Reflection #5

What? I learned a lot while coming up with drama activities for the book we used. There are so many activities that I never would have thought of on my own to incorporate drama into other areas of learning. I really enjoyed hearing about the ideas from the other groups. One thing that I really liked about the group that did the book Barefoot was how they turned off the lights and read by flashlight with music playing and their idea of giving everyone a glow stick. I also liked when one of the groups that did the story of Ruby Bridges had someone be Ruby Bridges and walk through the "mob" to feel like it would actually be like to be her.

So What? Some of the techniques that I'll use in my teaching, in addition to the ones I mentioned above, are some of the ones that my group came up with. I will use the scavenger hunt idea that came from the text book and I will also use the interview activity where one person acts as the interviewer, and the other as a character in the story. I will definitely use activities we learned in class to incorporate them into literature to make learning about things like history more fun, hands on, and real for the students.

Now What? I will prepare to integrate drama into my teaching by researching more drama activities that could work well with books and other areas of teaching. I think the drama activities are important because it gives each child a chance to participate in a safe environment. If you have them do a play right at first, some of the more shy kids will be too scared to actually let go and participate and perform as well as they might be able to if you started them off with some of the drama activities like interviewing. By using the drama activities with literature, it helps them learn the topic of the book better and helps prepare them for drama.