Setting the Scene

The most eye opening data collected with regards to Critical Literacy would be that from 'Voice Memo'   and the associated 'Anecdotal Notes' where it was made clear that many students were unable to participate in reflective discussion and questioning. For success in comprehension, whether it be evaluative, inferential or critical literacy the ability to question both intra and interpersonally in depth is an advantage. This competence is reflected across literacy in both reading and writing. These findings made me research further into the effectiveness of two particular areas of Process Drama:  Hot Seating and Mantle of the Expert (MoE) Both of types of drama provide an excellent opportunity for reflective discussion.  Both Hot Seating and MoE allow for the exploration of multiple perspectives which can be adopted to strengthen view points with the opportunity to walk in other peoples shoes. Viv Aitken in 'Connecting Curriculum Linking Learning,' discusses ...

Preliminary Findings Individually, each piece of data informs different strengths and weaknesses in the different areas, however there is a cumulative effect. During 'Hot Seating' the first Voice Memo seemed to be very constrained with one question / one response being recorded by the whole class. Questions were asked in isolation with no follow up or follow through to  'find out more' by digging deeper in particular areas.  Anecdotally, while watching movement and process while creating a 'Postcard ' (where one child is added at a time to replicate a given scene), some students were unable to physically express  themselves as part of a group interpreting a before and after scene. This alluded to the fact that they were unaware of the physical surroundings being portrayed in the story and as such were unable to mentally re-create the situation using spontaneous flexible problem solving.  Following two very disruptive years differing  PAT Reading Comprehension ...