Entry 9

Before I start this entry, I would like to invite you to watch this video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng7ZcGSubp8

This is a scene from the end of our ensemble piece

What strikes me the most of this piece is how we worked together in smooth transition without looking at each other and knowing exactly where we all were. This showed that we had developed a sense of understanding and trust with each other and this is how I want students who finish their times learning drama to feel with each other. On top of developing understanding,skills and theoretical understanding, students can also have fun and gain some skills beyond what is required. 

Life skills.

Trust, teamwork,self awareness, and other forms of personal developments can come through an effective Drama process. As teachers we should strive for that as it does in a way tie in with what the syllabus and curriculum wants.There are no clashes..

To end,

I felt that my role in this group process allowed me to mature as a performer..

As a scriptwriter I learnt to take in more views and accept the realities and constraints that bind me. I also learnt to take in new views. I managed to do up my script from the original to the more focused version after communicating with my fellow actors and understanding the limitations involved. Now looking back at the original script I came up with I see the vast difference and changes I made with the help of my peers which streamlined the script and made it better in my opinion. Here is a sample of my initial script (Click on link directly below):

Initial script (MRT scene)

I also learnt to enjoy what I did. When I started the play i took on roles like coming out with the track for the first dance item and editting it accordingly and finding and trimming Ministerial Videos to better our performance. I did not feel bothered by it as I was excited about it. 

I learnt that rehearsing is crucial and with more rehearsals one is bound to do well in a performance. As I took two major roles in the performance I was careful to rehearse every opportunity I got and to carry my rehearsals through to when I went home. This allowed me to develop my character and explore it better and find new angles and also better the character if I possibly could.

Lastly, during the performance I realized the importance of proper warm ups. During the performance I felt my energy level could have been better and I also found myself to be thinking too much while in role. A good warm up would have helped and it is something I will keep in mind for future performances.

Thanks and I hope you enjoyed this ACU 321 journey as much as I did..

Entry 8 part 2

Beyond what I think, I also collected some feedback from my group members:

Group Interview (Facebook)

On top of what I have mentioned in part 1, i gained new insights from their perspectives.

1.Devising
 This is something that I noticed but my group members did as well. One of the main problems we had initially in getting our work done fast was the time we spent chatting and scripting without movement. Once we got into the space and moved through our piece, however, the devising process gained momentum. If we had realized this earlier and before Prue had told us, we might even have saved time and could have further developed our play better.

As mentioned earlier, the students undertaking "O" level drama are required to do their prelims, the devising for their stimuli and their other coursework developing in a short space of time. This does not leave them with much time. This can be problematic. Thus, using this approach in getting students to devise may be effective especially for their stimuli pieces which are not accessed for the performance aspect. It saves time and get students moving along faster in a stressful period.

2.Focus and proper research

No role can be handled without proper research. Our group took time to look out for materials and videos online to mould our characters. This was highlighted by Faeza. She also highlighted how we worked hard to brainstorm. We did well when brainstorming as we were focused on the task at hand. We did have some fun from time to time but when it was time to sit down and work we did it together and that helped us progress.

Students can go out and do further research for their roles. In fact, in my recent practicum stint, I caught a glimpse of students using their Smartphones (with the teacher's permission of course) to find out more of a certain disease they wanted to do a performance on. This allowed them to come out with a logical and well thought off piece. Focus is a problem with Secondary school students. They tend to get sidetracked and do not stay serious. There are times where they may distract each other or go off topic. This is common in a Secondary school setting. Teachers must motivate them and maybe conduct focus exercises and breathing exercises before lessons to get students settled in and in the right frame of mind to be focused and work.

As a group the fact that we are still in touch is also something of great value and it shows that we worked well and came out of it as friends and with a good understanding and respect for each other.

Entry 8 Part 1

Through the Ensemble devising, I managed to learn more about Group Dynamics:

1.The importance of a good rapport:

This was rather important as it was because we all worked so well that our piece was a success. There needs to be a good level of understanding amongst members. In my previous work, there were times where there were clashes with members over ideas but i found out that such clashes only hinder the process.

Thus, in a classroom setting, it is vital for me to get students to work well together when they are working on their Group pieces for Coursework (O levels) or when they have group projects to do (Lower Secondary). The methods of doing so that i identified is through listening to everyone's views and being tactful when dismissing or rebutting their views. It is also important to emphasize teamwork where the Strong-headed members of group are not encouraged to make all the decisions. Instead, everyone has to be involved in the thought process. I would agree that it is hard to achieve this as a teacher but with tuning into discussions in classroom hours, I can get a sense of what is going on. Also building a teacher-student rapport is crucial as it gets me to understand the character traits of students to see how they function in a group. Also, as mentioned earlier, I must prevent fights or attempt to solve misunderstandings if need be.


2. Technology

As I mentioned earlier, the use of technology was done by our group through the usage of facebook. I found this useful. Here is the journey we took and my feelings and thoughts over why I would translate this to a classroom setting (click on link directly below):

Our Facebook Journey and reactions

3.Constant questioning

I did say that I did not want clashes or misunderstandings in the groups but i would want to encourage constant inquiry. One of the reasons why I felt my group worked well with each other is due to the constant questioning process of our group where we asked each other questions and conversed freely amongst each other. We did not hold back our questions to prevent it from become an issue in the future.

As a teacher, I would have to encourage students to question their own work and their peers' contribution. After all, they need to tie up any confusions or doubts they have as, at the end of the day,they will need to retain this knowledge for their Written Examinations. As a teacher, if I do not see questions being asked I will trigger it off by asking questions by myself. In a sense, I am using a democratic classroom management approach where there is "multiple perspectives being taken in" as mentioned by Edwards (2011) in his book on effective classroom management. With my questioning and the polite way i phrase my questions, other members of the group may follow suit and continue the questioning process long after I have left the group of students. That said, this may not always happen and politeness is subjective so constant monitoring is a must and also basic etiquette, manners and class rules must be properly defined to prevent the questioning process from getting heated up. Students must also approach lessons with an open-mind.

4.Audience Awareness

Another realization I developed is the need to understand the Audience's point of view when devising. Everyone should take turns directing a piece. In that way, multiple points of views can be developed and the case will rarely arise when the audience do not have a bearing of what the play has set out to achieve

In a classroom, it is vital for students to perform in front of the teacher and their peers for evaluation en route to their final product. This helps them to see some loose ends that they may not have realized.




5.Understanding the Elements of Drama

Lastly, there is a need to understand the Elements of Drama. As I have mentioned in my previous post, a good understanding will allow for some elements to start emerging in our piece when we start devising.

Sometimes students are lost in their devising process and it is vital that they understand the facets of Elements of Drama to help them get through. I mentioned how my ensemble group subconsciously played around with mood and atmosphere through music. The same way I hope that students will end up doing the same. They can develop a realization of this later on when they question their process. With good Elements of Drama knowledge, they will be able to start putting in elements into their performance like as if it were second nature, thus enhancing it further. This can only happen if they have good knowledge and understanding of the elements.

There is a chance that as a teacher, I will not have enough time to drill the concepts in fully. Thus, I must keep the students paying attention to particular aspects of their performances where they may improve and give them prompts like "How would you symbolize this better?" etc.. I would however want them getting the knowledge and concepts in well as it is vital for their examinations as I have mentioned before.



References:
Edwards, Clifford H., and Vivienne Joy Watts. "Democratic Classroom Approach." Classroom discipline & management. 5th ed. Milton, Qld.: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. 124-142. Print.

Entry 7 part 2

I decided, after the performance, to look back at the piece to look out for some elements of drama in our piece. I managed to find several which I have highlighted at the end of this Script of our final performance (click on link directly below and see the last page):

The script and the Elements of Drama seen

I realized that consciously and subconsciously we were infusing Elements of Drama into our piece.

Along the way, we always made decisions to incorporate new things into our piece taking cue from what we knew about the elements of drama. That prior knowledge helped to shape our thinking and allowed us to rationalized what we were doing to our piece. For instance, the use of the music in the maid scene, contributed to the mood of the scene and allowed for a contrast of emotions between the comical melodramatic scene and the serious love song. This allowed the humour element to come through stronger and also set the context for the scene. We were influencing the mood without even talking about it. We knew what we were doing but we only found a label for it after the performance and after we had devised.

For the next post, I will explore what I have seen in this entry and link it back to how it has influenced me as a performer and how I feel i will translate this into a classroom.

Entry 7 part 1

Now i shall move on to the next part of this package which would be the Group performance task.
Before I start on that, let me first tell you the story of how our group negotiated our Ensemble piece, The story goes something like this:

CLICK HERE FOR THE STORY!!!

(https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ARC5rVSbLPmZZGh3Y3NmOV8wZ204N3FmaGo)

Our process of making our ensemble piece went rather smoothly. However, at the start of it all we were rather cautious and not very comfortable with each other as some of us were collaborating for the first time. For me and Owen, this was not the first time we were working together. At our first meeting, whilst brainstorming for ideas, I noticed that we were all trying to get a sense of what each other was like. We were trying to hear views from everyone and trying our best to see the different work styles of each other. This was obvious as there were many times where we were saying "What do you guys think?" We were trying to gain acceptance with each other in the group while the more strong-headed members tried getting their voices across.

As we continued devising, we grew more and more comfortable. We would take in everyone's view and reject any view we saw as not right, collectively. We had a thought process together. We all decided to take charge of one aspect of our script and we went back and devised it accordingly. Our initial aim was to have a script that was fragmanted and non-linear with no fixed storyline but a clear message. We, thus, wrote our respective pieces. I was in charge of the MRT scene. We then came together and read through the script and made changes accordingly. My script was a bit too long and was shortened down when we decided to do a way with a bit I had initially proposed with regards to a gameshow happening on stage.Everyone brought out their opinions and views with regards to the piece. I found myself questioning other people's scripts while I saw my script being questioned as well. We handled this queries and proceeded from there.

We then allocated roles in accordance to our abilities. I was chosen and agreed to be the Indian Foreign worker as I felt that I could relate better to it and write the script as close as possible to it.There were confusions with roles such as the Newscasters so we all had our turn in trying to be one. We then found some of our members to be very good Newscasters and they stuck to the role. Thus, we were tapping on our strengths.

When we got down to devising, the MRT scene went about easily but the Maid scene was one of problem. I found myself constantly consulting my peers with my role as it went from me talking in English similar to that of the actors from the movie "Titanic" to talking in an Indian accent. I got feedback from my peers for this and this helped me out in deciding which to choose.

A major occurrence in our piece happened when Prue came to watch our piece. We realized that in our bid to come across as fragmented and non-linear in our presentation, we had a rather messy piece. The fact that both the MRT and maid scene did not link became an issue. We were rather concerned and devised through it. For this, we did not re-write the script. Instead, me and Faeza went through the scene trying out new lines and scenarios while taking feedback from our peers. We managed to devise a piece extremely fast. We began to understand why Prue told us "not to worry about it" and that "it would come". It was indeed through devising that we explored our characters more and coupled with some further research we managed to get the scene going further.It was clear however, that we initially did not pay attention to the audience perspective and also to Characterization. After we did them both, we managed to get a clear direction and understanding of our role and our piece, we felt became clearer.

For me, however, I felt that the piece could have more improvements and time constraints did prove a hindrance to our process. Also, it was hard to get everyone together to rehearse due to struggles finding rehearsal places.We had to make compromises like staying in school to late to further our devising as well just like other groups. It was, thus, vital that we all could get along well for us to work well together.

I also noticed that there were some strong-headed members in the group who did not respond well to us not accepting their views. Thus, as a unit, we tend to open all our decisions to everyone else to come to compromises effectively.

Entry 6 Part 2

A look at Assessment through Nicholson and Kempe

To end this entry, I also want to look at assessment and the problems in assessment in Drama.

There has been an ongoing debate on whether or not Drama should be appreciated for the progress it gets out of people or just plainly for the final performance that the Drama leads up to. For me, it is the right mix of both.
Some forms of assessment i will be looking for will be formative and some summative.

I will look at what Nicholson and Kempe (2007) call Assessment for Learning in my classroom. Students in classrooms sometimes tend to struggle to reflect on their own work beyond the classroom. In drama where there will be games played, we may see students not being interested in anything else but the "fun" aspect of Drama. What is the point of students enjoying a lesson if they take nothing away? Assessment for Learning requires the "use of peer/self-assessment to identify own strengths and areas for development" (Nicholson and Kempe,2007). On top of these,Nicholson and Kempe also suggest sharing lesson objectives with students and gaining their feedback. This helps me monitor their understanding while ensuring that students know what is going on in the classroom and how it impacts them. Based on my Practicum experience, I noticed how the teacher clearly specified the objectives at the start of the semester and illicits feedback. This, however, is more challenging for weaker students. The weaker students do not respond well went we try to gain feedback. Thus, we look at things like Journals with prompt questions provided weekly to help gain the students' feedback. With good prompting, students can improve and provide better feedback.

It is no secret that we, in Singapore, are currently in the Criterion-referenced (Nicholson and Kempe,2007) mode of assessment in Secondary level where the assessments are set beforehand and expectancies are laid out. However, beyond this, there are other forms of assessment like feedback and teacher's observations. This is classified other formative assessment by Nicholson and Kempe. In a Singapore classroom, giving students marks for class participation could be handy in getting the quieter students to participate in the lesson. It would be unfair for a teacher to assess based on his/her own observation especially if he does not stay with the class through the whole year. If he does, however, it is inevitable that that would also play a part in his assessment of the student. The use of a base assessment as prescribed by Nicholson and Kempe may also come in useful in seeing where the student is at the start of the semester so that a good comparison can be done with what he has achieved at the end of the semester, and allow a teacher to properly gauge a student through his observation on class participation.

I will try to award marks to students that i feel meet the criteria effectively and also through formative assessment, show the most effort. There must also be a common consensus that is well developed amongst all the Drama teachers in the school pertaining to the rubrics so that every student is properly assessed.

Striking a balance between measuring the end product and development might be tough, but it is attainable.

References:

Kempe, A., & Nicholson, H. (2007). 5. Learning to teach drama 11-18 (2nd ed., pp. 122-154). London: Continuum.

Entry 6 Part 1

For this entry, I want to explore how the O level final paper is set out for the students. We can draw links to the O level paper and what is bring thought in the Elements of Drama.

Students will be asked questions in their exams like "What technical aspects (lighting,costume,make up) did you use to create an appropriate atmosphere in the piece XXX?" or "Identify 3 aspects of the character of Mr. X and how would you show this in your performance?"

This questions are very much linked to two aspects of Elements of Drama which are mood, space and place as well as role and relationships. The O level paper promises questions such as this based on Characterisation, spatial awareness, tension and other features. Thus, understanding the different Elements of Drama and what they do to a play help students through this questions..