, teacher structuring can actually enable students to consider domination. The aim of the Dungeon Drama was for the students to begin to question an arbitrary use of power. Though in that particular drama session the students did not begin to do that, in a later session they did and they presented their demands to the king. "King, if you want to remain King of England treat your people with respect" They agreed that this meant, "You can’t throw people in the dungeon for an unnecessary reason" and they then proceeded to discuss what were necessary and unnecessary reasons. Heathcote's description of her own work could be applied to what was happening here. "The teacher wanted them to take over her power. Not the power to control the quality of the experience (no teacher can abdicate from that) but the power to influence their own construct of the meaning in the event" (1984, p. 132). What can happen in the drama lesson can be paralleled with what critical theorists argue should be happening in schools. Critical theorists like Giroux, McLaren, Freire, Apple, and others, want to empower students to question the power structures in society. As McLaren (1989. p. 173) puts it, "Because I did not teach my students to question the prevailing values, attitudes, and social practices of the dominant society in a sustained critical manner, my classroom preserved the hegemony of the dominant culture." McLaren highlights one of the problems of encouraging students to question authority in the 246 classroom when he continues, "Such hegemony was contested when the students began to question my authority by resisting and disrupting my lessons." In drama, however, the students can question, but they do so within the drama world and in their interpretations they may begin to draw parallels with the actual world in which they live. How far drama could be used as a critical pedagogy is another interesting topic for future research.
Students Mav Reflect at Any Time A significant finding of this study was realizing that students may reflect at any time. As has been demonstrated, if the students are not reflecting to create drama text they will probably lose interest or be just following the directions of the teacher and be learning very little. What also became clear in analysis were the many opportunities for subjective reflection. Since interpretation is a goal then students need to reflect and consider what the events of the drama text mean for them. Though there have to be some events to think about, it is not necessary to wait until the drama is over, or until "enough" drama text has been created, since as long as the students are experiencing they can interpret. The Arts Drama illustrates how this can happen very early on on a drama session. In that case the students had something very rich in potential meaning to interpret (the video tapes of the applicants). As was clear in the second session of the Arts Drama and in the Heathcote Drama, if the students are not forthcoming for whatever reason in working with their own ideas there is little for them to reflect about until they have had a significant experience in the drama. The structuring enabled the students to have more significant experiences than they would by just talking. For example, the teachers enabled the students to have experiences as they reflected on the video tapes in the first session of the Arts Drama, to an 247 extent this happened in the second session, and in the third session students seemed to have had more significant experiences with the dramatic entry into the time capsule.
Conclusion Though objective reflection is important educationally, it will be in subjective reflection that students begin to question their assumptions about the world, periiaps realize that they had a particular attitude, or find that they feel deeply about something which they had barely considered. As teachers we teach who we are and we bring our concerns, beliefs, and passions to the classroom. Our hopes and dreams lead us to spend time creating and exploring other realities with our students. Drama gives us a window to other worlds, but we must remember that though we can help create the windows it is the students who look out, and look in. As Heathcote has said, "When it comes to Interpretation of ideas, it is the child's viewpoint which is important, not the teacher's" (1984, p. 85). As educators, we are privileged to witness and share in the viewpoints of our students. Though we bring our structuring to the classroom we also bring ourselves. We may enable our students to rethink, but if we have been "liberating educators" (Freire) we will also have been changed. As Freire (1973) emphasizes, "The role of the educator is not to 'fill' the educatee with 'knowledge', technical or otherwise. It is rather to attempt to move towards a new way of thinking in both educator and educatee, through the dialogical relationships between both" (p. 125). I would like to thank all those students with whom I have dialogued in person and on tape during the course of this study; you have helped me leam new ways of thinking about structuring drama for reflection and learning. 248
Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research
Teacher-iesearch Stenhouse (1985) argues that research can only markedly improve the art of teaching if it either offers teachers generalizations about cases in sufficiently rich detail to provide teachers with a comparative context in which to better judge examples from their own teaching or if it offers hypotheses whose application can be verified because teachers can test them out in their own classrooms. This study offers teachers such generalizations and hypotheses in the analyses of the three dramas and the model which is presented here. My analysis during data collection perhaps could have been more systematic and rigorous. Other demands often delayed or eliminated my reviewing videotapes. In retrospect, peritaps I could have taught fewer drama lessons and analyzed more during data collection. However, by teaching more I had more data and was more clearly able to see patterns in my teaching during later stages of analyses. I was also able to select examples for detailed analysis from a wider range of drama sessions than would have been the case if I had reduced the amount of my teaching. As this was a teacher-researcher study it is an analysis of only one teacher's work so the results cannot be automatically generalized to other teachers, classes, or places. The drama sessions were conducted in different contexts, in different places and at different times over a two year period, the sessions had different aims, and had students of different ages as participants. All the students in this study were from suburban communities and were predominantly white; there were few students of color though many were students from lower socioeconomic classes. Also, most drama sessions were conducted with intermediate grade students (grades 3-5), other sessions were conducted with special 249 populations ("special needs" and "gifted"), and still others included teachers as part of the group. However, these limitations can also be regarded as strengths because during the course of the study I was hypothesizing, generalizing, testing, applying, and studying the principles of this model. This model was not created in a vacuum, it was generated over many drafts which were tried out and modified in the multiple and varied contexts of classrooms for students in kindergarten through college. This study was also limited by some of the constraints and pressures which every teacher feels. In my own classroom I had so many agenda as a teacher that these would conflict with my needs as a researcher. Everything from forgetting to turn on the camera after talking to a student to feeling pressured to produce writing for display impinged on my decisions as a researcher. In other teachers' classrooms I was often given very limited time and had to end a session inconclusively or found that it took a single session just to get to know a class well enough to plan for them only to find that I was unable to schedule a follow-up session. However, if teachers are to improve they will have to research their own teaching and they will have to do this amongst the everyday classroom with its constant juggling of needs and desires. Drama teachers are no exception to this, and because of the complexity of the medium, studying their own woric might be considered essential if teachers are really to begin to grasp some of the subtleties of teaching through drama. One year of this study was conducted under the typical conditions of a classroom teacher. As such this is a strength of the study that it was not only conducted in others' classrooms. The significance of the researcher being the teacher cannot be over emphasized. Though I would have learned a great deal about drama from watching others at work or 250 viewing video tapes of Heathcote and others, I would not have been able to develop the model presented in this study without studying my own practice. As Stenhouse and other advocates of teacher-research emphasize, the results of a study can be valuable if teachers use them in their analysis of their own teaching. The three examples in this study were chosen carefully, and then described and analyzed in sufficient detail so that readers can see many examples of the generalizations made and teachers can compare with contexts with which they are more familiar. The model can be tested out by teachers in their own classrooms, not in an empirical way, but to assess its usefulness as a way of capturing some of the complexities of planning, teaching, and assessing their drama session. Using the model developed in this study will help teachers to reflect more pointedly on important areas to consider. As Stenhouse stresses, teachers should test out hypotheses in their own classrooms and interpret generalizations in the context of their own practice. Teachers reading this study need to do both of these for its findings to be of any lasting use to them. The model in this study is presented in the hope that teachers will dialogue with it, use it to analyze previous drama sessions, see how useful it is in planning and assessing teaching, but also to add to and amend it In doing so, teachers will be researching their own practice. Hopefully, other teachers will conduct some systematic analysis in order to amend and extend this model of structuring for reflection. Reading this study and applying the model to their own work will help teachers, but what will assist them even more is if they also video tape their own teaching and then honestly critique the effectiveness of "the teacher." In video taping and studying their own classroom practice, teachers will be able to use some of the methodologies for data collection, analyses, and presentation which were developed for this dissertation. Only by reflecting on our practice in a systematic way 251 can we hope to improve as practitioners. However, since drama is so complex our reflections are more productive when there is a record of the teaching. Video does not tell the whole "truth" but it can record what is actually said and done as opposed to what we would have wished had happened. Our selective and protective memories can be debilitating when it comes to rigorous analysis, but without our own honest assessments of how we have enabled students to leam, as well as how we have not, I do not see how we can expect to improve.
Specific directions for further research Directions for further research have already been suggested in this chapter. These, along with related research topics include;
Reflection 1. Bolton has distinguished between personal, universal, and analogous types of subjective reflection. Should that categorization be amended? 2. Four reflection structures have been described in this study. What specific teacher structuring places the students in positions where they reflect in each way? What is the value of one structure over another at particular phases of a drama? 3. How should the model be amended to accommodate the difference between reflecting on the experience of one’s own actions and reflecting on one's experiences of the actions of others? 4. How useful is Schon’s (1983) categorization of different types of reflection: exploratory, move-testing, and hypothesis-testing? 5. How should the model be amended to accommodate an emphasis on problem- generating as well as problem-solving (Schon, 1983; Brookfield, 1987)? 252
6. How should the model be amended to accommodate a dialectical view of reflection and thinking (Paul, 1990; Elbow, 1986)?
Students 1. Does the model need to be amended for students of different ages, or from different socio-economic, or ethnic communities? 2. What is the nature of students' experiences during reflection and of the teacher's structuring? What are students experiencing during and after reflection about themselves, their roles, the drama world, and the actual world? Are students aware of their own ability to influence the creation of drama text and the depth of interpretation? What are students experiences of the teacher's structuring? 3. How protected or exposed do students feel during different tasks? How does protection influence engagement? 4. How does being in role affect reflection and the creation of meaning? In researching student perspectives a methodology which was developed for this study to collect interview data but not used in the analysis could be useful. Students were interviewed as soon after a drama as possible. They were interviewed as they watched sections of video tapes of a session and also encouraged to pause the running of the tape to talk about their experiences at particular moments.
Teachers 1. What are the principles used by teachers for the aesthetic structuring of drama? 2. How does the teacher view the balancing of constraining students’ actions with an aim of not wanting to dominate students by restricting their responses or choices of topic? 253
3. How useful is this model for teachers new to drama in education: novices, experienced teachers, and teachers of creative dramatics interested in drama in education? 4. How useful is drama as a critical pedagogy? Further teacher-researcher studies have been advocated above. In addition, teachers could be interviewed and observed. Collaborative studies between classroom teachers and university faculty could also be productive.
Epilogue "He has to see on his own behalf and in his own way the relations between means and methods employed and the results achieved. Nobody else can see for him, and he can't see just by being 'told,' although the right kind of telling can guide his seeing and thus help him see what he needs to see" (Dewey, 1974, p. 151). My hope is that this study has provided "the right kind of telling" for us as teachers in order that we may become better guides for what we and our students see in our classrooms. In drama we can all see beyond the classroom, because "drama...is an invitation to reflection about the human condition" (Bruner, 1986, p. 128). APPENDIX A FIGURE 2: Teacher Structuring for Reflection
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Hgure 2: Teacher Structuring for Reflection BIBLIOGRAPHY
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