Something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while is a new strategy I have been using for bringing a fictional ‘other’ into a classroom drama. What do I mean by a fictional ‘other’? Well, that could be a whole post in its own right, but basically a fictional ‘other’ is anyone from the imagined world that we ‘evoke’ within the classroom world. The fictional other could be a story character, the client in a Mantle of the Expert experience, an angry neighbour or an imaginary member of our class who has made a mess of the PE cupboard and got us all into trouble. Fictional ‘others’ allow teachers to present someone else outside of the classroom as an audience, an interested party – or indeed an impediment – to the work of the classroom. Carrie Swanson writes more about fictional others in a journal article that can be found here.
There are lots of strategies we might use to bring a fictional other to the attention of the class. Probably the most familiar are the strategies of ‘teacher in role’ or ‘adult /person in role’ where the teacher or some other adult or person takes on a role as someone from the imagined world. Often this is done as though the role was actually present and able to speak, move and respond, but there are lots of other possibilities. Dorothy Heathcote’s list of 34 role conventions sets out a whole range of ways in which a teacher in role or person in role can be varied, including some in which the role is represented in non human form, though something like a letter, an object or a piece of discarded clothing. For a list of Heathcote’s role conventions, click here
What Heathcote’s list does not include are digital possibilities for evoking a fictional other, and this is something I’ve been experimenting with recently. If you caught up with Miguel’s blog about his Mantle adventures, or my post about working with officials from the Ministry of Education in Bangladesh, you might notice that in both cases we used something called ‘voki’ to evoke the fictional other of the client.
Voki is a free online tool for creating an animation that ‘speaks’ the words you give it to say. Here’s a link to the voki site. And Here’s a quick video of the kind of thing you can produce.
The app gives several options for gender, ethnicity, accent, clothing etc so you can tailor it to suit your situation. My advice would be to keep things realistic and simple rather than going for the more ‘way out’ features – unless that suits your context, of course! One thing I really like about using Voki is how participants could return to the link time and again and revisit it for clarification. It’s also great how you can pull up the voki on a small device like an ipad and thereby ‘evoke’ the role several times over in different parts of the group for different groups. I especially like how when the programmed animation has finished, the fictional other stays ‘present’ with eyes following the cursor: a lovely sense of fictional otherness!
One final tip: Voki can’t always pronounce words correctly so you may find it helpful to spell out some words ‘funnettickly’ !
Research project: Teachers report 35 benefits for writing & 50+ other benefits from Mantle of the Expert.
These slides – presented at the Drama New Zealand conference in Christchurch on 14th April, 2019 – reveal exciting new findings from a two year research project exploring dramatic inquiry and culturally responsive pedagogy in a Northland primary school.
Here’s a quick guide to what’s inside:
Slides 1-10 provide background information about the school and research team (names are shared with consent)
Slides 11-16 give findings from the teachers’ TLIF inquiry including this gorgeous poster / metaphor encapsulating the teacher’s understandings of culturally responsive teaching within Mantle of the Expert at their school.
Slides 17-20 give findings from data analysed in a larger research project. These include THIRTY FIVE benefits for students’ writing mentioned by teachers, and more than FIFTY other benefits observed in the key competencies. Non-confirming and surprise findings are also listed.
Slide 21 shows the huge list of new things the teachers tried in the 2 years of the project.
Slides 22-24 discuss implications and possibilities for future research as well as listing references.
You are welcome to share this information but please acknowledge the original authors.
We will be writing up findings for publication in a peer reviewed journal shortly.
Slides from primary teacher’s conference 2019
On Monday 15th April, Renee Downey and Viv Aitken had the pleasure of presenting a workshop at the primary teacher’s conference in Wellington. We began by offering a taste of a Mantle of the Expert experience. And to keep things simple, we chose the first Mantle of the Expert Renee ever taught, four years ago, with her year 3-4 class.
Teachers were quickly engaged by the hook. They willingly engaged in activities using drama conventions to explore moments from the imagined world. And before long they were firing out questions that could lead to authentic inquiry across the curriculum: “How far is it to Brazil?” “What would the dangers be of heading into the rainforest?” “How would we get there?” “What do they want us to do with the animals we rescue?”
Of course we could only skim the surface of the complexities of the approach in a short workshop like this, but participants were very positive. We’ve had several follow up inquiries and new enrolments on the site. Welcome aboard!
For slides from the presentation, including full size images of Renee’s planning. Please check out this link.
IDEA DRAMA GROUP
This one is a real blast from the past … a video made in 2008 (woah, more than a decade ago) about IDEA drama group in Hamilton. This group, which ran for over 5 years, was for adults with intellectual disability and was all about exploring stories through process drama. Occasionally these process dramas were developed into informal performances for sharing with the public. This film drops in on the final stages of rehearsing for one of these shows. The folks from Attitude TV who made this documentary focussed on the family story at the start but for me the real value comes later in the video where members of the cast talk about what it means to them to take high status roles in the process drama: As Aaron says, “In real life I’m a trolley collector but in the play I like to be the manager.”
Cluster meeting in Wellington
A reminder to colleagues in Wellington that we have our next cluster meeting coming up soon. Details are as follows. Many thanks to Pauline MacLean and colleagues at St Theresa’s Catholic school who have offered to host this time round.
When: 30th April 4pm onwards
Where: St Theresa’s school, James St, Plimmerton, Porirua 5026
What: An informal gathering for anyone with an interest in Dramatic Inquiry (Play, Process drama, Mantle of the Expert etc). A chance to meet / reconnect with likeminded teachers, ask questions, share stories and explore new drama conventions and planning tools to try in your classroom. We had a great turnout for the previous cluster meeting so let’s hope we see similar interest this time round.
Cost: Only your time
RSVP: Please email Pauline on pauline-maclean@st-theresas.school.nz so we can get an idea of numbers.
All welcome – bring a friend.
Using voki to evoke a fictional ‘other’
Something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while is a new strategy I have been using for bringing a fictional ‘other’ into a classroom drama. What do I mean by a fictional ‘other’? Well, that could be a whole post in its own right, but basically a fictional ‘other’ is anyone from the imagined world that we ‘evoke’ within the classroom world. The fictional other could be a story character, the client in a Mantle of the Expert experience, an angry neighbour or an imaginary member of our class who has made a mess of the PE cupboard and got us all into trouble. Fictional ‘others’ allow teachers to present someone else outside of the classroom as an audience, an interested party – or indeed an impediment – to the work of the classroom. Carrie Swanson writes more about fictional others in a journal article that can be found here.
There are lots of strategies we might use to bring a fictional other to the attention of the class. Probably the most familiar are the strategies of ‘teacher in role’ or ‘adult /person in role’ where the teacher or some other adult or person takes on a role as someone from the imagined world. Often this is done as though the role was actually present and able to speak, move and respond, but there are lots of other possibilities. Dorothy Heathcote’s list of 34 role conventions sets out a whole range of ways in which a teacher in role or person in role can be varied, including some in which the role is represented in non human form, though something like a letter, an object or a piece of discarded clothing. For a list of Heathcote’s role conventions, click here
What Heathcote’s list does not include are digital possibilities for evoking a fictional other, and this is something I’ve been experimenting with recently. If you caught up with Miguel’s blog about his Mantle adventures, or my post about working with officials from the Ministry of Education in Bangladesh, you might notice that in both cases we used something called ‘voki’ to evoke the fictional other of the client.
Voki is a free online tool for creating an animation that ‘speaks’ the words you give it to say. Here’s a link to the voki site. And Here’s a quick video of the kind of thing you can produce.
The app gives several options for gender, ethnicity, accent, clothing etc so you can tailor it to suit your situation. My advice would be to keep things realistic and simple rather than going for the more ‘way out’ features – unless that suits your context, of course! One thing I really like about using Voki is how participants could return to the link time and again and revisit it for clarification. It’s also great how you can pull up the voki on a small device like an ipad and thereby ‘evoke’ the role several times over in different parts of the group for different groups. I especially like how when the programmed animation has finished, the fictional other stays ‘present’ with eyes following the cursor: a lovely sense of fictional otherness!
One final tip: Voki can’t always pronounce words correctly so you may find it helpful to spell out some words ‘funnettickly’ !
Conferences & courses 2019
Here’s a heads up about some events coming up in 2019 that will be of interest to folk with a passion for dramatic inquiry.
First, the Drama New Zealand conference, which is being held in Christchurch from 12th – 14th April. Website for registration is here schedule is here with information about the workshops and presenters here. This conference always offers a good range of workshops suitable for primary generalist teachers with an interest in drama through to secondary specialists, which is a good reason to check it out. Another is that it is always one of the friendliest conferences whether you are reconnecting with friends or attending for the first time. This year I have the honour of presenting a keynote address as well as co-presenting a workshop and a paper on some recent research with colleague Renee Downey. It would be great to see you if you can make it.
Right after Drama New Zealand’s conference, comes the Primary Teacher’s conference, which is being held in Wellington from 15th-18th April.
As I understand it, the Primary school’s teacher’s conference is a new initiative and it’s obviously caused quite a buzz, with over 65 workshops from teachers and experts across a range of fields. The theme of the conference is “Integrated learning and collaborative teaching in the 21st Century”. There’s a pleasing number of sessions related to drama education / dramatic inquiry or related topics that will feed you if creativity, collaboration and integration is your thing. I’m looking forward to presenting at this one, once again with Renee.
And a little later in the year, we have a three day TRCC offering, which is to be held 2-4 October at Kelburn Normal School, Wellington. Enrolments for this one close on 30th August, so best to get in now. The course, which is running in association with Drama New Zealand, will offer workshops in story telling, process drama, drama with early years, working with picture books, mime movement and singing and play making. I’m delighted to have been asked to lead one of the workshops alongside some of my most esteemed colleagues from around Australasia. It will be very exciting and I’m looking forward to it greatly. For more information and to register, check out the flier below. Link to website for more info is here
TLIF inquiry finds enhanced outcomes for writing
In 2016-17 A team of teachers at Otaika Valley school in Northland, lead by project leader Renee Downey conducted a really exciting TLIF funded inquiry exploring the use of dramatic inquiry to enhance writing outcomes for their students – including the high number of Māori learners in the school. Professional learning in drama and mantle of the expert was combined with learning about Te Ao Māori and culturally responsive pedagogy, supported by cultural mentors Maia Heteraka (Auckland University) and Matua Charles (Wānanga). Results were impressive and the school has gone on to embed dramatic inquiry across the school and in its curriculum documents.
You can read the final TLIF report here – it’s a credit to the hard work and commitment of Renee and the rest of the team – Deputy principal Heidi Neiddu and classroom teachers Courtney DeBoer and Hayley Alchin. Principal Terry Brock also carried used his sabbatical study leave to learn more about dramatic inquiry – particularly Mantle of the Expert. His report is here. How fantastic for the school to have a leader so keen to learn more and support the work.
Results from a research project run parallel to the TLIF and led by me (Viv Aitken) will be shared with the staff at the school soon, then in conference presentations and papers beginning in 2019.
In 2018 Renee went on to carry out further research at Masters level and these results, too, will be published shortly.
This has been a significant piece of work by the hardworking team of teachers at Otaika Valley, led with skill by Renee with great support from Terry. It was a huge privilege to be part of this mahi – thanks so much to everyone involved.
Secondary specialists online meet ups
Are you a NZ secondary teacher using – or interested in using – dramatic inquiry (Mantle of the Expert / process drama / drama for learning / rolling role) in your teaching?
You’re invited to sign up for a short series of live online meetups where colleagues will discuss the issues, challenges and rewards of using drama in the secondary classroom.
UPDATE: Dates for these meetups have been changed since the original announcement. You’re still very welcome to attend. Please email mantleoftheexpertnz@gmail.com and ask for the time of the next meetup.
Auckland cluster meeting
Teachers in Auckland region are reminded that our next cluster meeting is coming up soon – 1st Feb. Thanks to Lindsay, Claire and the staff of Bayswater school who are our hosts this time round. If you’ve never attended a cluster meeting before – haere mai – everyone is welcome! No need to RSVP – just come along if you can.
These friendly gatherings are a great way to meet like-minded teachers, share stories and pick up some ideas for your classroom. No cost other than your time. This meeting will focus on planning: We’ll look at the process Robin K followed in adapting a wide-ranging ‘inquiry’ unit plan into her first full blown mantle. She’s very excited about the results and, luckily for us, she’s happy to share. Come and learn more!
Where: 183/181 Bayswater Ave, Bayswater, Auckland 0622
When: Fri 1st Feb, 3.30 -5.30 (don’t worry about the start time … whenever you can get there through traffic is fine!)
Mantle of the Expert – Welcome
Haere Mai, Haere Mai, Haere Mai! WELCOME!
This website is for teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand interested in Dorothy Heathcote’s dramatic inquiry approach to teaching and learning:
MANTLE OF THE EXPERT
Using this website and resources
Tauranga Cluster Aug 14
The design of the site is kept as simple as possible: the best way to find your way around is to use a ‘search’ for key terms – or you can use the ‘menu’ tabs (across the top of this page) or click on something of interest in the list of ‘categories’ on the right.
Stay up to date by subscribing to our regular email updates (top right)
Please read ‘site protocol‘ before posting on this site