How to use drama for writing in the classroom
There’s plenty of research* showing that drama in the classroom has benefits for the development of language. Role play in particular has been identified as a valuable tool for building vocabulary in younger children. Drama is great for oral literacy and storytelling for when children are at a pre-writing age and for when they are developing their writing skills.
Projects exploring this topic have shown children to produce longer, more thoughtful written work following drama activities. Particularly when writing-in-role, children demonstrate a more advanced understanding of character traits and emotions - they are really able to get under the skin of the character in their writing. Drama allows imagination to flow from process to product.
How to use drama for writing in the classroom
Things to remember:
Find a way to document thoughts, feelings and vocabulary as they come up during the session. This can be done in notebooks, post it notes, graffiti walls or even through video.
There is as much value in listening to others, being a good audience member and drinking in other people’s ideas as there is in ‘performing’.
Written work can build over time. If the class is in the flow of a practical activity with lots of creative ideas coming out, it may be beneficial to maintain that energy whilst documenting the work and then to take time to write in the next session.
KS1 Activity - Physical Storyboarding
As a class, pick 4 or 5 key moments from the book you have been working on in chronological order.
Split into 4 or 5 groups, and give each group one of the key moments. Each group should create a freeze frame, using their bodies to show a snapshot of a moment without moving.
Come back together as a group and look at each of the freeze frames in order.
The leader can tap someone on the shoulder during their freeze frame. That person should then think of a word or sentence that describes what their character is thinking or feeling during that moment in the story. (This is a moment worth documenting, either writing key words that are shared or through video.)
Advanced option: When the leader taps someone on the shoulder the first time ask them to think of what words or noise they would say out loud. When you tap them on the shoulder the second time, ask them what their private thoughts are. Is what a character says and how a character feels different?
Using the ideas you had while sharing character thoughts in the freeze frames, create a diary entry for the one of the characters that appeared in your freeze frame. Think about how they were feeling in that situation and what they were thinking.
KS2 Activity - The Final Chapter
What happens next for each of the characters in the story?
Split into groups and decide to focus on one of the characters from the story you've been working on.
Create a silent movie or mime that shows what happens to this character after the book has finished.
Come back together as a group and share your silent movies.
Ask for suggestions from the audience about what sounds or words could be added to the silent movie. Try performing the scene again but adding in some of the sound suggestions.
Advanced option: Create title cards/captions to go alongside particular moments in the silent movie.
Using either your role-play or inspiration from another group, write an extra chapter for the story.
Try to see if you can follow the writing style the author uses.
Building up a practice of using drama in the classroom allows children to inhabit the story and to have a real ownership over the work. It also shows them that you can participate in literacy even when writing is not your strongest skill - and building up confidence is just another way by which drama can help improve children’s writing!
For more on how to effectively use drama in the primary classroom, check out our blog series ‘A Guide to Teaching Drama’.
-Katie
* A good starting point for research is Connecting Drama and Writing: seizing the moment to write which is also a good source of further studies in this field.