Process drama

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Process drama as a teaching methodology has developed primarily from the work of Brian Way, Dorothy Heathcote and Gavin Bolton (Bolton, 1979, 1984, 1992; Bolton & Heathcote, 1; Heathcote & Bolton, 1995) and through the work of other leading drama practitioners (Morgan & Saxton, 1989; Neelands, Booth, & Goode, 1991; O'Neill, 1991, 1995; O'Toole, 1990), Patrice Baldwin (1991 ff). It is a method of teaching and learning where both the students and teacher are working in and out of role. O’Neill (1995) describes process drama being used to explore a problem, situation, theme or series of related ideas or themes through the use of the artistic medium of unscripted drama. Process drama is a dynamic way of working that requires teachers to reflect-in-action (O'Mara, 2000), constantly dealing with unique situations that require novel approaches (Schön, 1986). It has its roots in dramatic play, where children in every culture in the world that are developing normally will create imagined worlds, often with the co-participation of an empathetic adult in role (usually the parent). Process drama in school settings usually involves the whole clas in a make believe and involves the "teacher in role".

When they are working in process drama, the students and teachers work together to create an imaginary dramatic world within which issues are considered and problems can be solved. In this world they work together to explore problems and issues such as, “How do communities deal with change?”, “How do we accept other people into our community?” or themes such as environmental sustainability, betrayal, truth and other ethical and moral issues. Sometimes the work may begin as light-hearted, but the teacher always layers more dramatic tension and complexity into the work as the teacher is aiming for a pedagogical outcome. Students learn to think beyond their own point of view and consider multiple perspectives on a topic through playing different roles. For instance, if the issue being discussed is logging a forest, they may play the loggers, people who live in the forest community and environmentalists. Playing a range of positions encourages them to be able to recast themselves as the “other” and to consider life from that viewpoint, thereby creating complexity and enabling us to explore multiple dimensions of the topic. Process drama does what the character Atticus, in the famous American Civil Rights novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee advocates, the ability to work for social justice comes from the ability to understand another perspective—to be able to try on someone else’s shoes and walk around in them for a while. Process drama allows us to “try on” other people’s shoes, to walk the paths they tread and to see how the world looks from their point of view. Process drama is also suggested as a tool to promote literacy development through opportunities for dramatic play in early childhood settings within which children speak for a range of purposes in role. Ping-Yun Sun cites Schneider and Jackson in this article: Using Drama and Theatre to Promote Literacy Development: Some Basic Classroom Applications Prepared by: Ping-Yun Sun (Schneider, J. J., & Jackson, S. A. W. (2000). Process drama: A special space and place for writing. The Reading Teacher, 54(1), 38-51. [EJ614497]. This info was found at http://reading.indiana.edu/ieo/digests/d187.html

In school settings drama is used often as an approach to understanding and exploring written texts and picture books and as a way of providing meaningful and engaging contexts for writing. This is exemplified in "Teaching Literacy Through Drama - Creative approaches" by Patrice Baldwin and Kate Fleming.