Findings and Hypothesis

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 the MoE (developed by Dorothy Heathcote), as the breaking down of black and white thinking offering a post structuralist view of reality where there are multiple perspectives and truths. Students can explore issues, themes, dilemmas and character motivation. Patrice Baldwin in 'With Drama in Mind' uses a wonderful phrase 'virtual reality internal stimulation' where children can safely explore themselves and their world by being protected in a role and in a fictional context. Through personal experience / anecdotal notes students will inadvertently share the exploration of their internal self while being in role in a fictional context. Richard Deasy sums this up in 'Critical Links' where students involved in drama based pedagogy were better able to comprehend what they are reading along with an increased motivation to learn!

Consequently a potential Hypothesis could be... Can the specific and deliberate use of two types of process drama not only improve Reflective Discussion amongst reluctant contributors but also Critical Literacy.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Evaluation

Image
 Following on from Monitoring, Recording and Tweaking I finally feel I have some semblance of data. So moving forward... Can the specific and deliberate use of two types of process drama not only improve  Reflective Discussion  amongst reluctant contributors but also  Critical Literacy? The work we did as a class on Ahi Ka , Bastion Point was a personal test of the new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum . It allowed us to view both the Nonfictional and Fictional side of Bastion Point from the burial of Michael Joseph Savage to the land occupation. Where:                               I used a type of Drama called ' Mantle of the Expert' (MoE) along with ' Hot Seating'.   MoE allows the student to take on the role of the expert, research, create and present their understanding. Hot Seating allows students to question and find out more information through interrogation. As disc...
Read more

What's going on?

Image
Can development of my students Inferential and Evaluative comprehension skills by integrating Process Drama into the Reading Program improve their Critical Literacy and consequentially their Reading Age? The key question for my Inquiry! For the design and development of a program in response to this question I knew I needed to include both fiction and non fiction, books, articles, short movies/animations... any kind of media I could find that was appropriate and also engaging. Text that could be developed further and had strong themes running through them.  The text/media also needs to support the insertion of process drama throughout creating a link that flows appropriately building understanding of the character, plot and differing perspectives. Alternatively, for non fiction, using dramatic inquiry based tools such as 'Mantle of the Expert.'  Implementation of my change in practise will be noted within each presentation where the text/media will be available alongside the l...
Read more

Pennies for Hitler

Image
“Please keep reading!”  When you hear that you know it’s a goodie!   An afternoon shared book becomes a high stakes piece of classroom literacy and motivation.   Another example of integrating Mitey into the curriculum. Pennies for Hitler, by Jackie French...A story steeped in history just begging to be ripped apart through process drama baring the concepts of war, loss, grief, new beginnings, kindness, compassion and courage. The story explores the ideas of discrimination, hatred and fear of being different. There is the ongoing idea that while hatred is contagious so is love. Discussion was in-depth while writing became purposeful with highly descriptive language articulating the pain and suffering of those caught up in the era. Non-writers became silently obsessed patiently waiting to share their work. Critical moments, in a section of the story, were examined, rationalised for significance, re-created through process drama and expressed in clay. Through hot seating s...
Read more