Drama as Assessment

Drama as Assessment

 

 

In this post, I will be discussing about the potential that Drama has in serving as tool to develop literacy development and as an assessment strategy in our Singapore Literature classrooms. I will be basing my arguments with reference to three key articles. They are,

“‘Doing Literature’: Using Drama to build Literacy” by Jennifer Catney McMaster, and Ken Mizusawa’s “I would have my bond!: Exploring the Legacy of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice through Process Drama.

 

I daresay that Literature teachers will agree with the entertainment and interest value of employing a drama-based pedagogy in the classroom that is often cited to increase their level of motivation for pursuing that subject. However many teachers also believe that using drama in the classroom might be tedious and time-consuming, and that it requires elaborate industry and production efforts (McMaster, 1998, p57). I am here to argue that these are misconceptions that can be eradicated with proper scaffolding and that the benefits far outweighs the cons involved in utilising drama instruction in the literature classroom.  

 

Benefits of using Drama in the Literature Classroom

 

I strongly believe that our literature pedagogical practices in Singapore should embrace drama instruction in their daily curriculum due to the many affordances it provides to our students. Any form of improvised dramatic activity often helps to create vivid mental representations that the students are able to drawn upon as experiences during literary discussions. This is then seen to produce several effects on students and their level of comphrension and engagement with the text.

 

Drama as Assessment

The dramatic activities essentially are designed in a way to give feedback of the students learning. When students deliver their lines or engage in improvs, teachers can draw attention to the areas where they might need additional reinforcement of the text. Also, when students “show” their understanding of the texts, the teachers can assess the discrepancy between comprehension and the ability to express their ideas. McMaster argues that drama also gives an opportunity for students to engage in social interactions as they act and perform before their peers, either individually or in groups. Citing Vygotsky, she explains that drama based activities help form a literary community through which these social interactions and feedback help students to internalise new knowledge better, thereby enhancing their understanding of the text.

 

Developing Oral Language and Listening Skills

 

Many of the improvisation activities require students to express their ideas through their acting. This results in a significant impact upon the development of oral language skills of the students. They are expected to articulate and verbalise their thoughts in contexts of the activities and the text that they are reading. Also, besides acquiring basic listening skills that are required for instruction and conducting of lessons in the classroom; students are now exposed to a new skill which is called evaluative listening. Students are then taught to pay attention as audience members and are to be aware of the cues that they are being presented to.

 

Developing writing and reading skills

It is often believed that dramatic improvisation serves to only capture interests of students as it is considered to be a fun and engaging activity. However, I believe that the value of drama instruction goes beyond the entertainment value as it helps to facilitate students’ understandings and responses to the texts and with the ability to convey their ideas orally. The next level of progression would be to transfer them onto paper as writing. Through improvisation activities students have to naturally script most of their lines and dialogues and to pay attention to the degree of accuracy and relevance as a representation to the text. Also, as the students will need to be familiar with the background of the text for them to be competent in their performance tasks, they will be motivated to read the text with full engagement as well.

 

Drama as a scaffold for Learning Literary Analysis

As Mizusawa argues in his article, “Drama can be an effective means of developing the students’ capacity for personal response… a critical skill in literary analysis”. It is only when the student is successfully drawn out to invest in the activity will they be truly engaging with the text. And in those instances, the dramatic improvisation activities would require the use of reflective and imaginative power thereby helping formulate personal response. This leads to the greater ability to engage in perspective taking and respect for other people’s views by extension.

Developing confidence and self-concepts/Identity

Their ability to express and articulate their ideas will then serve to boost their confidence levels as they would have now discovered a new unknown potential within themselves. McMaster believes that this positive effect on their personal attitudes will then manifest itself in the levels of interest and motivation for learning, thereby becoming an active member of a learning community that promotes independent learning. Drama also has the unique ability to engage many different learning styles, thus facilitating connections with students and motivating most learners today.

 

Misconceptions regarding the use of Drama in the Literature Classroom.

Even after being convinced of the benefits of drama in the classroom, often teachers are put off by the sheer work that is perceived to be necessary for it to be a success. Also, another valid concern is over the suitability of this activity for a class that is introverted or does not have good acting skills. They seem to believe that their inability to act and give authentic performances will then serve as indicator of failure and therefore reject such activities for the classroom. Dr. Mizusawa argues that because our literature lessons are content driven that the teacher need not concern himself or herself with developing acting skills and individual talent in the classroom. Also, as this is not a formal performance that requires a public audience there is no need for external validation of how good their acting skills are. The only audience that the students have are his or her peers, who will also be fellow actors. Here, the key is form an accommodating learning community where they can be confident to reveal their dramatist nature in front of students. McMaster argues that the most natural play habit that children used to have since young is to play 'pretend'. Drama is just an extension of the same play habit. More importantly, Mizusawa claims that the unfolding of the drama must be properly scaffolded yet at the same time employ a certain degree of flexibility to build upon students learning in the classroom.

Conclusion

The merit of using drama in the literature classroom is to ensure that students are actively participating in their course of learning, thereby giving an impression that they are actually “doing” literature. When combined with writing tasks that are more passive in nature, we are able to ensure proper engagement with text whilst instilling the ability in our students to express their opinions about the text.