Tag Archive for: conferences

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Exploring local history through DI

A moment from the workshop (photo by Vivien Smith)

I really enjoyed co-presenting with Claire Edwards at the Puketāpapa Kahui Ako gathering at Dominion Road school in Auckland recently. The focus of the day was on the new Aotearoa New Zealand Histories curriculum, and Claire and I took the opportunity to model how frame distance could be used to explore a story from local history from a range of perspectives.

Our starting point was a newspaper account of a dramatic event that happened just down the road from the school in 1872. By the end of the half-day workshop everyone was really engaged with the content … so much so, we hardly had time to discuss the way we’d used DI to teach it!

I wrote up the planning for the workshop in detail, with an explanation of each step for participants. And I thought other teachers might be interested too. Hope you find it useful … You could teach the plan as is (the story of the Cyrus Hayley affair is absolutely fascinating as a window into New Zealand society at the time). Or you could adapt the steps to explore a story from your own locality. I hope you’ll leave a comment, or get in touch to let me know what you create.

One thing to notice is how the planning deliberately avoids inviting participants to step into the shoes of historical characters. Strategies and conventions like “hotseating” and “teacher in role” may not be appropriate where real historical figures are involved. Instead, we can use frame distance to take roles as people with different viewpoints on the event. This allows us to explore the way different perspectives on an historic event change the way it is perceived. I’m encouraging all the teachers I work with to consider frame distance when teaching local histories. More on this in future posts…

Please note the curriculum links at the start of the document, including the comments about the importance of mana whenua engagement.

Thanks to Claire Edwards for finding the amazing source material about Cyrus Haley and for co-planning and co-presenting – it was great for the teachers to hear from a colleague about the impact DI has had in your school. Thanks also to Vivien Smith for taking video and photo record of the workshop, to Cat Rowlings for coming across town to attend, to participants for choosing the workshop from so many others they could have selected, and to Mike O’Reilly for his invitation to be part of the day.

As with all planning offered freely on this site, these resources belong to the original authors and are not to be on-sold for profit nor distributed in any other form.

Auckland-Kahui-Ako-workshop-2022-VA-and-CEDownload
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Heathcote Reconsidered

Here’s a brief report about the Heathcote Reconsidered conference held in Greenwich, London from 4-7 July. You might also like to check out the video clip of John O’Toole’s keynote address (given in role as Dr Phil. E. Stein). I haven’t been able to upload the clip directly, but you can see it on our facebook page  here 

The conference was really great. It was held at the old Maritime college, Greenwich – extremely beautiful buildings right on the Thames. Having volunteered to present twice I  didn’t get to see as many papers or workshops as I might have – but there was plenty that was interesting. A real stand out presentation for me was Brian Heap’s taxonomy of the 50 ways Heathcote uses TIME in process drama planning. This is going to be a really useful list and I’m going to ask Brian if I can share it with you. Erika P presented some really smart thinking about authenticity in drama teaching. I loved Brian Edmiston’s workshop on dialogue in teaching: he’s such a good facilitator and his theorising of drama through positioning theory is groundbreaking stuff. I also really enjoyed watching Iona Towler-Evans and David Allen – two experienced mantle practitioners as they worked with teachers on establishing procedures for MOTE. Helen Cahill did a thought provoking session on abstract conventions (definitely going to change the way I work) and there were wonderful keynotes from David Booth and Cecily O’Neill as well. Last but not least, Sue Davis and her team shared the results of an online “rolling role” project in which students from around the globe participated in a series of inter-related drama activities based on a common starting point. Very profound and moving. I’m going to see whether Sue will let us link to her video  – meanwhile you can read a bit about the project by clicking here 

Quite apart from the academic side – and the social events – it was lovely to finally get the chance to meet Dorothy Heathcote’s daughter, Marianne and family and to see the special photos and objects they had brought to share (including Dorothy’s MBE). All in all a fantastic experience and I’m enormously grateful to Pam Bowell and the University of Waikato for supporting me to attend.

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Waikato Cluster meeting on Thursday and conference not far behind!

Greetings! A friendly reminder of two things: Thursday 11th April is our next cluster meeting – 4.30 pm at Hillcrest Normal School. All most welcome… The focus will be on use of Heathcote’s role conventions…. Also a reminder that if you have not already done so, now is the time to get your registration in for Te Kore – the Drama NZ national conference, 26-28 April at University of Waikato. The conference is three days of fantastic presentations and workshops on drama including a number specifically related to Mantle of the Expert. Process drama expert Pam Bowell is one of the keynotes. It’s a great opportunity and very reasonably priced – with special deals for students and day registrations also available  Click here to download registration form

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$500 available to help teachers attend Drama NZ conference

Did you know that Drama NZ is offering two $500 scholarships to support teachers to attend conference this year? One scholarship is for a beginning teacher, the other is for a teacher from a rural school. The $500 will go a long way towards covering fees and accommodation.  Interested? Check out the drama NZ website for more information or email  dnzconference2013@gmail.com

Te Kore – Drama NZ’s national conference for 2013 will be held at Waikato University 26-28 April. The conference suits primary, intermediate and secondary teachers and a number of presentations and workshops will be specifically devoted to Mantle of the Expert.

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MOTE in the English classroom

Received this email from Esther at Auckland Girl’s Grammar – she’s been bravely trying some drama strategies she learned in the IFTE conference workshop within her Secondary English classroom. Well done Esther – sounds like you are taking some risks and creating rich learning experiences for the students!
Great to see the collaboration between teachers within the school too – we need more of this at secondary!

Just to let you know, that with some nervous excitement, we are both trying out some techniques we learnt from you!  Fortunately, we have also had the help of our school drama teacher  to help guide us.

So far I have got my Year 9 English class to become a team of investigative journalists following up on a story animal cruelty and a strange rebellion on Manor Farm [aka Animal Farm] – where I ended up impersonating the drunken Mr Jones languishing at the Red Lion pub as they interrogated me!
This week I am getting my Year 12 English class to become a Trauma team  who are going to work with a family where domestic violence and murder have occurred (from the novel ‘Purple Hibiscus’) and interview then prepare psychological assessments of each character for a meeting with a lawyer.
Before the year is out I would like to think about how I can apply MoTE to my low stream class and my Art History class too.
Its all very scary and I feel like a first year teacher all over again but it is reinvigorating my teaching and certainly impacting student engagement in my classroom. Many thanks for providing the inspiration in your workshop that ignited this professional growth!
Best wishes
Esther Graham
Auckland Girls’  Grammar School.
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MOTE features at IFTE and DNZ conferences

It was great to see the interest in MOTE at two recent education conferences held in Auckland over the Easter break.

A workshop held at the IFTE conference Much Ado About English (held at University of Auckland business school) attracted a group of specialist Secondary English teachers. Most were new to MOTE and attended the workshop because of an interest in integration and drama as pedagogy.

There was also a positive response from delegates at the Drama NZ conference Unplugged held this week at St Kentigern college.

On Wednesday I gave a presentation called “Everything Links to Everything Doesn’t it?” This offered some insights into the TLRI-funded research project Connecting Learning, Connecting Curriculum and the work being done with MOTE within the project.

I also ended up presenting on the Friday because unfortunately, Kathleen W and Georgie D were unable to present their workshop “Let’s talk about Mantle”. On their invitation, I took the opportunity to re-visit the Othello work I had done with the English teachers the week before. I think it went rather well!

I promised to share the planning model from the conference workshops – it’s a work in progress but may be of interest. Follow this link PLANNING PREZI