Drama Week 4

For warm up in todays drama class we did an activity called 'Fill in the Space' which I thought was fun. It is an activity where the class forms a circle and one person enters the middle and strikes a tableaux pose. Then, another student comes into the middle of the circle and, using the first students pose, creates their own pose that works off of the first pose. I think this is a fun idea that allows for students to share their creativity and imagination. This could be modified for students by explaining the poses for students with visual impairments.

The theory that we focused on today was the Multimodal Theory, in which students can create in any order that they wish, using elements from their life etc, to create a final product.

The group this week focused their presentation on FNMI and integrating FNMI issues and topics into the drama classroom. The group used a FNMI book as their inspiration and led the class in a number of different activities. One of the activities that I particularly liked was Graffiti, which called for us to paint a scene from the book using different levels. We didn't actually paint the scene, but we imagined we were graffitiing a wall with our images. I think that this was a great activity and the group did a great job of integrating social studies into the drama activities. 

The curriculum element that we focused on today was the process of BACKWARD DESIGN. Backward design is a topic that we have focused on a lot in our time at Brock, and it revolves around knowing what you want your final outcome to be, and then planning to teach your students to that final goal, giving them all the necessary tools along the way to complete the final activity or project. 

This week we focused on modifying for students with ADD and ADHD. One of the strategies that Melissa put forth that I think was really good was allowing students to use their fidget tools, playdoh, manipulatives etc in the drama classroom. If these little tools will help a child focus, taking them away from them will not do you any good, and in fact will probably only negatively effect both you and the student.