Last week, we finally had the opportunity to wrap up this process and move into the final two steps: ‘performance’ and ‘reflection & evaluation’. The lesson’s warmup was a quick physical and vocal warmup followed by a final run-through rehearsal outside in the courtyard. After that, the students formed an audience and we watched every performance. The audience were asked to give feedback to each group of performers in the form of positive comments or useful suggestions for improvement. Each performance was recorded using the iPad for documentation purposes, and also to help the performers themselves reflect on and evaluate their own performance skills (as it is much more meaningful to see yourself acting in order to spot your strengths and weaknesses, and hence reflect on them).
After all performances were presented, the students were given a chance to view their short slapstick scenes, and then use the reflection help-sheet to write their four-sentence reflections and the task-sheet evaluation checklist to evaluate the process as well as the final product. For the year 7 classes (who have iPads), I allowed them to record their reflections orally and attach them to their Evernote group-portfolios/shared-notebooks. After the lesson, I looked through all group-portfolios and I attached my written and oral feedback, and final assessment.
Overall, I think the task was very engaging for the students. This was the first task where I agreed to allow some students to just be writers and directors for their group’s performance, as many students did not really seem to enjoy performing or were too self-conscious. I believe these students were a lot more engaged with the task.
Below you will find a video-tour of one of my year 7 portfolios for this task, followed by some screenshots of evidence attached to the some group portfolios to document every stage in the drama process: brainstorming, preparation (script-writing/story-boarding), rehearsal, performance, reflection & evaluation.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our year in the drama classroom! Summer here we come!
A screenshot of the final portfolio
A written outline/brainstorm for the performance
A visual brainstorm for another performance
The script writing-phase
A storyboard (shared as a PDF file with the students and they used an app called Type on PDF to annotate over it)
Another storyboard – these students preferred hand-drawings and then inserting them into the storyboard through Type on PDF
Blocking the main actions/movements in the scene
Adding evidence of rehearsal using a rehearsal log and some pictures
Evidence of performance – video uploaded on class YouTube channel and hyperlinked in portfolio + adding screenshots of parts of the video
Video of performance on YouTube (set on private or unlisted depending on parent permissions)
To sum up this unit of work, and to allow for summative assessment of MYP Criterion B (Application), the class will have the opportunity to create their own horror radio plays (as inspired by Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds). The task’s learning objective is to apply the skills, techniques and processes used to create a radio drama performance. This task was planned to span over two weeks (one double-period per week). Last week, I posted about the first week of the task, where the students wrote their stories and brainstormed possible sound effects and background music to accompany the narration.
This week, we moved on to the next part of the drama process: to apply rehearsal strategies and to reflect on and evaluate our artwork (process and product). The warmup for the lesson was a radio drama rehearsal game that I always enjoy: the students move into their groups and rehearse their radio plays five different times, each time with a different focus: once in normal speed, once in super slow motion (to force them to clearly pronouncing each vowel and consonant), once in fast forward (a very fun and tongue-twisting articulation and enunciation exercise), once as a comedy (to get them to think about tone and emotions in voice), and once as a musical (to help them warmup their voices and think about tone and emotions in voice). The students were encouraged to record their rehearsals using their iPods, listen to them and reflect on their characterisation, enunciation and voice projection. This warmup exercise achieves several objectives: to help students warmup, to rehearse for their performances, and to become more confident and ready for performing in front of the audience. The debriefing that followed the warmup was designed to ensure that the students take meaning out of this exercise (other than it just being ‘fun’) and reflect on it.
After the warmup and debriefing, the students sat in front of the performance space and formed an audience. Each group subsequently hid behind a curtain set up for the task, and delivered their horror radio play. The audience would then be asked to think like critics and give feedback (positive comments or useful suggestions) for the performers. Each radio play was recorded using my iPad. After all performances, the students were asked to bring out their task sheet and rubric from their drama folders (handed out to them last week). We then heard all the recorded performances through the class projector to help each student reflect on and evaluate his/her performance. Each student listened to his/her group’s performance, used the self-assessment checklist in the task sheet to self-assess, and then gave themselves a mark out of ten using the rubric attached to the task-sheet (in the ‘student’s self assessment’ column).
It was a very busy lesson, with lots to do! However, I believe the task as a whole was a huge success and the students seemed very engaged with it. I believe this task can also be adapted and used in a non-drama classroom: English/ESL, LOTE, even Humanities classrooms where students create radio plays about social issues.
Below are embedded clips of the best three performances, as well as screenshots of the self-assessment checklist, the adapted MYP rubric used, and the whiteboard.
Today, we started a new unit of work on ‘Slapstick Comedy’. This unit of work is designed for the year seven group. The students had a quick circle warm-up where one student would call-out an emotion and the rest would mirror that emotion with a lot of exaggeration, using body language, facial expressions, gestures, poses. The students laughed a lot at some of the responses.
After a quick debriefing/oral reflection about the warm-up and the skills involved, the students were divided into groups of 3 or 4 participants, and each given a piece of poster paper and a few markers. The students had to then watch ‘Gangnam Style‘ and respond to these three questions (which I prepared earlier as a Tumblr post). While the brainstorming questions are not necessarily focused on ‘slapstick comedy’ per se, the aim was to get students to deconstruct humour in general and what makes certain things ‘funny’. These questions are from Tom March’s Look-to-Learn Tumblr blog.
While the students were responding to the three questions on the poster paper, one member of each group was withdrawn to bring their iPad and access the typewith.me EtherPad and input their group’s responses. The students were very engaged and keen to see each group’s response as they were writing it. Here is a screenshot of their responses and a photo of the brainstorm posters.
We then had a quick discussion about their responses and arrived at the unit of work’s ‘significant concept’ which is: Different people laugh at different things. The class followed that with a discussion of the unit of work’s ‘area of interaction focus’ and ‘MYP unit question’. To conclude the lesson, we had a quick reflection activity where the students set three personal learning goals for this unit of work, in written format. The lesson was quite engaging, made use of ICT and incorporated group-work, brainstorming, discussion and reflection. Next week, we will focus more on slapstick comedy and define it and start looking at its features/elements.
Mohamed El-Ashiry's Teaching Portfolio 