This fall, I began my 16th year of teaching theatre in a public magnet school. Before that, I had been teaching acting in studios and workshops for many years. There are days when I still long for the "purity" of the studio approach. In a private studio, I didn't have to worry about such things as formal assessments, state standards, school uniforms and other such intrusions on the "art" of it all. Studio teaching was pure process with focus on individual needs.
In the first year of Critical Links, I looked at the problem of voice training for the young actor. I wanted to find methods that improved both projection and diction without stressing those who are shy about their voices. I used my four exploratory drama classes to experiment with techniques and refine the process. By learning how to collect the data, I was able to see and hear the improvement in my students. By refining the methods I had developed over the years and focusing on combining sound and movement in all the exercises, I found that students were less stressed and enjoyed the work more, and were able to eventually present a performance of poetry with actions in confident full voices. I have continued to work on vocal training this year utilizing what I learned in those exploratory classes in all my drama classes.
Last year's immersion in the Critical Links process has opened my eyes to what is possible within the drama classroom -- despite all the bureaucratic limitations. I began the fall of 2008 with greater purpose and definite goals in mind that would reshape the way I'd been teaching. Year 16 begins the second half of a projected 30 year public school teaching career (as long as good health is maintained, I hope to achieve that longevity goal). Over the summer, I thought long and hard about what I had accomplished during the first 15 years, and what things I might to do improve.
It would be easy to just drift along on what had been accomplished before, using the same old format and the same materials year after year. Haven't we all had teachers who haul out the same old dusty notes and hand out the same assignments year after year? The Critical Links experience shakes up the old habits by creating a new and valuable one -- the habit of taking stock of what you are doing and asking many questions about the process and the results.
I have always had a keen interest in the sciences, and for many years have looked at acting classes as experimental laboratories where actors explore physiology and the physics of motion, the chemistry of interactions and the biology of emotions. Critical Links provided a way of viewing my teaching process within in a scientific structure that involves selecting a problem, analyzing it and coming up with a hypothesis, then testing it and collecting data along the way.
So I began this year with a critical eye focused on all my classes. What were the problems hiding beneath the surface? What wasn't working so well and what could be improved? What new ideas could I bring to the classroom?
I found some answers at the annual Educational Theatre Association's conference in Chicago this past September. I only recently began attending these conferences and have found them to be invaluable resources. The workshops alone are worth the price of admission, and add in the round table discussions, the marquee addresses by leaders in the field and the impressive array of vendors displaying scripts, technical goods and services and field trip opportunities -- this conference is a must for theatre teachers.
I took a workshop on reality theatre, and immediately knew that this was a format I could utilize in teaching. I have been experimenting with it on the topic of bullying and will be blogging more about this in the second semester.
I also attended an all day session on drama and autism, which gave me very helpful insights into the problems and possible solutions in working with students who have Asperger Syndrome. I also attended a conference at Kent State University over the summer on autism spectrum disorders. The number of students who enter our program who are high level autistic or are identified as AS have increased over the years. Drama is an art form that can give these students a grounding in learning how to read emotions in other people and can help them learn how to communicate and collaborate.
Another areas of concern for this school year is developing more valid means of assessment beyond the obligatory letter grade. I am working on creating electronic portfolios for each student by collecting a video sample pantomime, monologue, duet or scene for each student at the end of each semester.
My final goal is to reconnect with this blog and record my ups and downs as a theatre teacher within the context of the Critical Links Process. All of our original first year group are now preparing to lead new participants through the Critical Links process and we are all encouraged to continue working on our own projects and problems as well. Over this winter break, my intent is to summarize the work I began in the first semester and set out plans of action for the second.
Showing posts with label voice training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label voice training. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
Findings
We are gathering tomorrow to present our research at the end of year one with Critical Links.
I put together a 13 minute dvd with footage taken throughout the 9 week exploratory drama course. At the end, the class performed their poetry for the entire school and I videotaped that as well. I'm very happy with the results, as I was able to track the progress of individual students as well as documenting the process.
A month after the class was over, I gave the students a survey about their experience. Most of them felt their voices had improved, along with their confidence in front of an audience. I also queried the home room teacher who pointed to some specific student improvements she has witnessed in her academic classroom in terms of student vocal expressiveness.
As a final test, I asked five students from the class to come to the Little Theatre at lunch time this week to try a cold reading in front of the camcorder. I gave them another poem, verses from The Walrus and the Carpenter, to read out loud. When I paired these samples with their initial cold readings from the beginning of the course almost 4 months ago, the improvement is undeniable. They project, speak with greater articulation and confidence. Four out of five make contact with the camera throughout their readings.
The obvious reason that adding actions to the vocal exercises worked so well is that it helped them build up lung power. I never really had to prompt to improve projection. The more work we did in the space, moving and making sounds, the stronger their voices grew. Articulation became a very physical process for them.l A powerful moment can be seen on the video -- when I asked them to try putting their hands over their mouths and articulatory muscles and jaw while speaking. You can see them feeling where the sounds are shaped and realizing that muscles are involved in speech.
The actions also worked to release creativity. All the poems were staged by the students themselves. This gave them even more ownership of the process and also enhanced their collaboration skills.
Some areas I would like to learn more about would be finding ways to help students who have difficulty finding the flow in reading material out loud. One student who is in drama has great difficulty reading text outloud. She stumbles and stutters when confronted with written text, but once memorized, she delivers her lines with ease, projecting and articulating.
Another problem I'd never encountered was a student who clipped vowel sounds very short in all cases. Stretching vowels was something she had never considered. Her habitual mode is rapid delivery with very short clipped vowel sounds. The vowel stretching exercise helped somewhat. The biggest change is that she is more inclined now to slow down her rate of speech but still hasn't mastered the flexibility and emotional content inherent in lengthened vowel sounds.
I put together a 13 minute dvd with footage taken throughout the 9 week exploratory drama course. At the end, the class performed their poetry for the entire school and I videotaped that as well. I'm very happy with the results, as I was able to track the progress of individual students as well as documenting the process.
A month after the class was over, I gave the students a survey about their experience. Most of them felt their voices had improved, along with their confidence in front of an audience. I also queried the home room teacher who pointed to some specific student improvements she has witnessed in her academic classroom in terms of student vocal expressiveness.
As a final test, I asked five students from the class to come to the Little Theatre at lunch time this week to try a cold reading in front of the camcorder. I gave them another poem, verses from The Walrus and the Carpenter, to read out loud. When I paired these samples with their initial cold readings from the beginning of the course almost 4 months ago, the improvement is undeniable. They project, speak with greater articulation and confidence. Four out of five make contact with the camera throughout their readings.
The obvious reason that adding actions to the vocal exercises worked so well is that it helped them build up lung power. I never really had to prompt to improve projection. The more work we did in the space, moving and making sounds, the stronger their voices grew. Articulation became a very physical process for them.l A powerful moment can be seen on the video -- when I asked them to try putting their hands over their mouths and articulatory muscles and jaw while speaking. You can see them feeling where the sounds are shaped and realizing that muscles are involved in speech.
The actions also worked to release creativity. All the poems were staged by the students themselves. This gave them even more ownership of the process and also enhanced their collaboration skills.
Some areas I would like to learn more about would be finding ways to help students who have difficulty finding the flow in reading material out loud. One student who is in drama has great difficulty reading text outloud. She stumbles and stutters when confronted with written text, but once memorized, she delivers her lines with ease, projecting and articulating.
Another problem I'd never encountered was a student who clipped vowel sounds very short in all cases. Stretching vowels was something she had never considered. Her habitual mode is rapid delivery with very short clipped vowel sounds. The vowel stretching exercise helped somewhat. The biggest change is that she is more inclined now to slow down her rate of speech but still hasn't mastered the flexibility and emotional content inherent in lengthened vowel sounds.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Words and Actions and Warmups
Recently I've had occasion to observe some other folks warming up before rehearsals near and far. One thing I've noticed is a form of working in a circle that seems to be popular in college theatre. Student teachers have been using the game Zip Zap Zop for a number of years. It's the kind of game that requires strict attention and focus in order to keep the flow running smoothly. According to Wikipedia, it is folkloric in origin. If you know the original source for this game, I'd love to hear it.
Other similar games include passing words and/or actions along the circle in two different directions so that at certain points words and actions cross each other and give one person a very difficult task to handle them at the same time. My current student teacher has been working with our advanced acting class on this one and they are finding it quite the challenge.
Observing a rehearsal in NYC last week, I saw another form of this circle work in which one person ducks while the people on either side clap hands over the top of the ducking person's head. Then the clapper to the right must duck and the clapping is repeated from the person's on either side -- around and around it goes. The goal is to be precise enough to achieve unity in the actions and sounds.
The group I watched playing this game was comprised of high school students and they were very attentive. The focus was intense. It was quite clear that the few fluffs were not amusing or acceptable to the participants. In so many of these games, a miss is cause for merriment rather than renewed focus. I mus say, this group of teenagers were right on the mark with their warm-up.
They also did a neat sound and action vocal warm-up. They tossed invisible baseballs using a "huh" sound to power their actions. After a number of baseball tosses, they moved on to tossing shot-puts which required a stepped up physical action and deeper in the belly "huh" sound. Definitely an exercise worthy of incorporating into a warm-up.
For articulation, a group leader gave them ever-increasing-in-length tongue twisters. As they were about to run through a Shakespeare play, they definitely needed to wake up the articulators. I think they might try adding some actions to the tongue twisters as well. Perhaps walking their character and using the rhythms of the tongue twisters to propel themselves through the space.
What was missing from this warm up was just that -- actors moving in the space. Lots of the circle stuff which is very good for building focus and ensemble energy, yet most plays are not acted around the perimeter of a circle.
"Working the space" is an exercise that can be adapted endlessly for any particular needs. The first task of the actors is to keep the space balanced at all times. That means there are no gaps and no crowds, always bodies moving at approximate equidistant to each other. "Balance the space" is the coaching term that should always prompt actors to be mindful of their actions within the context of the group and the space itself.
Once the group is achieving balance, then coaching can take on the "how" of the bodies moving within the space. Oppositions of qualities are very useful: Thick/Thin; Tall/Short; Sharp/Smooth; Rigid/Loose; Angular/Curved; Heavy/Light and so on. One can spend an entire lesson on taking qualities and working them using a numeric scale. For example 1 being Most Heavy , 5 being Neither Heavy or Light, and 10 being Lightest. It is in this exercise that actors begin to work on nuances brought about by different levels of energy. One can point out the forms of theatre that practically demand extreme actions (commedia, circus) and those that work at more subtle levels (film acting).
There are many other qualities one can explore in the balancing of the space exercise. Younger actors quite enjoy animal qualities. You don't want them to literally act out an elephant, let's say, but rather find the qualities of elephant movement within their actions: heavy, majestic, trunk to tail follow the leader, swaying torso and head etc.
For more work like this, check out this recent book on Grotowski by Akron-based theatre artists James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta of The New World Performance Lab. The Routledge series of great acting teachers and their theories features a biographical/ theory analysis in the first half and instructional techniques in the second half. Great stuff!
Other similar games include passing words and/or actions along the circle in two different directions so that at certain points words and actions cross each other and give one person a very difficult task to handle them at the same time. My current student teacher has been working with our advanced acting class on this one and they are finding it quite the challenge.
Observing a rehearsal in NYC last week, I saw another form of this circle work in which one person ducks while the people on either side clap hands over the top of the ducking person's head. Then the clapper to the right must duck and the clapping is repeated from the person's on either side -- around and around it goes. The goal is to be precise enough to achieve unity in the actions and sounds.
The group I watched playing this game was comprised of high school students and they were very attentive. The focus was intense. It was quite clear that the few fluffs were not amusing or acceptable to the participants. In so many of these games, a miss is cause for merriment rather than renewed focus. I mus say, this group of teenagers were right on the mark with their warm-up.
They also did a neat sound and action vocal warm-up. They tossed invisible baseballs using a "huh" sound to power their actions. After a number of baseball tosses, they moved on to tossing shot-puts which required a stepped up physical action and deeper in the belly "huh" sound. Definitely an exercise worthy of incorporating into a warm-up.
For articulation, a group leader gave them ever-increasing-in-length tongue twisters. As they were about to run through a Shakespeare play, they definitely needed to wake up the articulators. I think they might try adding some actions to the tongue twisters as well. Perhaps walking their character and using the rhythms of the tongue twisters to propel themselves through the space.
What was missing from this warm up was just that -- actors moving in the space. Lots of the circle stuff which is very good for building focus and ensemble energy, yet most plays are not acted around the perimeter of a circle.
"Working the space" is an exercise that can be adapted endlessly for any particular needs. The first task of the actors is to keep the space balanced at all times. That means there are no gaps and no crowds, always bodies moving at approximate equidistant to each other. "Balance the space" is the coaching term that should always prompt actors to be mindful of their actions within the context of the group and the space itself.
Once the group is achieving balance, then coaching can take on the "how" of the bodies moving within the space. Oppositions of qualities are very useful: Thick/Thin; Tall/Short; Sharp/Smooth; Rigid/Loose; Angular/Curved; Heavy/Light and so on. One can spend an entire lesson on taking qualities and working them using a numeric scale. For example 1 being Most Heavy , 5 being Neither Heavy or Light, and 10 being Lightest. It is in this exercise that actors begin to work on nuances brought about by different levels of energy. One can point out the forms of theatre that practically demand extreme actions (commedia, circus) and those that work at more subtle levels (film acting).
There are many other qualities one can explore in the balancing of the space exercise. Younger actors quite enjoy animal qualities. You don't want them to literally act out an elephant, let's say, but rather find the qualities of elephant movement within their actions: heavy, majestic, trunk to tail follow the leader, swaying torso and head etc.
For more work like this, check out this recent book on Grotowski by Akron-based theatre artists James Slowiak and Jairo Cuesta of The New World Performance Lab. The Routledge series of great acting teachers and their theories features a biographical/ theory analysis in the first half and instructional techniques in the second half. Great stuff!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Voice and action catch up
I haven't had time to keep up with the blogging on my voice and action project, but the project itself kept moving along, despite fits and starts due to weather and unscheduled days off from school.
The class brought their work to performance level and presented it to the entire school this past Wednesday. I videotaped it from way in the back of the auditorium. It will be interesting to hear the results when I download the footage into iMovie.
Everybody in the class originally had a poem to perform. We couldn't perform all of them for the school due to time constraints, so I had the students combine their groups of 2 or 3 with another group of 2 or three. They could choose two poems, one from each group to work on as a performance.
The final presentation would also include the large group poems. The class had been divided in half for these poems, with two 5th grade drama students as directors. We started the show with Nobody and ended it with Twistable Turnable Man.
My initial reaction to the end result is that while my goal was to improve vocal quality and skills, my eyes were drawn to the originality and expressiveness of the student-created actions that sprang out of the text. I expect to report more as I put together a video time-line of the project. I also will be giving the students a survey to gain their insights as participants in the project. To gauge possible long-term improvements, I am working with the home room teacher to arrange a video taping in the classroom in which students read/recite out loud text connected to an academic subject.
I have one more section of 5th grade exploratory that just began this past week. We haven't begun training yet as their starting coincided with tech/opening of our spring musical. I am planning on using the same techniques I have refined in this past experiment.
The class brought their work to performance level and presented it to the entire school this past Wednesday. I videotaped it from way in the back of the auditorium. It will be interesting to hear the results when I download the footage into iMovie.
Everybody in the class originally had a poem to perform. We couldn't perform all of them for the school due to time constraints, so I had the students combine their groups of 2 or 3 with another group of 2 or three. They could choose two poems, one from each group to work on as a performance.
The final presentation would also include the large group poems. The class had been divided in half for these poems, with two 5th grade drama students as directors. We started the show with Nobody and ended it with Twistable Turnable Man.
My initial reaction to the end result is that while my goal was to improve vocal quality and skills, my eyes were drawn to the originality and expressiveness of the student-created actions that sprang out of the text. I expect to report more as I put together a video time-line of the project. I also will be giving the students a survey to gain their insights as participants in the project. To gauge possible long-term improvements, I am working with the home room teacher to arrange a video taping in the classroom in which students read/recite out loud text connected to an academic subject.
I have one more section of 5th grade exploratory that just began this past week. We haven't begun training yet as their starting coincided with tech/opening of our spring musical. I am planning on using the same techniques I have refined in this past experiment.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Articulation and movement
This week has been truncated by weather and a day off for staff development (tomorrow), so I've only had this class twice, but both sessions went really well. I taped a lot of it, even though I didn't blog it. Days off mean that the subsequent days back are twice as hectic.
Basically, I used my usual articulation exercises but enhanced them with movement instructions. We built on the vowel work, which helps actors understand the power of lengthening vowel sounds in words. Lots of Word Tennis with vowels and then consonants. We start with sounds, then go to words, and then to a specific word from each actor's poem.
Today we moved to the initial line of each poem, using it as the only line of conversation in pairs, back and forth. "Try to make it a meaningful conversation, even though you can only use that one line over and over," I coached. "Physicalize it when you respond," was another coaching prompt.
I gave them ten minutes to go back to their original poem partners to work on their presentations. For the last ten minutes of class, we looked at volunteer performances as "works in progress." The improvement was manifest! I asked them at the end what they had noticed in the presentations in terms of change over time. "More expressive!" "Using articulation!" "Stronger voices" "Projection!" The latter has come about without any prompting! All the shy voices are noticeably stronger -- and I believe it comes from the physical work added to the voice training. Next week, we will go into the auditorium, a much larger space and do some deliberate projection work to build upon what they have already achieved.
Basically, I used my usual articulation exercises but enhanced them with movement instructions. We built on the vowel work, which helps actors understand the power of lengthening vowel sounds in words. Lots of Word Tennis with vowels and then consonants. We start with sounds, then go to words, and then to a specific word from each actor's poem.
Today we moved to the initial line of each poem, using it as the only line of conversation in pairs, back and forth. "Try to make it a meaningful conversation, even though you can only use that one line over and over," I coached. "Physicalize it when you respond," was another coaching prompt.
I gave them ten minutes to go back to their original poem partners to work on their presentations. For the last ten minutes of class, we looked at volunteer performances as "works in progress." The improvement was manifest! I asked them at the end what they had noticed in the presentations in terms of change over time. "More expressive!" "Using articulation!" "Stronger voices" "Projection!" The latter has come about without any prompting! All the shy voices are noticeably stronger -- and I believe it comes from the physical work added to the voice training. Next week, we will go into the auditorium, a much larger space and do some deliberate projection work to build upon what they have already achieved.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Meeting Two Cincinnati, Feb 9 - 10
Day one went by so quickly, I need to stop and reflect upon it before the next day dawns.
The first hour was spent sharing our teaching and personal lives with each other. The depth and breadth of theatre teaching knowledge round our table is a powerful support for all our individual goals. We come at theatre from all directions: our programs range from elementary to middle to high schools, and include vocational, parochial, and performing arts schools, in the form of either co-curricular or extra-curricular. We teach in urban, rural and suburban landscapes, and our populations are varied in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, and special needs students.
Most of us are solitary dwellers within our school districts. While music and visual art are usually found in every building of a district, drama/theatre remains a sporadic specialty. Even though there are now state standards in theatre, with benchmarks and indicators of theatre knowledge that every student should achieve at levels K - 12, there is no state funding to implement them.
To be together for these meetings, with time spent in intensive focus on what we do and how we can do it better, is invaluable. We are learning how to look at our work with the eyes of a researcher in order to solve specific problems and/or to refine methodologies or prove long-held assumptions.
Today's work was all about our individual inquiries. We took our guiding questions and asked more questions of the question. Others also asked questions as we worked in small groups to sharpen our focus while expanding upon the initial inquiry. Multiple perspectives and points of view came into play as a result of the small group work.
Personally, I felt very glad that I had changed my initial inquiry from a general nebulous concept to one that is very concrete. The climax of the day for me was the moments when the other in my group began asking questions and one said, "Why are you doing this? What is so important about voice training?"
I talked about wanting to help non-drama students develop their projection and articulation. But it was Mary who put it best. She said, we must develop our voices to initiate change. (I couldn't help but think of Barack Obama when she said that!) She is right, without the ability to speak clearly and reach others, we will never be able to articulate ideas that can reach others.
Tomorrow, we are practicing presenting our findings, as preparation for the final meeting in May.
The first hour was spent sharing our teaching and personal lives with each other. The depth and breadth of theatre teaching knowledge round our table is a powerful support for all our individual goals. We come at theatre from all directions: our programs range from elementary to middle to high schools, and include vocational, parochial, and performing arts schools, in the form of either co-curricular or extra-curricular. We teach in urban, rural and suburban landscapes, and our populations are varied in terms of socio-economic backgrounds, ethnicity, and special needs students.
Most of us are solitary dwellers within our school districts. While music and visual art are usually found in every building of a district, drama/theatre remains a sporadic specialty. Even though there are now state standards in theatre, with benchmarks and indicators of theatre knowledge that every student should achieve at levels K - 12, there is no state funding to implement them.
To be together for these meetings, with time spent in intensive focus on what we do and how we can do it better, is invaluable. We are learning how to look at our work with the eyes of a researcher in order to solve specific problems and/or to refine methodologies or prove long-held assumptions.
Today's work was all about our individual inquiries. We took our guiding questions and asked more questions of the question. Others also asked questions as we worked in small groups to sharpen our focus while expanding upon the initial inquiry. Multiple perspectives and points of view came into play as a result of the small group work.
Personally, I felt very glad that I had changed my initial inquiry from a general nebulous concept to one that is very concrete. The climax of the day for me was the moments when the other in my group began asking questions and one said, "Why are you doing this? What is so important about voice training?"
I talked about wanting to help non-drama students develop their projection and articulation. But it was Mary who put it best. She said, we must develop our voices to initiate change. (I couldn't help but think of Barack Obama when she said that!) She is right, without the ability to speak clearly and reach others, we will never be able to articulate ideas that can reach others.
Tomorrow, we are practicing presenting our findings, as preparation for the final meeting in May.
Monday, January 21, 2008
New Semester
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the second semester, and I have a brand new exploratory drama class to work with for 9 weeks.
My plan is to review the process I have been developing in the first semester. I am going to zero in on process that involves physical actions and voice training. I will be trying to keep it do-able in a regular classroom setting and flexible enough to fit within any academic subject area.
I will assess the new group by recording them reading from a text -- solo and as a group before beginning any theatre work with them.
At the end of the nine weeks, I will repeat the recording process to assess for individual and collaborative speaking improvement. In addition, I will be asking the class's homeroom teacher to make note of any improvements she observes within her classroom.
I plan to blog my daily lessons here over the course of this class.
My plan is to review the process I have been developing in the first semester. I am going to zero in on process that involves physical actions and voice training. I will be trying to keep it do-able in a regular classroom setting and flexible enough to fit within any academic subject area.
I will assess the new group by recording them reading from a text -- solo and as a group before beginning any theatre work with them.
At the end of the nine weeks, I will repeat the recording process to assess for individual and collaborative speaking improvement. In addition, I will be asking the class's homeroom teacher to make note of any improvements she observes within her classroom.
I plan to blog my daily lessons here over the course of this class.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Physical voice training
It seems to me that many people are detached from their voices. They open their mouths, sounds come out, but they have little awareness of how much they could do to enhance the quality.
I've been having students put their hands on their faces to feel the muscles working.
My mime and mask movement teacher, Leonard Pitt, always had us make sounds when we worked on our actions. There are some movements I cannot do without summoning the sounds we used to make in his class. I've found that my students are now similarly infected! I need to explore the sound/action connections with more depth and attentiveness. Certainly, the sounds enhance the respiration and strengthen lung power.
I've been having students put their hands on their faces to feel the muscles working.
My mime and mask movement teacher, Leonard Pitt, always had us make sounds when we worked on our actions. There are some movements I cannot do without summoning the sounds we used to make in his class. I've found that my students are now similarly infected! I need to explore the sound/action connections with more depth and attentiveness. Certainly, the sounds enhance the respiration and strengthen lung power.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Voices from fall
So what actually went down in the fall semester? No grandiose experiments to bring about instant mindfulness. The school theme for the year is "Voices." For me, that meant work on vocal technique -- especially in 4/5 drama and the 4 - 6 exploratory classes. The younger the student, the more chance there is of making a lasting contribution to voice and communication skills.
In fifth grade, each 9 week class ended with a morning performance of some kind of group poem with actions. To simply stand still and recite did not appeal, nor did I think it would improve student vocal technique.
4/5 worked with Edward Lear poetry. The whole class worked on The Jumblies, and each individual student was given two Lear limericks to perform solo vocally, but with a partner to provide actions to the speaker's words. Separating voice and action was a useful exercise in that the young actors got to test individual skills yet be with a partner within the performance. Not nearly so scary, which is a boost for collaboration skill training as well.
For me, as teacher, I finally got a handle on working with such a large class. 39 students in 4/5 drama makes it difficult to observe each student for a good length of time. Groups of 3 and 4 at the beginning of the year were not as productive as groups of 6 and 7. Or perhaps the early work would have been more difficult no matter what size groups, since more than half of the class is new to the school this year. Regardless, it is getting easier to work with them, but I haven't had time for a notebook check since mid fall, nor have I been giving them notebook assignments. When we worked on the Lear poetry, it was intensive rehearsing for several weeks on end. I need to get some response and reflect time into the routine.
In fifth grade, each 9 week class ended with a morning performance of some kind of group poem with actions. To simply stand still and recite did not appeal, nor did I think it would improve student vocal technique.
4/5 worked with Edward Lear poetry. The whole class worked on The Jumblies, and each individual student was given two Lear limericks to perform solo vocally, but with a partner to provide actions to the speaker's words. Separating voice and action was a useful exercise in that the young actors got to test individual skills yet be with a partner within the performance. Not nearly so scary, which is a boost for collaboration skill training as well.
For me, as teacher, I finally got a handle on working with such a large class. 39 students in 4/5 drama makes it difficult to observe each student for a good length of time. Groups of 3 and 4 at the beginning of the year were not as productive as groups of 6 and 7. Or perhaps the early work would have been more difficult no matter what size groups, since more than half of the class is new to the school this year. Regardless, it is getting easier to work with them, but I haven't had time for a notebook check since mid fall, nor have I been giving them notebook assignments. When we worked on the Lear poetry, it was intensive rehearsing for several weeks on end. I need to get some response and reflect time into the routine.
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