PROCESS DRAMA

PROCESS DRAMA STRATEGIES

#1   A DARK, DARK TALE

On a dark, dark street

There was a dark, dark house.

In the dark, dark house

There was a dark, dark room.

In the dark, dark room

There was a dark, dark cupboard.

In the dark, dark cupboard

There was a dark, dark shelf.

On the dark, dark shelf

There was a dark, dark bottle.

And in the dark, dark bottle…

Suggested Activities:

1. Read aloud or make copies available. Students pretend that they are holding the bottle that was found in the dark, dark house. Teacher, as curator of the local museum, have come to interview the students about the bottle, which has not been opened. ( Teacher-in-role, Questioning)
2. Still in role, teacher announces that a label ‘Do not open’ has been found on the bottle/a message has been found in each bottle. Students discuss in pairs whether to open the bottle/what the message contains.
3. Create detective agencies to investigate strange happenings since the opening of the bottle. Students can get into roles as secret agents, paranormal experts, ghost hunters, etc. (Mantle of the Expert, Questioning, Role-playing)
4. Students can draw what they think emerges from the bottle and build a story about the bottle’s past.

 

#2 A WATCHYAMACALLIT

Is there a watchyamacallit inside your head?

Is it small and blue or big and red?

Can you use it on Tuesdays to brush your hair?

Can you use it to sit on instead of a chair?

Did you see someone use one while painting a wall?

Was it made from an eraser or a rubber ball?

Is the watchyamacallit something heavy or light?

Is it used to make our world turn bright?

Is it a contraption to catch a wee mouse?

Or an elephant scrubber as big as a house?

Make your invention from any junk that you find.

A watchyamacallit grows and grows in your mind.

Suggested Activities:

1.  Students become expert inventors and create a watchyamacallit out of any materials they wish. They should create the one item that they think is missing from this world.
2.  Students work in small groups as expert inventors in an Inventors Convention. Each must explain how the watchyamacallit works and why it would be useful to the world. (Questioning, Mantle of the Expert, Hot-Seating)
3. Students can create a watchyamacallit museum in the classroom, displaying their inventions (Tableau, Designing)

 

# 3 - THE GREBIGOL

The typhoon has left its mark on the land. The hills and valleys are empty, desolate and stark. Nothing moves. The trees are black against the sodden earth.

Slowly, slowly, as the earth tilts back upon its axis, warmth is coming. Fresh tender grass is beginning to break through into the sunlight…the forest is beginning to come to life.

The earth stirs and begins to rumble. Is it an earthquake? The earth buckles up, cracks and crumbles and begins to fall away. Something is coming out, out of the depths of the den where he has slept away. It is the giant GREBIGOL.

The Grebigol is hungry. It begins to eat the new fresh grass. He reaches down and gobbles down berries and bushes. He is devouring the birds and the foxes. As he eats, he is heading to town.

As he nears the town, he begins to eat telephone poles. He eats a dog and a cat. He swallows two garbage cans, a gas station and a policeman. Now he is eating a Proton Perdana. He eats everything in sight…eating, crunching, munching, and gobbling until he is finally satisfied. Full. He cannot eat any more.

His eyelids are getting heavy. He is stuffed and getting very tired. Slowly, painfully, he begins to pull himself back up the mountains, back to his den where he will dig his way back down into the earth. He will sleep there for another year until he is hungry again!

2002 The New Dramathemes by Larry Swartz. Pembroke Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.

Suggested activities:

1.    The class is divided into groups, sit in a circle.

2.    Each group is assigned to create a single Grebigol creature. Until the activity is completed, no one may talk or pass notes.

3.    Display the creations.

4.    Students are invited to become members of the town, hold a town meeting. Each describes in turn what one knows about the creature. (Meeting of the Tailors, role-play)