Drama Conventions
A range of drama conventions exists. Each creates different demands and prompts particular kinds of thinking and interaction at certain moments in the drama. They are not, however, inflexible, and can be combined and adapted to suit the dramatic exploration.
Freeze Frame
This convention is also known as creating tableaux, still images or statue making. Individually, in small groups or as a whole class, children use their bodies to create an image of an event, an idea, a theme or even a moment in time. This silent picture freezes the action, as do newspaper pictures, but it can also portray a memory, a wish, or an image from a dream, as well as represent abstract themes such as anger, jealousy or the truth. Freeze frames can be brought to life, and subtitled with appropriate captions, written or spoken, or have noises and sound effects added to them. In addition, the words or inner thoughts of members of the tableau can be voiced when the teacher touches children on the shoulder. Freeze frames offer a useful way of capturing and conveying meaning, since groups can convey much more than they would be able to through words alone.
Hot Seating
The teacher and/or the children assume the role of one or more individuals from the drama and are questioned by the remainder of the class also in role. The class need to be fore-warned and given time to think of questions. They can ask the questions either as themselves, so their point of view is outside the drama, or they can adopt a role within the drama and ask questions from this perspective. If the class is in role, this helps to focus the kinds of questions asked and may prompt the need for notes to be taken. This is a useful probing technique which seeks to develop knowledge of the characters' motives, attitudes and behaviour and increases awareness of the complex nature of human behaviour.
Improvisation: small group
Improvisations can be prepared beforehand or spontaneously developed. In small group's children can discuss, plan and create a piece of prepared improvisation which is relatively secure, because through their discussion they create a kind of script or structure to follow. . If it is spontaneously created they will find their way forward together in action.
Improvisation: whole class
The whole class, including the teacher, engage in improvisation together. Again such improvisation can be planned or spontaneous. It can be 'formal' as in a whole class meeting, for example, a court scene, or more informal, a class improvisation of a market scene. Whole class role play reduces the pressure of being watched since everyone is corporately engaged and lives in the moment responding to each other naturally within the imaginary context.
Teacher in Role
This is a powerful convention and involves the teacher engaging fully in the drama by adopting various roles . The technique is a tool through which the teacher can support, extend and challenge the children's thinking from inside the drama. The teacher in a role ,TIR, can influence the events from within the unfolding dramatic situation. Each adopted role has its own social status which gives access to an influence commensurate with its position: high status roles have a controlling and deciding nature, whilst lower status roles are not so openly powerful, but can still be influential.
Thought Tracking
In this convention, the private thoughts of individuals are shared. This can be organised in different ways; the teacher can touch individuals on the shoulder during a freeze-frame, or interrupt an improvisation and ask them to voice their thoughts, or the class can adopt the role of one character and simultaneously speak aloud their thoughts and fears in a particular situation. Alternatively the teacher, or a child, in role, can give witness to the class and speak personally about recent events from a 'special' chair. Members of the class can step forward to stand behind the chair and express their thoughts and views about the character, or the views of the character. It is useful to slow down the action and can prompt both deeper understanding of individual characters and thoughtful, sensitive responses to what has happened.
Forum Theatre
This is an improvisation performed by a few members of the class in the forum of the classroom which is interrupted and discussed, the same situation is then reworked taking into account what has been said. The children, both those who are acting and those who are observing action, can stop the action during the performance and suggest changes justifying their ideas. It is valuable for examining difficult situations and considering the options available.
Role on the Wall
An outline is drawn around an important character as they lie upon a large piece of paper, and information and feelings about the character are written into the shape by each child. This can be added to throughout the drama. It can also be enriched by being written from different perspectives, for example, the space outside the outline can contain comments about the character as they are seen from an observer's viewpoint and the interior space can contain the characters own thoughts and point of view. This is useful for building a deeper understanding of a chosen role.
Decision / Conscience Alley
This convention refers to any situation in which there are different choices of action, and enables the children to examine conflicting interests or dilemmas. It is useful to examine the pros and cons of a decision. Two lines of children face each other, and one child in role as a character walks slowly down the alley between them. As the character progresses down the alley, their thoughts or the sets of views for and against a particular course of action are voiced aloud by the rest of the class. The character can then be hot seated at the end of the alley, to establish their final decision and to understand why they have made this choice. It can also be used to voice perspectives on a complex situation .
Writing in Role
A variety of kinds of writing can emerge from the lived experience of the drama and can be written in role, e.g., letters, diaries, messages, pamphlets, notes and even graffiti. For example, in a drama about opening a local tourist shop, a multitude of forms of writing may be involved, including adverts for jobs, fliers about the shop, interior designs, letters of information to the press, display resumes, as well as diaries of the workers, newspaper reports, scripts for a radio item and so on. Opportunities to write in role can be sized during drama or drama can be planned for literacy time as a precursor to writing a specific genre. Children often write with considerable urgency in drama since they have a purpose and a clearly imagined audience for their writing.
Drawing
This involves the children individually or in small groups drawing a significant object in the drama. For example, a detailed drawing of some particular flora and fauna found during the migration west of the American pioneers may help children invent possibilities and sow seeds for future action. In this way the drawing enhances the drama and creates new meanings.
Overheard Conversations
In small groups, conversations between characters are improvised, and then a few are 'overheard' by the class, to add tension and information and enable a range of viewpoints to be established. The group can also recreate key conversations from the past that shed light upon the present situation. The teacher as storyteller may later integrate these perspectives into the drama.
Ritual or Ceremony
In ritual, the teacher and the class work out ways of marking significant events in the narrative and create some form of ceremony which is part of the drama. Such rituals often slow the drama down and provoke a deepening sense of significance, as well as reflection. For example, the children as villagers might create a chant, a prayer or a dance to thank their gods for their beneficence, or in another drama, different villagers might write prayers and make artefacts to leave at the burial site of their shaman. Ritual is often used to conclude work or to intensify the tenor of the drama.
Mantle of the Expert
This convention involves children being given or adopting roles which necessarily include the expertise, authority, knowledge and skills of specialists. This knowledge may be recently acquired from classroom research, it might be their own personal expertise, or it may be bestowed imaginatively but the status it gives the children allows them to significantly influence the drama. The teacher must honour the expertise and may therefore take on a role of relative ignorance in the drama or assume a more equal role alongside them.
The most comprehensive guide to conventions is in Neelands, J. & Goode, T. (2001) Structuring Drama Work 2nd Edition CUP.
