Meeting and Becoming People

 
 

1. Collective Role

In a collective role several people simultaneously take on a single role. A collective role could involve two people, a small group or a whole class. The strategy allows shared ownership of a role and requires shared responsibility for making it work. Classes coming to collective roles for the first time might find the following guidelines helpful:

  • Always refer to yourself as ‘I’ and ‘me’, not ‘we’ and ‘us.

  • Even though you are in a group try to imagine that there is only one of you present.

  • Sit or stand close to the other members of the collective role.

  • Try to share the talking opportunities. As teacher you can impose a rule that no member of the collective can make two consecutive contributions. You can also help to distribute participation by aiming questions and comments at individual members of the collective or giving an object that is passed around and setting a rule that only the person holding the object speaks.

2. Role on the Wall

This strategy enables a class to collate and display what is known about a character at particular points in the drama. Normally a drawn outline of the character is displayed and participants in the drama are invited to write things that are known about the character on adhesive labels. When stuck around the outline, the labels provide an audit of shared information. Different coloured labels can be used to record ‘things we know’ (referential), ‘things we think we know’ (inferential) and ‘things’ we’d like to know’ (inquisitorial).

3. Role sculpture

Role sculpture is a way of allowing members of a whole class or a smaller group to contribute to a collective role-building and to deepen their understanding of a role. Having encountered a character in a drama, individual members of a group come into a central space one by one and freeze in a still shape which embodies something about the character. Piece by piece the sculpture emerges until the whole group has joined it. Digital photographs taken from different angles enable all participants to observe, discuss and evaluate the finished sculpture.

4. Teacher in Role

Teacher in Role (TiR) involves the teacher entering the drama by taking on a role alongside the children. This can be the most important and effective strategy available to the drama teacher. TiR can be of high status (giving instructions, imparting information, setting challenges to be met or problems to be solved) or of lower status (asking for help, seeking advance or following instructions).

Before taking on a TiR a teacher needs to:

  • Know the function of the role (e.g. to inform, to advance the story, to find out what the children have understood, to build tension, to present a challenge)

  • Decide how to clearly sign the role so that the children will know exactly who the TiR is supposed to be, for example, ‘so when I sit down in this chair (or put on this hat or come through that door) I will become…….’

  • Ensure that the pupils know exactly who they are going to be while the teacher is in role. Are they also taking on roles or are they intereacting with the TiR as themselves?

  • Adopt a commitment to the role. Brilliant acting is not required but a seriousness of purpose will make the TiR ‘live for the children.