Process and Outcomes of 4–6 Grade Creative Drama ONLINE Facilitated by Dakotah James, Professional Actor & Teaching Artist
The performing arts sector is facing one of its most challenging times. Many actors and technicians may soon find themselves in a new role, ‘teaching artist,’ especially as school districts look to reopening and theaters remain closed.
But how do you turn performance into a substantive learning experience?
Using lessons inspired by Theatre of the Oppressed (Augusto Boal), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Paulo Freire), and more, this guide will show you how to make an entire 15–20 minute virtual youth show from scratch!
We are in an incredible position to pioneer styles of learning to make the arts accessible to everyone.
Thank you for taking the time to further impact your students’ lives.
This camp was created for Flint Repertory Theatre Education, and lesson plans are property of the Flint Institute of Music. All classes were held on Zoom, with at-home engagement sent to parent emails. This guide came to life through generous help by The Mizell Family.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Each day contains a full lesson plan and an accompanying narrative with anecdotes and tips from my implementation. Lessons assume 90 minutes of live instruction with 60–90 minutes of At-Home Engagement. Pedagogical notes are found in bordered quotes.
DAY #1: Intros and Brainstorms
DAY #2: Characters and Plots
DAY #3: Outlines and Story Logic
DAY #4: Organic Play-Writing
DAY #5: Write and Read-Through
DAY #6: Refresh, Review, and Block
DAY #7: Block and Tech(le)
DAY #8: Filming and Characters
DAY #9: Filming and Games
DAY #10: That’s A Wrap!
EXTRAS
Day #1: Intros and Brainstorms
In this camp, my five participants all identified as female, from various ethnicities, and were between grades 4 and 6. After warmups and a quick intro exercise, I asked all campers to list their top 3 fears. Alongside those fears, I asked them to write a sentence or two about why those things were "scary" to them. After a couple minutes, I offered each student the opportunity to share their fears and, if they were comfortable, their reasoning. Notably, the most consistent fears were clowns, monsters, and the concept of "jump scares." We decided to use these conventions in our story, but make light of them instead.
Why did I choose to icebreak with stories centered around 'fear?' Consider this thought from a post-9/11 essay by Augusto Boal: "Truth is therapeutic: doing Theatre of the Oppressed, I could understand the awesome power of the pedagogy of fear - young people learning to see the world beyond their frontiers... Truth is therapeutic: young people, using theatre, dialogue, wanted to conquer it" (Games for Actors and Non-Actors, p. 300). I'm under no illusion that we will be undoing trauma in this camp (and I'm not a drama therapist) - but if we can make one kid a bit less scared of, say, clowns, why not?
Next, I screenshared a quick table made in Microsoft Paint with the titles 'people,' 'problems,' and 'places.' In each column, students brainstormed 1) the characters they might want to create; 2) what problems these characters might face; and 3) where these characters and problems might take place. Results are shown to the left. After our brainstorming session, it was time to get students actively engaged. Using ideas from the chart, we played the Action/Reaction game — every student chose a character in turns and made a themed entrance, to which the others reacted
according to their chosen characters. This helped reinforce to students that they will not just be sitting in front of a camera and listening. It also helped me see the physical intuitions of the students and the limitations of their learning environments.
After 90 minutes, students logged off (after extended goodbyes, of course). Unfortunately, all materials had to be emailed to registered parent emails because COVID affected processing of Google Classroom. For their first At-Home Engagement (AHE), students were given a simple character design worksheet and a copy of the brainstorming chart and instructed to select their character for the show.
It's important that any materials given are easily reproducible in case students don't have printers at home.
Why do I call my 'homework' At-Home Engagement? Simply: kids AND parents hate homework.
Day #2: Characters and Plots
Throughout my lessons, I used the standard warmup to give students a consistent morning, followed with varying vocal/facial exercises. A yoga alternative is found in every lesson in case students need a change of pace or focus.
After performing warmups and helping students maintain in "picture frame," we began by reviewing campers' character designs from AHE. Most campers were so excited by their imagination that there were 2-3 copies of each worksheet with varying characters, outfits, and even demeanor! After sharing their designs, environments, and reasoning, students had to select 1 character to focus on for the next exercise. Campers got deja vu as we did the same fear listing as the day before; however, they answered from their chosen character's point of view. Empathizing with a person or creature of their own creation, they were asked to list their fears in-role, beginning to coach physical and emotional affectation of speaking.
When first writing your own lessons, consider a structure following points of the actor's toolbox. For simple lessons, I suggest "Body/Voice/Imagination." For more complexity, you can use CORE lessons (Character/Objectives/Relationships/Environment).
After some great practice responding in-role, I reintroduced the brainstorming chart. Using the chosen characters again, campers (as a group) picked 3 environments and 3 problems they were excited to play around with. Before writing anything, though, we had to make sure that these characters, environments, and plots could all weave together as a cohesive story.
This writing process relies heavily on the instructor’s ability to synthesize student ideas into one. For example, campers decided part of the show should take place on a cruise ship. I asked them, “What is the special event for the cruise? What is its theme?” Students responded with 1) fires and 2) cats. To synthesize the responses in the spirit of ‘Yes, And’ I asked, “What kind of event could involve both cats and fire?” A student responded with, “A speech on fire safety for cat owners!” to which all students cheerily agreed.
After creating a list of possibilities, campers got up and moving with a 5-Minute Fashion activity. I set the students on a short, wondrous adventure around their room. Watching their young minds problem-solve was a treat as they scrambled to create fairies, clowns, bears, oh my! If time permitted (and somehow, it did!) they began to make imaginative versions of their pictured environments. All shared their creations and reasoning.
The open-endedness of this activity may be intimidating for some students. Prompt with item suggestions if necessary, but try not to give explicit directions. And yes...this was inspired by quick-drag challenges in RuPaul's Drag Race.
This night's AHE was the first step in concrete script creation. Students first had to finalize their character if they were still unsure. To ensure all students had a spot in the show to shine, each camper was challenged to write a short monologue or point-of-view story explaining the origin of their character's worst fear. Stories could be silly or scary in nature, but it had to answer "why" the character was scared in at least 4 sentences.
Although I tend to do devised work, literacy is incredibly important to student success. Since our state will be instituting a 3rd grade hold-back reading law, I make it a point to include writing and reading in my series.
Day #3: Outlines and Story Logic
We began with warmups as usual, adding more focused linguistic exercises. P-T-D-K-G is my go-to exercise to help young students begin to see their mouths and voices as tools, making them pinpoint how their mouths, tongues, and such make the sounds of speech. Logically, this was followed with some introductory tongue twisters, since students were understanding why a tongue twister, well, twists the tongue.
The campers shared their written AHE from the night before, exploring fears from their character's point of view. Each student read their monologues in-role, and then campers were invited to constructively criticize and offer additions to each others' stories.
Giving good criticism can be incredibly difficult to understand as a young person. Honesty is always expected between classmates, but can lead to misinterpretations or hurt feelings. We must help guide students into constructively expressing that truth. See the below video.
After guiding the discussion on monologues, I told the students that they had already written huge part of the show - five full monologues, one from each character! This excited the campers (of course!) and they used that energy to show off their improved sets and costumes.
Since characters had been chosen and environments were in the process of being built, it was time to finalize the logical proceedings of the plot. Using the suggestions from the day before, students chose their plot points by 1) feasibility and 2) silliness.
The instructor's synthesizing ability comes into play again here. Though the script must proceed with internal logic (plot-wise), our adult sense of external logic does not need to apply. This is incredibly important for a youth-created production. (Recall my "cruise ship for cat fire safety" example from Day #2. No such cruise would exist, but in the realm of their story, it could.) Further, we had to tie in this newly formed situation with their established characters. I asked, “Why would an old man and a wind fairy need to attend such a cruise?” which spurred further character discussion and additions to our script.
Students were so engaged with outlining their story that we went right to the end of our live session time. At home, students were asked to incorporate the ideas they liked from the class into their POV fear stories, while continuing to improve their costumes and sets. I
emphasized in my email to parents that nothing needed to be purchased and students were creating costumes, sets, and props from things readily available in the home. Finally, I created a lighting activity video challenging campers to think of technical elements as we craft our script.
Day #4: Organic Play-Writing
Today's warmup introduced the puppet strings exercise, which helps students connect their facial movement to conscious instruction. It also doubled as a mirror exercise; with Zoom gallery view students are able to view themselves.
We reviewed the POV fear stories, costumes, sets, and lighting take-home video. Students actually tried the lighting exercise at home and we were able to incorporate their creative findings in the show. Examples included 1) creating a campfire with a flashlight and manipulating an orange scarf, and 2) switching a hand-held lamp on when a character casts a "spell." Students also expressed learning something valuable from the etiquette video.
Since we finished the outline in the last lesson, it was time to create the show organically. Students pretended to be their characters and naturally reacted and discussed the situations happening in their chosen outline. Campers were asked to stay active and refrain from "chair acting." Prompting with questions, I tried to enforce logical consistency while keeping the “yes-and” concept alive in the construction.
Write down everything the campers say; if you miss something, ask them to repeat what they said so you aren’t influencing their response — keeping the authenticity of the child’s mind of the work. I found that when I repeated dialogue back to them, they accepted whatever phrasing I chose if it was close enough. From Games for Actors and Non-Actors (Boal, p. 174): "We must not forget that words are only vehicles which convey meanings, emotions, memories, ideas...which are not necessarily the same for everyone: the word spoken is never the word heard. Words are like trucks: they carry the loads you put on them."
We were able to complete about 3/4 of the script through these play and creative drama processing methods. I cleaned the script for at-home reading as we went along and asked for clarification on any trouble spots that arose. After spending alone time with the script, I asked campers to participate in a world-building exercise. Some students were having trouble visualizing the different environments, and as a result their set-building was hampered. This was an attempt to have them "zoom out" on their concept and see things from another angle.
On this day, it was notable that students were already so excited for their characters that they had completed multiple versions of each AHE, and had started hand-crafted costumes and elaborate "forts" in their dining rooms, bedrooms, etc. Targeted student engagement at home seems to be a key (and fun!) component to online learning.
Day #5: Write and Read-Through
As a two-week camp, this was our first Friday. Warmups introduced yee-yaw for more facial awareness and passing strange to help students consciously connect their imagination and physical reactions. In preparation for our first read-through, I introduced diaphragmatic breathing into the standard warmup.
We again reviewed costumes, sets, and the world-building activity from the previous lesson's AHE. As hoped, students were more comfortable with the scope of their environments and came prepared with clearer ideas on their at-home implementation.
In practice, this was a full day of script work and editing with one read of the semi-finalized script. Your script must be completed by the end of this lesson, with small revisions to be given on Day #6.
Because of the students' continued attentiveness and tenacity, I decided to end the week with a couple games that strengthened their core actor's tools. In I'm Here, Your Majesty! students honed their character vocal presence; Props helped them prepare for items needed in the show through improvisation!
Before I explained the weekend AHE, I individually checked in with each student on 1) how they felt about their character and script, 2) how their costume and set creation process was going at home, and 3) if there's anything they needed from me. After addressing concerns, students were asked to memorize their POV fear stories over the weekend for peer performance upon return. To assist with reading aloud, I created a short video lesson on punctuation and inflection (example bottom). I also included some costuming activities (example top), as some students expressed trouble with specifying their ideas.
CONGRATS! YOU'RE HALFWAY THERE!Day #6: Refresh, Review, and Block
Campers returned from their weekend break. We performed the cumulative standardized warmups, but introduced a couple intermediate tongue twisters.
Next, I conferred with students to get final script variations and edits. Some students downloaded and wrote/scribbled on their own copy of the PDF and sent to me, some printed it out and physically made edits, some wrote their ideas as a list on separate paper… After reviewing and voting on the edits, the script was final! Hooray!
If multiple media is overwhelming for the instructor, consider specifying how you would like revisions received.
BLOCKING, BLOCKING, BLOCKING. This day and the next are heavily focused on where the young actors need to be and when they need to be there. This was the most difficult part for me, as I have little experience in TV/Film acting. I was also not teaching a screen acting class. How could I keep the spirit of the stage through this forced medium?
Consider that, instead of seeing this:
You should train yourself to see this:
You will need a lot of time for blocking before filming. This part is new to everyone.
If you have students completely new to acting, you will need to educate them on stage directions, blocking notation, and stage spaces. We ran through the show a couple times with students acting however they felt when they felt in-role (organic blocking). I notated all the blocking that worked; movement that didn't work was used as discussion material to help improve it instead of cutting it. We organically blocked about half of the show, and students continually challenged themselves to memorize the script as we worked. For another couple runs, the students were given guided blocking on trouble spots and tech-intensive spots.
The beginning scene of our show, for instance, had one character handing another a flier. Simple? Nope! The two campers had trouble visualizing how that would work from separate filming locations. My teaching style upholds learning through process, so I guided them to think of themselves watching a video; what actions are effective when you watch them? They tried multiple ways of transferring objects while looking at their own camera view; though none worked, their critical thinking was engaged.
Since they did not find a solution after trial and error, I told the first student to pass the item toward and directly above the camera, then hold, while the other student started above the camera and pulled a piece of paper in-frame. I recorded this and screenshared the quick recording, which made it immediately click in their heads; the fluidity of action-reaction needed to be enforced.
At home, campers were simply asked to continue memorization as 1) it makes acting in-role much easier and 2) it made my life easier for editing purposes. I also included some more guidance on breathing style and projection; each student had wildly different mics and, therefore, sound quality.
Day #7: Block and Tech(le)
This standard warmup was enhanced with the shadow boxing exercise. It was the most difficult exercise to describe in words so a demonstration is below.
BLOCKING, BLOCKING, BLOCKING, BLOCKING, BLOCKING.
TIP: to block a punch/whack, have the striking object go directly above and slightly past the first camera; then, have the receiving actor begin directly in front of the lens and react backward into frame with the appropriate amount of force.
TIP: if recording through Zoom, do not have students say lines simultaneously. Due to inconsistent connections, their audio will likely not line up.
TIP: make sure you have ideas for lights and sound effects, and that students are clear how they are being implemented (i.e. practically or in post-production).
At-Home Engagement completion significantly dwindled this week, likely due to memorizing, technical element creation, and home life. The largest issue noticed in our blocking sessions, however, was the students' tendency to drop character and/or become sedentary at their chair, bed, etc. To work on this, I created a video addressing what I meant by "dropping character" (below). I encouraged students to finish memorizing what they could and finalize their sets and costumes for incoming filming.
Day #8: Filming Session and Character Work
From this day onward I used a high school TA to facilitate while I filmed. If this is not possible, you will need to stagger your lesson and filming times for efficiency. Because these final lessons truly boil down to your directing style and resources, there is less written guide going forward. Trust yourself!
After warmups, I added the mindfulness minute to help quell student anxieties on filming their showcase. An advanced tongue twister was performed; then, I created a breakout room to take one student at a time for filming.
STUDENTS w/ ME:
Recording in Zoom breakout sessions is long, arduous, and nerve-wracking. You must be prepared to learn how to edit a video together, and you will likely be teaching yourself.
Besides having to learn the intricacies of working this technology, you must also learn their quirks. Zoom has quite a few of them.Example: the program's native recording feature only records the active speaker's video, and it records full-screen, but it will record all unmuted audio. For this reason, I chose to use a third-party screen recording software. Familiarizing yourself with frequent mistakes and shortcuts for your chosen program will go a long way in preserving your sanity!
Storyboarding is highly recommended. Relying on the script, you will miss reaction shots and non-verbal portions.
STUDENTS w/ TA: While I was recording campers' lines and reactions, the student assistant facilitated some character games and exercises to keep the other students in-role and engaged. I supplied the TA with a detailed lesson every morning she assisted.
STUDENTS TOGETHER: I left about 10-15 minutes at the end of each recording day to bring the students together and end cohesively. This usually took the form of a game and a debrief. Tiny voice is the ultimate synthesis game, requiring students to respond-in role while applying their imagination to an inanimate, disembodied object.
My student TA informed me that campers were behaving erratically and being disrespectful during facilitation. I sent a reminder to parents that, though she was not me, she deserved the same respect and attention.
Day #9: Filming Session and Games
STUDENTS w/ ME:
Continued the dreaded filming. Almost every essential recording was done today.
STUDENTS w/ TA:
Instead of general character work, the TA worked body and voice specifically through script exercises and imaginative games.
STUDENTS TOGETHER:
In our together-time, I brought a couple Boalian exercises to attempt virtually. They worked! (After some adjustments, of course.)
Think outside the conventions of our physical world when planning virtual games. Remember the chat function, the ability to mute sight and hearing, that the camera itself does not have to be stationary, etc...
For our final AHE, I prompted students to look back at the brainstorming list from the beginning of camp. They were to choose an environment we did not use in the show, then list as many sounds that would occur in that environment as there were students in the class (5). Up to this point, students had become characters in environments, but they had not yet become the environments themselves. These soundscapes were performed the next day.
Day #10: That's A Wrap!
STUDENTS w/ ME:
Finished the dreaded filming. Don't forget bows and introductions!
STUDENTS w/ TA:
The TA used games to focus on cooperation and imagination to end students' experience on a note of camaraderie. Then, campers shared the soundscape ideas from the final AHE and performed them.
STUDENTS TOGETHER:
This was our final time together, so I experimented with a couple more theatre exercises from Salas and Boal (see Lesson Plan).
Before students left, we participated in a round of rose and thorn, where campers expressed one thing they loved about camp and one thing they thought could be better. In my pedagogical view, shaped by Freire, each lesson should see learning by students and teacher. In other words, as I teach them theatre, they teach me how to improve my instructional ability!
Be willing to accept brutal honesty, especially with younger students. The eternal balance for artistry is thick skin, open mind, and heart on sleeve.
Responses were (in no particular order):
1) ROSE: the whole thing THORN: more things for energy in the morning 2) ROSE: creative ways of approaching the screen as a “stage” THORN: social 3) ROSE: playing games THORN: rather be in person 4) ROSE: creating stuff at home THORN: social, need better place at home to film 5) ROSE: exercises and stretches in the morning, “movie” aspect THORN: more heroes
“One cannot expect positive results from an educational...program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people” (Freire, p. 95).
Students went on their ways (again, after extended goodbyes). I debriefed with and thanked my student TA for their wonderful assistance. Then, I delved into editing the final showcase. Over the next three days, I spent roughly 18 working hours editing the 15-minute showcase. For privacy, the finished product was uploaded as an unlisted video to our organizational YouTube. Though I cannot share this showcase publicly, we were concurrently rehearsing our Summer Shorts 4 series with our older student actors. The similarly-constructed show, directed by Samuel Richardson and co-directed by Addison Peter (the TA) and myself, is available below.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING! GO CHANGE YOUR WORLD!
EXTRAS
Silly quotes:
"I'm scared of zombies because of Michael Jackson. Thriller was a nightmare."
"This is Bear his name is Beary. This is a scary clown his name is Scary."
"I'm a sea otter with a PhD in marine biology!"
"I'm an angry motivational speaker named Fred."
"Ronald McDonald is too much."
"I ripped out the spinal cord of the notebook..."
"Why would I let go of a perfectly good sandwich?"
"By 'book,' what do you mean?"
"My hamburger is cheetah print."
FOCUS GROUP QUESTION:
How can we foster a stronger communal experience through virtual learning? We don't get that "backstage" time with each other to develop those friendships, work out each other's personality, etc.
BOOKS:
Boal, Augusto: Games for Actors and Non-Actors.
Boal, Augusto: Theatre of the Oppressed.
Freire, Paulo: Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Salas, Jo: Improvising Real Life: Personal Story in Playback Theatre
Schechner, Richard: Performance Theory
Zipes, Jack: Creative Storytelling
SPECIAL THANKS The Mizell Family
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