Planning drama and literature across the curriculum
Cross curricular drama can be strengthened through the use of quality fiction as a frame for action and investigation; this may be spread over several weeks or may be a single session. Its potential to contribute to children's learning across the curriculum can be tapped by allowing the fictive world of literature to enliven the focus, and help children personalise and connect to the area of study.
Using the narrative interest created by potent novels or powerful images from picture fiction, historical and geographical issues can be examined and faith tales too can be explored from the inside out, enabling children to deepen their understanding of particular religions and the significant people within them. Social and moral opportunities abound in these contexts, as well as spiritual ones, and the literature selected becomes a guide for developing imagination in action, a context for knowledge expansion.
The student teachers could bring two pieces of cross curricular children's literature for a chosen key stage to a session and develop their ideas for how to use them for a drama investigation. They can employ a range of drama conventions plan the drama and extend the children's learning, sharing their group plans for learning in these areas. Useful examples of picture fiction which focuses on cross curricular issues include:
The Great Kapok Tree: A tale of the Amazon Rainforest by Lynne Cherry (Harcourt Brace) Rose Blanche by Ian McEwan and Roberto Innocenti (Jonathon Cape) I am the Mummy Herb Nefert by Eve Bunting (Voyager) Giant by Juliet and Charles Snape (Walker) Shaker Lane by Alice and Martin Provensen (Walker) The Paperbag Prince by Colin Thompson (Red Fox) Croc'nile by Roy Gerrard (Gollancz) The House that Crack Built by Charles Taylor Encounter by Jane Yolen (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
