Origins of Drama for Schools' Drama-Based Pedagogy

In our practice, the term "Drama-Based Pedagogy" has emerged as a productive way to describe a specific approach that uses drama techniques to teach across the curriculum in the United States public schools. Generally, practitioners and researchers refer to theatre as work that is oriented toward a performative product, whereas drama is work that is oriented toward a non-performative process or "process oriented" (see Figure 1). The intention of drama is often characterized as exploratory and reflective; it is work that springs from inquiry. Theatre's intention is often focused on the creation and reception of a product for an audience. This is not to suggest that there is a fixed dichotomy between theatre and drama. Certainly, drama-based work can move toward a production, and theatre-based work can engage in reflective practice in preparation for a performance. For this book, Drama-Based Pedagogy privileges the process of drama over the product or performance of theatre. However, the practice of theatre remains a central and necessary underpinning of the work.

Drama's process-oriented use in the classroom and across the curriculum has been described and theorized by scholars and researchers across multiple fields since the middle of the twentieth century. Recent scholarship that influences our work includes writing from areas as diverse as education, literacy, social studies, and social justice/equity (Anderson, 2012; Boal, 2002; Bolton & Heathcote, 1995; Edmiston, 2014; Edmiston & Enciso, 2002; Grady, 2000; Miller & Saxton, 2004; Neelands & Goode, 2000; Nicholson, 2011; Taylor, 1998; Thompson, 1999; O'Neill, 1995; Pendergrast & Saxton, 2013; van de Water, McAvoy & Hunt, 2015; Wagner, 1998). Drama and theatre work in educational contexts goes by many names including drama in education, theatre in education, applied drama, applied theatre, educational drama, dramatic inquiry, role-play, creative drama, improvisation, and Theatre of the Oppressed techniques. The strategies and methods described in this book have their roots in various lines of drama and theatre, but primarily come from the key drama teaching practices that teachers and teaching artists have developed and used in classrooms. For ten years, we have worked in partnership with teachers across the United States to pilot and structure this wide range of drama practices into a flexible, methodological toolkit that supports generalist classroom educators in their efforts to teach for effective learning across all disciplines. Our adaptation of these approaches focuses on "the integration and blurring of the boundaries between personal and social learning and academic learning; learning between subjects as much as within them" (Neelands, 2009, p. 177).

What Is Drama-Based Pedagogy?

What is Drama-Based Pedagogy?

Drama-Based Pedagogy (DBP) uses active and dramatic approaches to engage students in academic, affective and aesthetic learning through dialogic meaning-making in all areas of the curriculum.

As discussed in the previous section, we use the term "drama-based" to describe this practice because the collection and codification of strategies presented in this book are adapted primarily from the field of drama. We use the term pedagogy in this book to focus on the theoretical or philosophical understanding of teaching and learning (Watkins & Mortimore, 1999). DBP offers educators tools and a structure to activate their pedagogical beliefs that align with sociocultural (Vygotsky, 1978) and critical theories of learning (Freire, 2007; hooks, 1994) in the classroom, where participants co-construct their understanding and personal identities as part of the classroom culture.

This chapter explores the theories behind three foundational concepts that are named in our DBP definition: (1) active and dramatic approaches; (2) academic, affective, and aesthetic outcomes; and (3) dialogic meaning-making. When relevant, each concept is discussed through an educational and a drama lens. By discussing both perspectives, teachers may better understand the foundational work of drama and artists may better understand the foundational work in education that informs Drama-Based Pedagogy. Key questions and sections from the example of practice at the beginning of Part I are also included as ways to illuminate and navigate the terrain.

Why does Drama-Based Pedagogy use "active and dramatic approaches"?

Drama-Based Pedagogy uses strategies that bring together the body and the mind through the art of drama/theatre. As others have noted (Edmiston, 2014), both active and dramatic approaches are necessary to fully realize the potential of drama-based inquiry. In DBP participants actively work as an ensemble to imagine new possibilities and to embody and make meaning as a way to situate understanding within the larger narrative/story of the human condition. For example, in the DBP example of practice that began Part I, students were given the opportunity to work as an ensemble, to imagine and embody a possible story about a brown paper bag with a hole on the bottom, a princess, and a dragon. In the next section, we explore how DBP engages in ensemble, imagination, embodiment, and narrative/story as a central aspect of its active and dramatic approach to learning.

To begin, the teacher invites the kindergarten students to sit in a circle on the classroom rug.

Ensemble: DBP offers a way to engage students as a community of learners or an ensemble. As suggested by US theatre scholar and practitioner Michael Rohd, ensemble is "at its simplest, a group of people that work together regularly. At its best, a group of people who work well together, trust one another, and depend upon each other" (2002, p. 28). Drama in education practitioner and researcher Jonathon Neelands furthers this argument when he writes that students in an ensemble "have the opportunity to struggle with the demands of becoming a self-managing, self-governing, self-regulating social group who co-create artistically and socially" (2009, p. 10). Building trust, finding the way through struggle, and learning how to co-create as a community of learners are key artistic skills in DBP that enable students to comfortably use their imagination and body within narrative/story.

In educational contexts, ensemble is often described as a sense of belonging, community or relatedness among peers (Anderman, 2003; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Osterman,...