The giant’s embrace: writing from theatre and drama - Case Studies - Everybody Writes

Case study: The giant’s embrace: writing from theatre and drama

Aims & principles

Literacy is an action. People use reading and writing for personal and social purposes.

Providing the highest-quality theatre-in-education programmes gives children a clear sense of the social context in which writing arises.

Experiencing the language demands of real or recreated social situations recognises the centrality of audience and purpose in writing.

Collaboration is the principle learning strategy for both oral and written language.

Summary

Things are hotting up. The smoke from his oven is choking us all. Even the great rains can’t put it out.

The Giant is always hungry, always on the lookout for what he can take and put in the pot. The earth shudders beneath his feet, he’s tearing up the ground, root and branch, house and home-devouring all to fill his great belly. He swallows everything that gets in his way. What about the little people? What to do? We’d better teach him a lesson before he starts on us…

The Giant’s Embrace project was designed to engage young children (KS1) through the combined power of theatre and active drama participation. It used theatre-in-education as a means to stimulate speaking and listening, drama, picture and story-making as ways into writing. The children explored the content of the story through purposeful activities that required them to make decisions and take responsibility for their actions within the safety of the fictional world of the drama. Crucially they brought their prior experience and learning to the work. Specifically, the project explored the challenging and urgent issue of sustainability, the virtue of delayed gratification and the value of common sense.

The aims of the project were:

To engage the whole school in a theatrical experience aimed at providing a range of rich, meaningful language experiences.
To develop an understanding of how simulation, drama, theatre and imagination can support children’s talk and writing.
To introduce a range of teaching strategies designed to encourage children’s purposeful responses to ideas and feelings through talk and writing.
To develop children’s understanding of the purpose and features of a range of genres and of language variety.

In Practice

Prior to the TIE Performance

Using visual stimulus of the production poster, children were invited to predict what they might experience from the TIE performance.

Key discussion questions included:

What do you see?
What does it make you think about?
What do you think of when you hear the word giant?
What sort of place does a giant live in?
Engaging with and responding to theatre.

During the performance, children were invited to engage with the dramatic conventions on the stage. They were encouraged to develop a cognitive as well as an affective response. This would serve as the main lever for teachers to continue the drama back in school.

In true fairy tale form, The Giant’s Embrace introduces a conflict between the weak and the strong and the theme of a broken promise. The main boy character, Tom, attempts to save his own life by offering the giant the lives of his mother and sister. Children were invited to step into Tom’s shoes: to ask questions, offer advice and explore possible ways out of the seemingly impossible situation.

Continuing the drama
On return to school, teachers across KS1 and KS2 worked collaboratively to explore ways of continuing and developing the drama.

What shall we use?
Props/costumes: in order to link the theatrical performance with the classroom space, teachers agreed to introduce a concrete symbol representing a key moment or character. Their ideas for this included:

A comb or pin from the giant.
Photographs and images.
Sounds, words or phrases, repeated language patterns.
Creative ways of sharing memories of the production.
Activities

What shall we do?

Story-tellings and re-tellings in partners/groups
Drawing/painting/model making.
Re-enacting scenarios in which choices are constantly made.
Group Discussion and debate.
Using conventions [e.g. circle time] to revisit the dramatic issues.

Teacher stance

What is my role?

Active/reflective listener
Stimulator
Observer
Prompter
Facilitator
Teacher-in-role
Creating and shaping texts

A range of activities, combined with teacher mediation, modelling and scaffolding led to children across the school writing and sharing a range of text types. From this work children from YR to Y6 were able to integrate words, images and sounds imaginatively for many different purposes. Writing opportunities linked with ICT, art, music and dance.

Working in drama helped to develop a commitment to writing and created a real sense of purpose and audience. This had a noticeable impact of the liveliness of the children’s writing and the presence of voice in their work.

Forms of writing included:

Poetry
Legal letter writing.
Theatre reviews.
Designing book jackets.
Newspaper Reports.
Artwork

Partnerships

Pegasus Primary School, Turnhouse Lane, Castle Vale, Birmingham
Big Brum - Theatre in Education Company: http://www.bigbrum.org.uk/

Outcomes

Writing

Children using a wider range of rich vocabulary in oral and written language.
More evidence of children using adventurous and varied sentence structures.
A significant positive impact on children’s enthusiasm, confidence and motivation for writing across the school

Other outcomes

Professional development for all staff and opportunities to look at effective ways of supporting young writers.
Increased pedagogical understanding of how to integrate drama and visual approaches into planning and teaching.
Teachers sharing their planning and their children’s work

Resources

These resources will be useful for teachers wanting to explore dram and theatre as a means of developing children’s writing.

Patrice Baldwin & Kate Fleming (2002) Teaching Literacy Through Drama
DfES (2003) Excellence and Enjoyment
Jonathan Neelands (1993) Writing in Imagined Contexts
John Goodwin (2006) Using Drama to Support Literacy
Joe Winson (2000) Drama, Literacy and Moral Education
Nigel Hall & John Rainer (1996) Being in Role

Theatre-in-Education Companies

Big Brum TIE productions
Debutots

The Key Stage
Freshwater Theatre Company
Greenwich Young People’s Theatre Company
Cockpit Theatre Company
M6 Theatre
C & T
Stop Watch Theatre Company