Strategy Central

Drama is a mandatory part of the curriculum! 
Have you read something like, 
"B1.1 engage in dramatic play and role play, with a focus on exploring a variety of sources from diverse communities, times, and places" or "B1.2 demonstrate an understanding of the element of character by adopting thoughts, feelings, and gestures relevant to the role being played" or perhaps "B1.4 communicate feelings and ideas to a familiar audience (e.g., classmates) using a few simple visual or technological aids to support and enhance their drama work" and it left you feeling a little stumped for ideas on how to incorporate these into your classroom? No need to fret! There are oodles of ideas right here in one convenient place. If there aren't enough resources here, make sure to check out: 
http://dramaresource.com/

Mirroring: This is a great way to have students express how they are feeling. They can choose any kind of movements they like, they might match movement to music or attach their movements to a feeling. Either way, one person gets to invent the movements and face a partner doing so. The partner will mirror that persons movements. 

Gibberish:This is a great strategy for helping to demonstrate how a character might feel or think. You can really see what the students are thinking when they take part in this activity. One student makes up gibberish noises and gestures, while the other student interprets it and basically does a voice narration for the nonsense. This can be done as a group of 4 so that a conversation is entirely interpreted.

Guided Visualization: This is when a teacher or student uses descriptive language to create a word picture of a physical setting and/or historical context in which action takes place. This can be a great addition to a language lesson. 

Hot Seating: This is where 1 person sits in a "hot seat" and is drilled with spontaneous questions. The person in the hot seat must be in role and improvise answers.

Teacher In Role: This is when the teacher exits the room as the teacher but comes back into the room in some sort of role, and does not break character. This is a lot of fun. I have used this with Grade 2 students and it worked like a charm. Kept the students engaged for the whole lesson and wanting to answer me. Taking on a different voice makes this fun!

Exquisite Corpse: This is where everyone draws the top half of a monster and then folds the paper so that someone else has to draw the bottom half without knowing what the top half looks like. These pictures can be used as characters in a drama class/scene. This is a great way to incorporate visual arts into drama as well. 
This is what one of the exquisite corpses in my class turned out as:

Soundscape: When a combination of sounds (this can be vocal sounds or instrumental) make up the atmosphere or background noise of a scene. This can be a great addition to a language lesson too. Looking at a picture in a story and having the students make a soft soundscape when you read can really add depth to a read aloud. 

Corridor of Voices/Voice Alley: This is where a character is chosen to walk through a human corrider (formed by two parallel lines of people touching hands). The people forming the corridor shout out thoughts and feelings. If you are going to have the student shout negative things, have the character be a puppet and just be walked through by a student. That way negative things aren't being said directly to the student which could be hurtful. You can have everyone go through the voice alley by having the pair at the front enter and attach at the end of the alley so that it's a continuous alleyway. This was a really fun strategy that I personally enjoyed taking part in. I think students of all ages would like this. This would be especially useful as a strategy in language. You can really play with the characters in stories through this strategy.

Flash Forward/Flash Back: This is where a student takes a theme or story and acts it out in fast motion, slow motion, forwards, backwards, can be paused to be like a tableaux. It is like someone is a remote control calling out orders and everyone else has to follow them.

Magic Hands: This is a strategy done in pairs or in groups. One person is chosen to be the controller. This person controls how the other people will move based on their hand movements. The people being controlled must mimic the hand with their whole bodies. This was a very therapeutic strategy for me.

Alter-Ego: This is when three people form a small group. One person is the body who stands in the middle, and the other two people stand on either side of the body. Those 2 people have a debate and the person in the middle must act as each person talks. It is similar to the idea of an angel and devil conscience on either side.

Fish Bowl: Have your students make a small circle of chairs (4) in a circle and have a conversation about whatever topic you choose, on the outside the rest of the class will be in a circle, and they will tap out the 4 students in the fishbowl, and enter. Thus everyone gets a chance to be a part of the conversation!

The Wave: Students make a line against a wall and walk shoulder to shoulder in sync to a parallel wall. While walking any students who wish to do so can drop out of the wave into a tableaux based on a predetermined theme.

Living Venn Diagram: This is essentially creating a Venn Diagram on the floor and allowing students to physically place themselves in the appropriate spot. This can be done with something as simple as tape. 
This is great for your bodily-kinisthetic learners! The great part about this is that it can be used in any curriculum subject where you want to compare and contrast something! In the picture below T stood for Theatre and D stood for Drama, the centre column was for both. The teacher read a statement and we decided whether it fit under drama, theatre or both!

Count it up: This is a great strategy to use when you want your class to work together or be in sync. Everyone gets into a circle and closes their eyes. The object is to count to ten (or any number of your choosing), as a group. The tricky part is, only one person can talk at a time, if two people say the same number then you have to start again!
This was a lot of fun even as adults! This is something that all the grades could have fun doing, and is great for transitions. 

Position Mapping: This is a visual representation of how one feels about something. For instance you could put a chair in the middle of the room and have students stand by it in relation to how they feel about the chosen theme. For instance "How comfortable do you feel about drama" the closer you are to the chair the more you feel comfortable, the further away the less comfortable you feel. 
This is something that I think is a great diagnostic test that gives students a chance to get up and move instead of just written work. This could give you an idea of how much your students know about a specific topic before you start diving into it, and even after! 

Pop-Up Story: This is a really fun strategy that I really liked! This is done when each character is played by a student. The teacher reads a story and after each page the group of characters form a tableau for the page. Like a pop up picture. This minimizes the need for the pictures of a story to be shown and will help avoid that little voice "I can't see the pictures". In the photos below you can see the 4 characters waiting to pop up and then  2 characters have 'popped up' from their seat to create a tableau for the page that was just read.

 













Tableaux: a group of silent motionless figures used to represent a scene, theme or abstract idea or an important moment  

Blow it Up: makes the tableaux bigger

Purpose: to interpret information and to communicate non-verbally to express oneself and formulate opinions

Elements of Tableaux

Character/Role	Who? What?	When? Where?	Why? How?
Level	High	Medium	Low
Expression	Open	Neutral	Closed
Gesture	Relaxed	Neutral	Tense
Space	Expanded	Neutral	Confined

Caption Making: This is doing a tableaux but with a caption written on a piece of paper and held for the rest of the audience to see. It gives the tableaux some clarification.