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From Comprehension to Community 1

From Comprehension to Community:

Process Drama in the Classroom

Angela M. Guerrero

HTH Graduate Studies Program


Abstract

Educators have long studied the benefits of process drama – the use of dramatic activities for

educational purposes with negotiable dramatic outcomes - on literacy and language acquisition.

This action research project analyzes the ways in which process drama impacts classroom

culture, student engagement with texts, and the development of critical literacy. Through student

surveys, reflections, exit cards, work samples, interviews and observations of 52 students at High

Tech High in Chula Vista engaging in process drama activities, it was found that there were

definite impacts on student literacy. Students developed as readers and as a community of

learners as they engaged actively with texts, created meaningful connections to themes and

characters, collaborated to generate meaning, and ultimately created their own play. These

findings indicate possible uses and benefits for using process drama activities with literary texts,

and having students create and perform texts of their own.


Introduction

I have loved reading since I was a very small child. My favorite place, at the age of five, was the

library. The smell of books enchanted me, and the pages in the books I checked out made me

dream of becoming a princess, or a fairy, or a farmer, or anything I read about. Dr. Seuss‟s Oh

the Places You’ll Go resonated particularly with my early reading years. The story helped me

make the connection at a very young age that reading was the mechanism that brought me to all

of those places. That realization was transformative and my childhood was rich and full of

wonder and enchantment as a result of it.

As a teacher, I have tried to infuse that same enthusiasm and passion for reading to the students

that come and spend the greater part of their day with me. I see literacy as the conduit to

freedom. The sense of fun and enchantment I experienced with reading as a child is ultimately

what has helped me accomplish all the things I am most proud of in life. My goal as a teacher is

to give all of this to my students. I want them all to be fully literate. This action research project

has helped me to see that there are many definitions and understandings associated with the term

“literate” but here, I mean the ability to understand, interpret and think critically about the

spoken and written word. Not only is there the obvious connection to freedom, which is access

into college, then later financial freedoms, but also the freedom that comes from the ability to

manipulate language so that it can help you live a happier, healthier more productive life.

Literacy, in all its varied forms, is crucial to obtaining one‟s freedom, and I see it as the focal

point for my teaching endeavors.

Each year, I am alarmed at the high number of students that struggle to decode and make

meaning of the texts we read in school. But this past year, I especially struggled when students

with language barriers and disabilities had such difficulty interpreting text that it felt impossible

for me to help them to see the beauty of the written word. I knew these students especially

needed the empowering and liberating effects of literacy, but I didn‟t feel prepared to help them

get there. How could I make the writing come alive for those students? How could I give text

meaning? How could I help students‟ imagine other worlds or perspectives? These were the

questions swimming in my head when I decided to do something fun along with a text we were

reading in conjunction with the revolutions we were studying. The text was an excerpt from Karl

Marx‟s famous Communist Manifesto.

A reading strategy I often utilize is called “Charting the Text”. In this strategy, I have students

break the text down into smaller sections, make predictions, then read the text, stopping along

the way to summarize each small section and identify the author‟s purpose. Some students

furrow their brows and persevere through challenging text analyses. Others check out. I see their

dull eyes gaze out the window as we struggle through heady texts. I remembered watching heavy

lids droop near closure when we interpreted the deeper meanings of Rousseau while studying the

Enlightenment and wanted to do something a little differently with our reading of Marx. I often

follow up readings with Socratic seminars. One class usually does remarkably well with the


seminars, while another does not. In my class with a higher number struggling readers, the

discussions are often flat. The students don‟t push each other, or use the text to make arguments.

So, in an attempt to spice things up a bit, I decided to take an extra day and have students reread

the text through various “character lenses.”

I assigned different students different roles in class through which to interpret the manifesto.

Karl Marx was one of the characters, and so too, were Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Donald

Trump, Che Guevara, Jesse Jackson, Nelson Mandela and J.P. Morgan. After giving a little time

to research their characters and identify what each person might feel about communism, the

students were asked to discuss the Socratic seminar question as though they were their particular

characters. This changed the whole dynamic of Socratic seminars for my struggling students.

Everyone was paying attention. Not only did kids engage with the text in this seminar, but they

were also challenging the assumptions of the text and people who read the text from various

perspectives. The classroom came alive. I knew they were engaged with the text because they

were highlighting the text, quoting it in their arguments, pounding the table tops emphatically

with their fists and (gasp) raising their voices! There was laughter. There was anger. Some kids

even made heartfelt pleas for agreement. When the seminar wrapped up, every student in class

said, “that was a good seminar!” And when I asked the simple question, “what is the communist

manifesto about?” everyone could identify something that was truly meaningful to the text in an

exit card.

This role playing activity got me thinking. Perhaps the key to getting kids to understand a text is

to get them to have fun with it, engage with it. Perhaps the way to engage with a text is through

role playing and simulations, both of which are elements of process drama. So, the question I

would like to explore in more depth is; what happens to students‟ literacy when process drama

techniques become an integral part of my curriculum design?

Over my three years of teaching, I have seen a common trend among struggling readers.

Researchers have proven these same trends are common in many schools. Struggling readers in

American schools statistically tend to come from socioeconomically disadvantaged households.

There are also higher numbers of students from minority populations in urban communities that

struggle with literacy. Paolo Freire‟s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) argues that this trend

exists because these groups of people are marginalized in education and feel disconnected from

learning. The literature being studied does not reflect their world or values, but instead begins

from another world that intentionally shuts them out. Because their world is not reflected in

school, they feel that their world is not meant for educational purposes. When the reading taking

place is not made to come alive for students, then they cannot access it, and therefore, do not

receive the liberating benefits of education.

My hope is that a combination of careful text selection and role playing activities will help

bridge the gap between emerging readers and proficient readers, to enable all students the

existential, enlightening and liberating experiences that literacy can offer.


Understandings What happens to students' literacy when I use process drama as a teaching tool?

Why literacy? Why process drama?

Building a critical literacy curriculum

In its most archaic sense, theatre is the capacity possessed by human beings - and not by animals

- to observe themselves in the act of seeing, of thinking their emotions, of being moved by their

thoughts, they can see themselves here and imagine themselves there, they can see themselves

today and imagine themselves tomorrow."

Augusto Boal

This action research project is the beginning of my search for a curriculum that offers my

students equal access to literacy at a level that appropriately challenges and benefits them all.

True literacy, critical literacy, is the key to empowerment and freedom, not to mention, a basic

requirement for access into institutions of higher learning. According to the National Assessment

on Educational Practices (2006), approximately 60% of California 8th grade students read at

basic or below basic levels. Of those students, a disproportionate number of students are

minorities. These statistics have seen little change over the course of the last decade. Studies

have largely shown that students who do not meet basic literacy requirements mandated by

standardized tests do not attend university and consequently find themselves in low skill, low

paying jobs. The trends in the literacy gap are largely true at the site where I teach.

As a teacher in a school where all students are encouraged, no expected, to go to college, I see

literacy as an important hallmark of my teaching. But what will I consider literacy? Is it a

student‟s ability to sound out words and fill in blanks properly? This actually seemed like a

simple enough goal at the beginning of this project. But becoming literate is much more than

that. There is an important distinction between simply reading (phonetically sounding out words

and spelling them correctly), and being fully, critically, literate. Rote memorization and direct

instruction in reading does not seem to allow students to manipulate a text in a meaningful way

that empowers their lives or their learning, especially those that struggle the most with the basic

act of reading.

How Should We Teach Literacy?

The battle over what literacy instruction practices are best rages on in educational theory. And

yet, we are seeing little movement in test scores to indicate that students are getting to be

stronger readers. Of all the ideas floating around about best practices, there appear to be two very

different ways of looking at literacy instruction in schools today: those that teach the process of

reading, and those that focus strictly on the comprehension of the text. Process teachers focus on

questioning strategies, predictions and summary activities. Those who advocate for process

styles of literacy instruction say that students who learn the strategies of good reading will

become better readers. Those who focus on comprehension, and test scores that measure

comprehension, are scrambling to create programs that “fill students up” with as much


contextual information as possible. The process and comprehension advocates say their goal is

literacy, but what kind of literacy they are capable of harvesting is up for debate. Critical literacy

is the practice of using the world to make meaning of the text. Does the world get constructed by

process training where students are taught how to interpret for themselves? Or does it get

constructed from a vision that someone else implanted? I suppose both are possible.

E.D. Hirsch explains in The Knowledge Deficit (2006) that what keeps young people from

making meaning out of text is a lack of information. He asserts that, “the factual knowledge

found in books is the key to reading comprehension.” According to Hirsch, schools have shied

away from traditional teaching styles. They don‟t lecture because it is deemed dull, and “rote

learning” has become a dirty word in education. He argues that the “rote” learning fills young

people‟s heads with knowledge that they can later utilize to help them make sense of text, and

hence, reading comprehension is positively influenced by this knowledge acquired. This idea is

Here to supply a seeming balance between these two extremes of thought in literacy training is

Lisa Delpit. Delpit is an educator who in her heart of hearts is a critical theorist, but in practice,

she is pragmatic and advocates that teachers of minority students be pragmatic too. To her, the

critical and the process are important. Direct instruction cannot be omitted, nor the standard way

of assessing literacy due to the nature of the entire educational system of power (2006).

Those who are most skillful at educating black and poor children do not allow themselves

to be placed in “skills” or “process” boxes. They understand the need for both

approaches, the need to help students establish their own voices, and to coach those

voices to produce notes that will be heard clearly in the larger society.

To Delpit, an important part of teaching is helping students understand the power paradigm in

society, and that that power paradigm requires they know certain things, no matter how arbitrary

they seem. By granting students equal access to that education, despite that it sometimes means

rote learning, is a means of offering them tools to be granted access in the realms of power.

Process, skills and critical reading strategies and teaching practices offer students those tools too.

Getting at Critical Literacy Through Process Drama

Process drama, unlike choral reading, questions strategies and other direct reading instruction

activities, allows students to begin with their own understandings of a text or a theme or

questions related to a text, and build on a text from their own starting point. It asks students to

think about a text or a theme in terms of their own experiences or the experiences of others, and

work with it in real life terms, taking action to manipulate the meaning. It is also messy and

uncertain. What a young person comes to the proverbial table with may not be what the

instructor intended. Dorothy Heathcote reminds teachers that, “working with process drama

requires much more give and take on the part of teachers and students” (1981).

In this action research project, I began to empower my students with critical literacy through

process drama techniques, but also provided them the proper arsenal for tackling the standard

reading required to enter college and pass through all what Delpit describes as “power gates” in

life. The goal is to find a balance in my classroom where the literacy required to pass tests is


acquired, or at least brought within a closer reach to students, while also deepening the literacy

that pushes people to think deeply about their world with the express purpose of improving it. As

Paolo Freire (1987) noted, words reflect the world, and understanding the words, working with

the words, is ultimately working with the world.

What is Literacy, Anyway?

There are many different types of literacy, and an equally large array of definitions. There is

computer literacy, math literacy and art literacy. All of these literacy‟s seem to imply that being

literate in that area or focus means to have a complex understanding of it, and an ability to

articulate and or manipulate information relating to those fields or foci. When I discuss literacy, I

will be focusing on the literacy related to the printed and written word. Even that, does not seem

a simple or straight forward explanation. According to Jim Cummins (1994), there are three

types of literacy: functional, cultural and critical. His discussion of these literacy‟s is largely

adapted from Paolo Freire (1970).

Functional literacy is the most basic type of literacy. This literacy asks students to memorize

words, sounds and definitions or use language in a recall fashion. This is helpful to everyone on

a most basic level. It allows people to find directions, fill out applications, sign documents. But

does it allow them to understand the documents? Make meaning of the documents? Most would

argue, no. Yet, it is certainly vital for any individual living in our society, and sadly, many do not

possess even functional literacy. It is for this reason, that while I would like to focus on critical

literacy, there are still strides to be made with many students in the area of functional literacy.

Traditional methods of literacy instruction will not be ignored during this study, but rather

compared and contrasted with activities that engage critical literacy.

Cultural literacy is that which is learned and shared with a larger participating body of

knowledge. All people who are educated have basic knowledge of certain things, making those

things cultural. Cultural literacy is more complex and is often difficult to teach, because people‟s

backgrounds are so diverse, nonetheless, there is a cultural literacy that schools and academia

tends to prefer. It also happens to be the form of literacy that currently marginalizes groups. „If

you do not know this cultural background, you are not literate‟ it proclaims to students. This is

precisely the reason Lisa Delpit argues for a need to teach students of the culture of power.

Teaching them that there are things they should know because there will people looking to keep

them from passing through various gates of power will only ensure that they do not access the

power (2006).

Critical literacy is the highest level of literacy, according to Cummins. It is that which people

utilize all forms of literacy in the shaping of their own destiny (p. 305). Critical literacy begins

with what each learner already knows. As Paolo Freire notes, “words should be laden with

meanings of the people‟s existential experience and not the teacher‟s experience” (1970 p. 35). It

does not, as many programs that teach reading, seek to fill students up knowledge, but rather,

build upon their known experience. This seems like a basic scaffolding technique, yet,

consistently standardized tests and many reading programs, undermine this basic assumption.


The concern with state standardized tests is that the emphasis is strictly focused on functional

literacy, and students are not granted access to cultural or critical literacy. My desire to teach

reading through process drama is an attempt to bring critical literacy to the classroom for all

students. Freire, Boal and Cummins all openly argue that literacy instruction that does not

follow a critical pedagogy, is instruction that implicitly favors the dominant culture, or oppressor

culture. I do not work in an inner city school. I am not teaching in a developing nation. But many

of my students are, in fact, oppressed. Several students are reading far below grade level, and

some don‟t read at all beyond basic phonic or lexical abilities. Reading is so pervasive in our

culture, that an inability to do it implies a significant lack of access. It is for this reason that I

wish to explore the possibilities of process drama and other educational dramatic techniques; to

help bring students who struggle with reading to the next level, while at the same time allowing

all students the ability to more deeply connect with literature in the class and in their lives.

What is process drama?

Before setting out to explain how process drama will be used in my research, it will be important

to explain what it is. Process drama is another term for educational drama. According to Dorothy

Heathcote, a pioneer in the field of process drama, it is, “the isolation of the human condition,

particularization, distortion and forming so that you can contemplate it” (1984 p. 114). In process

drama activities, teachers and students share parts in non-fixed role playing scenarios, thus

taking away the traditional paradigm of teacher as power holder, and student as passive listener.

In these activities, both are engaged in the process of learning, acting and negotiating meaning.

Essentially, they are activities that allow students to actively play roles in scenarios that are real

or related to texts. It forces students to work with a text, and generate understandings from a text

based on their own understandings and experiences. It also, according to Heathcote (1984) and

Boal (1979), must allow for interpretation or creative understandings. It is this aspect of process

drama that teaches perspective, and the limitless capability of the human experience through the

character being developed.

There are many reasons to consider drama techniques for a diverse community of learners. As

Cecily O‟Neill (1998) points out, second language teachers have long recognized that dramatic

activities create opportunities for struggling readers and language learners to gain access to

language and literacy. She also found that these techniques are purported to develop student

insight, help students understand themselves, and help them understand the world in which they

live. My hope is that through these techniques, students will also come to a point where they

desire, or become empowered, to learn and read, and therefore, improve their literacy skills

through authentic connection with the texts they are introduced to.

It is important to distinguish process drama from scripted role playing, or theater acting. Cecily

O‟Neil (1998) points out that scripted drama activities are less successful with students, as

students often say that they do not feel the scripted activities are authentically connected to real

life. Rather, process drama is an open-ended type of role playing that does not offer answers or

even explanations, which in the end, truly allow students to use language in an empowering way.

As process drama is articulated by all practitioners in the field, students are encouraged to solve


problems through role playing, and also think critically about the various solutions posed by

groups of their peers. These scenarios can be crafted based on scenes and situations from novels

or history where students could explore potentially different outcomes. They can also come from

student generated writing pieces. Boal (1979) explicitly states that the goal is to see that

outcomes are not fixed. Stories are not set in stone. Each person‟s destiny is not pre-determined.

By allowing students to see that there is flexibility with reality allows them see themselves as

makers of their own destinies. Through this process, students are empowered and through this

empowerment, there can be a personal connection to literature and writing. This is the theory

behind the practice.

Process Drama Techniques

In Augusto Boal‟s Theater of the Oppressed (1979), he outlines various activities that illuminate

language and life in ways that allow students from various backgrounds to access knowledge and

reform lives. In much the same way Paolo Freire sees literacy as the revolutionary tool to gain

freedom, Boal sees theater as the revolutionary tool toward empowerment. The activities he

devised can be used in isolation to develop a culture of drama in a classroom, as well as in

conjunction with texts to help illuminate textual understanding. These activities come from his

work entitled Games for Actors and Non-Actors (2001)and Theater of the Oppressed(1979).

Using Bodies

Students go through a series of activities designed to show them ways to use their bodies to

convey information. The activities outlined by Boal ask students to behave like certain animals

and find their partners by simply behaving in a certain manner. This technique could later be

utilized to ask student to behave like characters in a book or behave like historical figures,

breathing life into the subjects we study.

The Newspaper

Students take news stories that are stripped of human understandings, create a story, and act

them out in front of the class. Audience members are asked to compare the news stories with the

actors interpretations and discuss the implications made by the actors. They are also encouraged

to analyze the details left out of the news and why.

Complete the Image (tableau)

Students are given roles to freeze into. In a literacy course, they can be given textual passages for

which they must create a scene that must be expressed using bodies and expressions only.

Forum Theater

In these dramatic activities, student recreate real life or textual scenarios. While acting, audience

members analyze the overall scene for flaws or possible revisions. Was the ending beneficial?


Were there other ways to end the story? What ways would they have liked to have seen the story

end? This is all designed to help students in the audience and on stage see that stories, like life,

are not static.

In reading about each of these techniques, one can see the didactic nature of these activities.

They allow students of multiple intelligences to access information through tactile, visual, audio

and kinesthetic ways. For students who do not learn in the standard visual way that text reading

requires, the process drama techniques help to create the deep meaning required for textual

understanding. I am struggling to help students do more than just fill in the right bubble on a test.

I want them to see, feel, understand and love reading and all that a literate life provides.

Process Drama and Critical Literacy

So, why process drama? A more appropriate question is, why not? As Heathcote pointed out, “If

there is a way of making the world simpler and more understandable to children, why not use

it?” (1984 p. 90). Students have a tendency to struggle with reading, and if dramatic techniques

can prove to simplify or codify information for them, it should be employed. There is what some

would call a “literacy crisis” in America. Considering the large number of students who are

reading below proficiency levels, and our knowledge of the implications for low literacy levels,

we understand that something should be done to address literacy. According to the U.S.

Department of Education, in 2001, only 78% of students who entered high school graduated, and

of those, only 32% were prepared to enter college. Preparation means high school graduation,

appropriate course work and basic literacy (Cummins 1994 p. 300). According the NAEP

(2008), the percentages of Black and Hispanic students graduating high school were far lower

than their white and Asian counterparts, 51% and 52% respectively. Their college preparedness

statistics were even more alarming- 20% and 16% respectively. In California alone, 24% of

students were reported to be reading below grade level on standardized tests.

There are a myriad of reasons for this phenomenon, but chief among them is students‟ inability

to see a connection to the work they do in school and the world they live in. These facts alone

seem to highlight oppression in our education system and also, a need to address the way in

which we teach students. Jim Cummins (1994) describes the transmission model of teaching that

is traditionally used to teach reading and literacy in schools. The transmission model is one we

all know well; teachers assign reading, give assessments that ask for recall of information

teachers provided and grades are given. According to Cummins, “teacher centered transmission

of information has the effect of limiting the possibility of any kind of critical thinking on the part

of either the students or the teachers” ( p.314). It also has the effect of implying a fixed power

structure that students have already been implicitly introduced to. With this model of teaching,

students who are marginalized have the double effect of failing in reading and a confirmation

that they are not the makers of their own destinies; reality is fixed.


Cummins (1994), Boal (1979), Freire (1970) and Heathcote (1984) all argue for the need to

adopt teaching methods that allow students and teachers to collaborate and share the power. This

collaborative learning can happen in many ways, but at its core, the training with literacy must be

open ended. It must allow students to work with a text, or their world, on their own terms. They

must be solving the problems. They must be able to manipulate the ending or create the meaning,

not have teachers dictate the meaning. This is what they would all call “critical literacy.” It is

through critical literacy that students generate true meaning and connections to texts. In critical

literacy, reading is transformed from a passive act of accepting information, into a tool of

empowerment. There are many strategies for literacy that allow for this type of collaborative

environment, and process drama is one of them. By allowing students to manipulate text, and

solve potential problems a text might bring up, students are able to develop a deeper connection

to the text, and an understanding that words and language are the means of gaining access to

power.

How Can Critical Literacy Be Assessed?

In this action research project, I was looking for evidence of critical literacy emerging through

process drama activities. By answering questions like: How do students create, interpret or

manipulate the written or spoken word and do something personally meaningful with it? Do they

write more reflective, insightful essays, engage in more meaningful dialogues, or demonstrate a

personal connection to texts? By responding to these types of questions, I was able to assess

critical literacy, because multiple choice simply doesn‟t allow me to get a complete picture of a

student‟s understanding of a text. The theoretical research provided a great deal of insight into

the possibilities of process drama, and the project allowed me to systematically test what impact

these activities were having in my own classroom. What changes will I see in student work?

How will engagement with reading texts be impacted? How will children‟s view of themselves

and the importance of reading shift after process drama activities? These were the questions that

I was able to explore during my project.

There is no doubt a need to address how literacy is taught in schools. Teachers across the country

struggle with teaching reading, language acquisition and language development. But, many of

our students are slipping through the cracks. They are not getting connected to the content. They

are opting out of college preparatory courses, or even more worrisome, opting out of school all

together. There needs to be a bridge that connects students to school and literacy, and it can only

be done if the academic world can connect to them, can include them, and invite them to

participate fully in it. Process drama does just that. It opens the door to texts, invites students to

pull up a chair, rewrite the ending, throw in some suggestions about what is more real or

relevant, and in so doing, shows them that their opinions matter, and that their actions can

change their lives.


Description of the Setting

I will be conducting my research on process drama techniques and literacy development at High

Tech High Chula Vista in an eleventh grade humanities course. Humanities courses at HTH meet

the state requirements for social science and English. HTHCV is a charter school in San Diego

that is part of the High Tech High community of schools. HTH currently has a village of six

schools in Point Loma, a high school in Chula Vista and a high school in San Marcos for a grand

total of eight schools. Chula Vista is a large suburb in the city of San Diego that has a very

diverse population. The community stretches from older, more urban communities near the 5

freeway all the way to the newly developed land around the Otay reservoir. We also have

students travelling from Imperial Beach, San Ysidro, National City, Lemon Grove and Sherman

Heights. My choice to focus on struggling readers stems largely from the population of students

at our school site and the number of students we have who are just learning English or are

transitioning into English proficiency. The South Bay region of San Diego statistically has a

higher number of English language learners and also has a higher number of students that qualify

for free and reduced lunches. The students in these two populations are traditionally those who

struggle with literacy in terms of state standardized tests.

Our school, as well as the San Marcos campus, was built to allow a greater number of students

from a wider number of communities the opportunity to attend our school since the enrollment

numbers at the original Point Loma campus are so high. Families scramble to enroll students to

the HTH schools for various reasons, and after seven years of high demand, HTH decided to

expand its admittance ability. HTHCV opened in the fall of 2007, admitting only 150 ninth grade

students. Each year, a grade level will be added until we reach our full four year grade level

capacity. The school‟s anticipated enrollment for four grade levels will be 600 students.

Currently, we have 295 ninth and tenth grade students. High Tech High schools operate under

the San Diego Charter agreement with the express understanding that test score requirements

will be met despite the non-traditional teaching methods that take place on our campuses.

Students are admitted to the school via a lottery system using only zip codes. This system is an

effort to ensure that the student population is as diverse as the population in the communities that

our schools serve. No test scores or GPA scores are ever reviewed as part of the admission

process.

Of our 295 students, the population consists of:

Asian

African

American

Caucasian Chinese Filipino Hispanic American

Indian

Japanese Pacific

Islander

Vietnamese

11 21 42 1 21 191 3 2 2 1

There are approximately 10% of students on our campus are on IEP or 504 plans and

approximately 38% of our students are on Free or Reduced lunch plans.

The student population in the Chula Vista and the South Bay community are distinct from the

centrally located Point Loma campus and all other San Diego schools north of the 8 freeway in


that we have a very high Spanish speaking population. Our close proximity to the Mexico border

plays a large role in the number of native Spanish speakers on our campus. Some students

attended all of primary and middle school in Mexico and an even larger number of students

speak only Spanish at home. Within the classrooms, teachers encounter students with a wide

variety of language backgrounds ranging from students who are academically proficient with

reading and writing in two languages to students who read and write far below basic in both

languages. All students who come to our school as first year English language learners are placed

in non-tracked college preparatory courses. Students who are emerging language learners, along

with students on Individualized Educational Plans would likely be placed in separate, likely non-

college preparatory classes for most academic content courses at schools in the neighboring

district.

This year, we had 31 students identified as English Language learners.

Beginning

Early

Intermediate

Intermediate Early Advanced Advanced

0 1 6 9 15

The high numbers of English language learners in classrooms require that special attention be

paid to scaffolding and differentiating for the diverse learners in the room. Staff development is

frequently aimed at ensuring staff is aware of current teaching strategies aimed at supporting

language learners and struggling students. The school also offers before and after school

tutoring, and each class has a tutor designated to them to ensure that all students receive the

academic support needed to succeed. There is careful consideration of language learners and

struggling students by all staff when creating groups, designing projects and creating content

curriculum.

In line with the design principle of adult world connection, HTH is a project based learning

environment where students are involved in creating, building, designing, drafting and creating

products related to various content areas. Students of all academic backgrounds and language

level s are placed in a rigorous, college preparatory, classrooms with the full expectation that all

students will leave school prepared for college and life. Projects are one of many ways of

ensuring all students granted access to content in meaningful ways.

HTH touts that in the past 100% of their students graduated on to colleges, and 80% went to four

year institutions as compared to local community schools, where 50 % of students attend college

directly from high school and 30% attend four year institutions respectively. We at HTHCV

intend to meet similar benchmarks for students that graduate from our campus, and implement

various systems to ensure all students are prepared for and informed about college entrance

requirements. All students are placed in advisories where grades are regularly monitored, college

trips are planned, community service work is completed and college scholarships are introduced

and applied for. As our school moves into the eleventh grade, students will also apply for

colleges in their advisory classes.


Eleventh Grade Humanities

In all classes at HTHCV, there are approximately 25 students. Eleventh grade students will have

Humanities, Math and Biology and all of those classes come together to form a team, often

working on cross curricular projects. Although our school does not have text books, students in

my eleventh grade humanities class will regularly spend time reading and analyzing literary and

expository texts, perform various writing tasks and also engage in three major cross curricular

group projects annually. In one of many efforts to make grade level reading accessible and

engaging for all students in my classroom, I will spend a semester implementing a series of

process activities with reading texts. Some of the reading strategies I currently employ are

Socratic seminars, text charting and annotating, literature circles, making time for enjoyment

reading, debates about reading content and journaling about reading materials. These strategies

are effective for engaging students reading at appropriate grade levels, but seem to be less

effective at engaging students with more severe IEP plans, ELL students and students who read

far below grade level. Engagement is critical in helping students struggle with and understand

content, and my hope is that more interactive reading activities will help struggling students

connect to the content in meaningful ways, and thus have a positive influence on reading

comprehension. By engagement, I mean actively participating in reading activities, and

contributing in verbal or written responses to class activities. As I observe student engagement

via interactions with texts and class activities and read reflections on various activities, I will

assess which practices with reading are most engaging for students who are identified as below

grade level readers.


Measuring the Impacts of Process Drama

Methods and Project Goals The project began with three goals in mind, but a fourth emerged during the course of

creating a play. Below is a table that outlines the initial three goals of the research project

and highlights the methods I used assessed those goals. I included the fourth finding as a

part of the goals, even though it wasn‟t necessarily a goal from the onset. The methods

listed in this table are explained in detail below.

Goals

Video/

Photographs

Interview Work

Samples

Exit Cards Survey Journals/

Reflections

Increase

engagement with

texts

√ √ √ √ √

Increase reading

comprehension

√ √ √

Changed

feelings about

reading

√ √ √

Development of

Classroom

Community

√

√

Survey : At the beginning of the year, I surveyed students to get an understanding of how they felt about

reading in general. The goal of the preliminary survey was to get some background on not only how

students felt about reading for pleasure, but also how they felt they read academically. I was curious

to learn about their backgrounds as readers; did they read often, did they read as small children, how

would they rate themselves, and so on.

Survey Analysis: I used survey data to help me decide on focus students to conduct interviews with. I ended up

interviewing a student that is categorized as far below proficiency in reading and a student that is

proficient in reading college level texts. I also interviewed a student that wrote he did not like reading,

nor had he experienced much success with reading in the past. I ended up getting a more complete

picture of the types of readers I had in my class from the survey data and was able to conduct

interviews that reflected that variety.

Exit Cards: In order to assess the impact of process drama activities on reading, it was important to see how

students came to understand a text with the techniques, and without. After many reading activities, I

had students fill out exit cards. The questions were:


1. What did you learn today?

2. What did you like about today‟s class?

3. What did you dislike about today‟s class?

4. What new understandings do you have about the reading we did?

Exit Card Analysis: Although open ended questions may pose a challenge for analyzing and interpreting, I was able to get a

lot more helpful data this way. First, I was able to compare and contrast the exit cards received after

process drama activities to those of days where no process drama activities were done, looking to see if

responses were deeper, or more insightful. I was also able to read through responses that didn‟t appear

visibly longer to see if there was any new insight provided to the text or depth arrived at through the

activity. The before and after element was key for determining the outcomes and effectiveness of

activities for students. Exit cards came to be my most powerful indicator of the success of an activity. I

was able to see quickly what students were understanding and what they were not. I was also able to

adjust my practice quickly. Also, because the responses were quick, but open ended, I was able to get

quite a bit of qualitative data from students. They were able to articulate in their own words their new

understandings, not simply mark “yes” and “no” which was much more revealing about the

effectiveness of the strategies used in class since some students mark “yes” and “no” inappropriately.

Journal Entries/ Reflection: At various points students were asked to journal or reflect of drama activities in class.

These were longer descriptions or discussions of learning through an activity or reading.

The questions were similar to those given in exit cards, only I gave more time in class to

respond to the questions and also allowed time in class to discuss the reflections. The

questions will be a variation of these:

1. Summarize the point of the text/ activity.

2. What value did you find in the activity?

3. What new understandings do you have about the text/ activity/ concept?

Journal/Reflection Analysis:

Because more time was allotted to complete journals and reflections, I was able to mine

much richer data from the this method. Question number two, regarding the value of

various assignments, was particularly useful in my findings, especially with respect to the

mock trial and the final class play. From those responses, I was able to identify themes in

relation to the value of process drama. This was important to me because I felt like

simply analyzing the change in comprehension didn‟t allow me to analyze critical literacy

as well as this question.

Student Work Samples:

I analyzed student writing, tableaus and performances. To capture performance as a work

sample, I took many photographs and also shot video of rehearsals and performances. I

was looking to see if students were more engaged with reading assignments, or more

connected to characters through the process drama activities. For writing, I looked at


student written character monologues written about character from novels they read. In

their writing, I was looking for depth of understanding.

Student Work Sample Analysis: The photographs and video taken of performances really show, in a powerful way,

student understanding of texts. They also show students doing and creating with texts.

When analyzing whether or not process drama fosters critical literacy, these images offer

up some powerful evidence. Since the writing I was analyzing lead to the performance,

the video of the final production also helped me construct ideas about how drama can

foster critical literacy. By asking students to write the characters from their chosen novels

in the first person, and placing them in a live context, students were able to make the

characters come to life. The power, depth and beauty of their performance was, in the

end, one of the strongest pieces of evidence for indicating the connection between

process drama and critical literacy, however, it couldn‟t necessarily be summed up in a

graph. To reconcile this, I referred back to journals and reflections students had about the

performance.

Observation: On days when process drama activities were being done, made careful observations. I

used an observation checklist I created to assess engagement with the activity. The

worksheet simply allowed me to tally the number of students on task versus those who

were not on task. I then had free space to reflect on engagement. Engagement to me was

the level of dialogue students‟ shared in the preparation for the drama delivery, their

attention to the directions and also the level of understanding the drama activity

demonstrated to the class and how thoughtful the conversation about the drama poses

was. I was also looking at how students responded to, and participated with being

audience members.

Observation Analysis: Careful observation is an important part of the action research design. It is also an

important part of good teaching. By working it into the methods, I made myself much

more conscious of the ways in which students were responding to activities. Not simply

looking at works samples, but rather noting in a systematic way where eyes were, where

focus was. When students were actively engaged with activities, there was a greater level

of understanding being achieved. Exit cards and work samples could also help verify this.

Many arguments against functional literacy programs is that they are dull and focus in

rote learning. If these activities are engaging students and pushing themselves to look at

the deeper implications of a text, then students are working toward critical literacy and

empowerment. Narratives of the activities and the students‟ involvement with them will

be significant to uncovering the impact of the activities on students‟ engagement with

texts and understanding of them, and video will be an important way to help me create

those narratives.


Interviews: I interviewed students that represented varying reading comprehension levels. I was

curious about how process drama activities helped struggling students, how they pushed

grade level and beyond readers, and how they engaged all reading level students.

Interview Analysis: I transcribed the interviews using an audio recording device. This was very helpful in

getting a deeper understanding of how students with different levels of experience with

reading were growing or benefitting from process drama. In a really interesting way, I

think that the interview process alone was helpful in making meaningful connections to

the students and their perceptions of process drama and literacy. It seemed that after the

interviews, the students felt really valued. I think, for the purposes of the project, it was

helpful to see the different ways that students feel about process drama. On a teaching

level, it was helpful for me to take the time to sit, talk and listen to the voices of students

in my class.


Findings

In the Fall of 2009, I started this action research project wanting to know how process drama

activities would help student literacy and writing. This forced me to think more critically at how

I was defining literacy. It is a complex idea that state tests usually sum up in the ability to decode

and comprehend texts. But there is a whole wide array of levels and kinds of literacies. In this

study, I chose to focus on Critical literacy as Paolo Freire (1987) describes it. “Reading does not

consist merely of decoding the written word or language; rather, it is preceded by and

intertwined with knowledge of the world” (Reading the word and the world pg. 29). In essence, I

wanted to know if the process of creating drama with texts helped students understand what they

were reading on a deeper level.

In addition to doing isolated process drama activities with texts, I also had students write,

organize and choreograph a play. That project took my original concept of process drama and its

impact to a whole new level. What began as thinking only of isolated activities evolved into the

creation of a play. Although I am still interested in the ways in which to utilize drama in the

classroom to make daily reading authentic, meaningful and manageable for diverse student

populations, I have come to see the value of performance as much more than simply helping

students read and write. I have come to see it as a mechanism for helping students see themselves

as living artists.

Before getting into the findings, I‟d like to explain the two cycles. In the first half of the paper,

I‟ll discuss the various process drama activities used in class. Those activities were the build up

to the play. In that section, I‟ll look at the ways in which students describe the benefits of process

drama and my personal observations of the benefits. We covered quite a bit of content and did

several process drama activities along with reading assignments pertaining to the American

Dream. Some of the texts included John O‟Sullivan‟s speech about Manifest Destiny, Thomas

Paine‟s Common Sense, Patrick Henry‟s famous speech Give Me Liberty, The Declaration of

Independence and The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights. All of this was preparation for

helping the students define what the term “The American Dream” has meant, and what it means

today.

The second cycle of writing is all about the play the students created based on characters from

novels they read that somehow discuss the American Dream as a theme. In this cycle, the

students seem to say less about how process drama helped them understand something difficult,

but rather how performance helped them understand texts in different ways- helped them see

texts and characters as important and memorable. In this cycle, the focus is on the project of

helping students conceive, write and perform a play. I will walk readers through the process from

day one of introducing the project to the final bow.


Cycle One: Process Drama Activities

Reading has always been a hallmark of my teaching focus, and I found myself using process

drama activities before I ever knew what the term “process drama” was. It was what I did when

I wanted to make class more interesting, when I wanted to shake things up a bit or when I wanted

students to “do” something with what they read. It seemed that I always had students re-enacting

scenes in a novel, or updating dialogue to meet the needs of a more modern world, or having

debates from different character perspectives, or putting characters in a novel on trial or writing

journal entries as though they were a character. This research project has allowed me to look at

those drama activities and explore how students feel about them as well as how the activities

impact their understandings of complex texts and themes. As I look over the data in my first

cycle of data collection, a few themes have emerged.

1. Process drama activities add fun to a classroom and help build a culture of friendship,

trust and respect

2. Process drama activities help students understand difficult texts

3. Process drama activities are helpful tools for developing students‟ writing

Each of these themes has emerged from classroom observations, through student reflections, exit

cards, quizzes, journals and interviews.

I think I expected to find that students found process drama activities engaging. I have used them

throughout my teaching career because of my casual observation that students enjoy them and I

generally see active participation from students with ideas that are complex yet accessible. What

I was unsure of was the specific academic benefit these activities had.

Before analyzing the themes that emerged, Let me take a moment to describe the process drama

activities we did as a class. Some were borrowed directly from Boal. Others were activities that I

tweaked and pieced together from other process drama activities I found on the web.

Tableau Exercises I have used tableaus in conjunction with several non-fiction texts. In fact, this activity is what I

used most frequently in conjunction with texts. What usually happens is this. Students are

assigned a reading. When they complete the reading, they get an opportunity to indicate their

understanding of the text through a handful of open-ended questions on a survey card. Most

questions are like this: What was the text about? What was most interesting to you? What was

most difficult for you? I have found that open- ended questions are difficult to analyze.

However, closed survey types of questions such as “Did you understand the text?” were

sometimes inaccurate. Sometimes, students say they understood a reading assignment with ease,

yet their discussion of the text or writing about the text demonstrate the opposite. Other students

say they didn‟t understand, yet articulate in writing or class discussion complete understanding.

This variance caused me to use the more open ended questions more frequently, then try to

qualify the types of responses into various categories of understanding.

After students do the pre- tableau assessment they are broken into groups to create a frozen

sculpture that explains a quote from the text. In some cases, students choose the quotes. In other


cases, the quotes have been selected for them. They then return to the same survey card and re-

respond to the same questions. In almost all cases, overall class understanding of the text

increased, which made this activity particularly beneficial. I compared these activities to more

formal class reading activities such as partner reading assignments coupled with annotation.

Students said that in both cases comprehension increased through discussion, but that the tableau

activities were often described as “more fun”. Some graphs and data on tableau activities are

presented in the two thematic sections of this cycle.

Students creating tableaus on concepts covered in Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States

Capitalism vs. Communism Eugene Debbs Progressivism

Forum Theater Activities Forum theater activities are highly engaging activities that are terrific for warm-ups or idea

generators for theater projects. In these activities, students are selected to perform in front of the

class. Those who volunteer do not know what they will be performing. They are merely

instructed to 1) think 2) listen and 3) respond. Students from class shout out scenarios, then

performers must spring into action. If no resolution is achieved, the performance is halted and

audience members offer suggestions, then actors resume. These activities can be done alone as

an ice breaker, or in connection to themes or scenes in a text. They can also be done with current

events. I only used a forum theater activity once with text and it went quite badly, so I didn‟t use

them again. However, while working on the play we had a theater performer come and speak to

the class and conduct an acting workshop. In the workshop, he used a forum theater activity but

not based on a text. He simply placed volunteers on stage, had classmates shout scenarios, and

let them act. The class was highly engaged. There was laughter and trepidation and a serious

attempt on students‟ part to recreate realistic scenarios. As I watched my entire class come alive

in these workshops, I thought again about my own attempt at running a Forum activity. Here is

what I did wrong.

I asked students to read John O‟Sullivan‟s Manifest Destiny then gave them roles to respond to

the text in. One student read the speech, as another was a listener responding in character.

Students were assigned roles such as a Native American, a recent immigrant looking for work, a

wealthy Bostonian looking for opportunity in the West. As groups performed, the students in

character had very passive and unenthusiastic responses to O‟Sullivan‟s speech. There would be

a sentence “No, don‟t take over my land!” from the Native American. It was really a very

shallow and dull activity in which students reported in exit cards they were confused by.


After watching our guest actor, I think I would run forum activities with fiction texts that

students are more invested in or news articles that connect to topics in class. I didn‟t end up

having time to re-do it before our play, but next year, as I build up to the play, I will create

scenarios for students from the novels, and have them volunteer to perform impromptu scenes

based on themes from the novel.

Mock Trial/ Re-Enactment Mock trials seem to occupy an educational realm all to themselves, but I really saw my

implementation of a mock trial in class as a process drama activity. I say this because students

were taking on historical characters, but jurors were allowed to vote on the trial based on their

opinions and how well the prosecuting and defense attorneys performed and used evidence in

their cases.

In this mock trial, we read the Bill of Rights and discussed the implications of the first and

second amendments. We then discussed that historical background to slavery and why

amendments were needed after the Civil War to ensure that African Americans were also able to

enjoy the freedoms granted by the constitution. Then, students were given a pseudo historical

case from a Mississippi trial in which a Union soldier during the Reconstruction of the South

fought for the rights of African Americans to be protected by the 2nd

amendment. This case took

place prior to the passage of the 14th

amendment .That was all students were told.

They drew their trial jobs and characters from a bag and began reading and researching the time

period to build their cases. There were several sites I sent them to, and several readings building

up to this. Now was the time for action.

In a survey following the trial, most students wrote that the trial was very beneficial, although

next time it will be important to find more value added roles for jury members in the trial

preparation period of the activity. My survey and reflection notes from students show that

students who were not lawyers, witnesses or court appointed figures felt a bit left out of the

creative and dramatic process. I think that mock trials are terrific for teaching history, but my

only reflection for teaching is that to do them well, they should be given a bit more time. Rather

than doing one as an activity building up to a deeper understanding of a larger project, I would

do a mock trial as a regular four to six week project and involve more students in the research

phase.

Character Perspective Monologues This activity really pertains more to the play cycle, but I thought it was important to discuss the

benefits of process drama in revising student writing, which we did as part of the play. As part of

the larger play and performance, students read novels that surround the theme of The American

Dream. They were then asked to write dramatic monologues from various character‟s

perspectives on what the American dream is, or what challenges stand in the way of various

characters and/or groups in society from attaining the American dream. Students were given

creative license to change or modify character‟s experiences to fit into a larger play that

discusses the questions What is the American Dream? And What does it mean to be American? I

evaluated the benefit of this activity on student literacy and reading comprehension based on the

quality of student written monologues, as well as data collected from student surveys. I looked


for how well students articulated important themes in the text and also the quality of

characterization in the writing.

I also had the students refine their monologues through small group performances. They were

asked to write a monologue, then perform it for a partner. After the performance, they were

given a moment to make error corrections for fluidity that they themselves found. Their partners

were encouraged to ask questions. Question starters were provided “What did you mean by….”

Or “When you said _________ what were you referring to?” or “How did that event make your

character feel?” They were then given feedback from their partner that answered the following

questions: 1) was the purpose of the dialogue clear? And 2) how can this monologue be refined

to show, not tell, the theme?

Student feedback on the value of the performance on their refinement was collected as an

informal exit card. The question was merely: In what ways did performing the monologues help

you refine, if any at all? Explain. The feedback will be discussed at length in the theme section

titled “Process Drama Helps Refine Writing” of cycle one.

Students creating tableaus of their characters based on monologues students created

Image 1: Image 2: Image 3:

Gogol, Curley’s Wife, Mr. Auld Gogol, George, Lennie, X Daisy, Mrs. Auld, Sethe, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X Gatsby, Dembey Gogol, Ashima

Lupe

Sensory Language Activity Before starting acting workshops, we did a short activity to help illustrate what sensory language

looks like in a performance. Volunteers were selected to come to the front of the room. They

were then given a hefty spoonful of either honey, lemon juice or kosher salt to eat. The class was

instructed to watch their faces carefully, and be prepared to emulate the expressions. After each

student ate the mouthful of sweet, sour or salty tastes, audience members were randomly selected

to re-create the face. After several re-enactments of the original sour, sweet or salty face,

students were then asked to describe scenarios from their books, lives or lives of others where

they might make a face like those just created.

Students started to share their sentences. Some were funny. “I‟m Daisy Buchanan and I‟m sweet

as honey” Then a young African American student reading the Autobiography of Frederick

Douglass said “I witnessed my aunt being beat and whipped and it was salty as hell.” I cried a

little, and the class was silent for a moment.


I loved this activity as an introduction to creative writing, because it seemed to really get the kids

excited about writing scenes that evoked facial expressions or emotional responses from

audiences. Although I foolishly did not collect an exit card for this activity, it was easy to see

that the students enjoyed this activity. There are days, as a teacher, when you know you‟ve done

something right. This was one of those days. There was complete participation as students tried

to copy the volunteers. There was laughter as students who ate spoonfuls of salt gagged and

nearly vomited in the trash. Then, there was a somber tone as students tried to transfer their

facial expressions into the lives of their characters. Their monologues and scenes revealed a deep

understanding of character emotions, and although I can‟t necessarily trace that understanding in

their performances to this exact activity, I do think it helped get the students thinking more

deeply about their characters and the emotions they might have been feeling.

Themes Analyzed

Process Drama Builds a Culture of Fun, Friendship and Respect

In almost all of my surveys, reflections, interviews and exit cards, students said very similar

things: process drama activities are fun. Students of all reading levels reported over and over

again that they liked working with other students to create scenes and perform them in class.

Activities for all Readers

I interviewed Sam to find out how he felt about process drama activities we were doing in class.

Sam is a high level reader, and seldom struggles with texts. He shares in class often, but

sometimes becomes bored and plays air drums to let me know things are too easy. I was curious

to know if he found any benefit in the tableaus, forum and mock trial.

I first asked Sam how he felt the reading difficulty was in class. We had just finished the

Declaration of Independence, sections of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Here is what he

said in our interview:

I don‟t really find texts difficult or challenging […] Seeing the Declaration acted

out, then discussing it is a valuable activity for those who didn‟t understand it. And I think

this activity is valuable in theory. I am very familiar with the Declaration, so it wasn‟t as

beneficial for me.

When I asked him if he found the process drama activities beneficial, he said:

I thought it was fun and I think it‟s interesting to see how other students viewed or

interpreted the clauses and parts of the Declaration. I think it‟s always good to think about things

in different ways and seeing other interpretations was interesting.

Sam seemed to be interested in the conversations that came up during and after the creation of

the tableaus, though he didn‟t really need them to understand the text. During class activities, as

long as Sam had an active role in acting, he was highly engaged in the process drama activities.

If he was required to observe, he was often bored. It seemed that for him, participating in theater

was fun and exciting and allowed him to think differently through performance. But since he


didn‟t see watching others perform the text as particularly instructive, it was important to ensure

he always had an active role in the activities.

Karla is a student on the opposite end of the traditional reading spectrum. She struggles with

texts and with writing. She is hard working, and is genuinely interested in developing as a reader,

but the task doesn‟t always come so easily for her. When I asked her how she felt about drama

and acting activities in class, she too, described them as fun, but also helpful.

“It‟s better because then your whole group like everybody has their own thinking, and

then you tell everybody, oh let‟s do this and then we‟ll be like, no lets this or how bout we do

this? How bout no? We all put our thoughts about it, and then we have to choose one thing to do

And it‟s cool.”

Although Karla hinted that drama activities were fun, it seemed what she found most beneficial

in any activity surrounding reading, was a teacher affirming she understood the text. When asked

what she found most beneficial in a reading activity she said discussion and teacher feedback.

After I clarified that she meant she likes teachers to tell her she was right, she responded with,

“Yeah, to make you understand if you understand what we thought was right, or we might of

thought something way different.”

This was a little troubling, because the goal of the process drama activities was to get the

students to see themselves as the creators of meaning. I thought that class discussions of tableaus

and skits would be helpful, but worried I was overly informing the discussions, or talking too

much. I tried to be more careful to say less about texts in the future, but was left wondering- is

the point of reading always to get the “right” answer? In preparing kids for SAT‟s it seems that,

yes, there is a “right” answer. Does this mean I should tell them the answers? My hope is that by

coming up with the answers on their own and helping them to trust in themselves to arrive at the

right answers on their own will be more beneficial than giving them information.

Sam and Karla represent two poles of reading levels in my classroom. In a traditional school,

they would not be in classes together – ever. But here, they worked together frequently.

Sometimes Sam went into teacher mode in small groups; offering up the “right” answers to his

classmates that were not as attuned to the doctrine of the founding fathers. But, in the process

drama activities, readers of all levels were engaged with each other in the process of making

meaning out of texts- bringing texts to life. With other reading activities such as coaching a text,

annotating in partners and answering along the way, struggling readers like Karla were looking

for me, or a student like Sam to help them find the right answers. In tableaus, character

monologues and mock trial re-enactments, however, struggling readers relied less on my input

and more on the group or themselves. Process drama activities brought kids together to construct

shared meanings and understandings.


Mock Trail: Process Drama Style

Students were given a real court case, and some real historical characters to become, but the

historical court case outcomes were not revealed. Students were going to act the case out and let

a jury decide who defended The Constitution best. Instead of telling them they had to decide

based on a time period, or see what happened then, they were just told to treat it like they were

re-writing the movie of the case.

The graph below represents data collected from a survey taken after a mock trial we did in class.

The first question asked on the survey was “What value did you find in the mock trial?” The

responses varied, but fell into five major motifs. 74 % of students or, 37 out of 50, said they

learned a lot from the experience. 56 % of students, or 28 out of 50, said they thought the overall

experience was “fun” and 32%, 16 out of 50, said they wished they could participate in another

mock trial in which they had a larger role in the activity.

Figure 1: Students’ Feelings about the value of the Mock Trial

Some students said they did not find much value in the mock trial, and as I look over their

reasons, it shows that meaningful roles need to be created for the jury. In the mock trial, the

lawyers are investigating the case, witnesses are researching their historical roles, bailiff and

judge the courtroom proceedings. But the jury, court reporter and court sketch artist didn‟t feel

the pressure of preparation or the exhilaration of performance. Their comments on the reflection

showed not only those who indicated that the mock trial wasn‟t that valuable (4 out of 50) but

they also followed those statements up with comments like this:

“I felt like I was just in a classroom taking notes. I wish I could have at least been the sketch

artists”

“As a juror, it was very hard for me to take the trial seriously. All I did was sit and listen.”

“As a juror, I didn‟t actually feel like I was participating”

28

37

16

4

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Fun Learned A lot Wish I was acting more

Not much value

50 Students' Feelings About Mock Trial

50 Students feelings about mock trial


Despite the honest response from jurors, most still indicated that the overall experience was

valuable and fun to watch. For those students who were witnesses, lawyers and judges,

comments read more like this:

“I felt like a part of something serious”

“It was tons of fun, nerve wracking and an overall awesome experience!”

“I had a really fun time participating in this trial, even though it was hard to play the bad guy in

history”

“[the trial] really got us to research our history of each part and it really made me understand

more about the amendments and how segregated the U.S. was back then.”

Clearly, I will do mock trials again. The positive feedback far outweighed the negative. But, in a

second go- round, I would give more roles to the jury. Some ideas I had in reflection were to

give the jury characters to research as well, so that as the juror, they would be watching the trial

from a certain lens. I also thought about assigning them the job of researching one of the lawyers

or witnesses and report on the accuracy or historicity of the overall trial. I also thought about

having two closely related trials happen back to back, so that all students get a chance to

participate in the trial on one day so they aren‟t disappointed about not having an important role.

In all, it seemed that the negative feedback stemmed largely from jurors and their lack of

contribution.

Something that I think is important to note about the trial is the lack of control a teacher has in

the presentation and the outcome. Almost all educators who write about process drama warn

teachers about the need to be prepared for this. I thought I was, but we are never truly prepared

for the difficult moments that arise in our classroom- most especially those that are so outside of

our ability to predict.

Although I spoke to the students about the need to treat the case and it‟s topic sensitively, there

was still a portion of the outcomes that were out of my hands. Since our trial was taking place

during the Reconstruction, and dealt specifically with the denial of constitutional rights to

African Americans, I needed to talk to the class about words that were acceptable in that time

period and words that are acceptable today. As they read their primary source documents from

research, they were surprised at the level of inhumanity and disrespect African Americans were

granted. In one class, the trial went smoothly and the court proceedings followed the proper

protocols. The defense (the state of Mississippi) offered the most empirical evidence and used

the Constitution as the foundation for their arguments, while the prosecution used mainly

emotional appeals. For this reason, the jury sided with the defense. This was a difficult ruling to

hear for everyone. I think everyone was surprised that truth, justice and a morally superior case

could get rejected on the grounds of evidence. We all knew the prosecution was right, yet, they

lost. And as the verdict was delivered, one white student who was on the defense team jumped

up and shouted “I told you black people weren‟t citizens back then!” Horrified, I asked him to

think about his actions. He sat down and apologized, saying he was simply “so involved and

into” his character, he couldn‟t control himself. We had a conversation after everyone left about

why his outburst was inappropriate, but he also reminded me that it was precisely how white


people of the time would have felt. On that point, I conceded, but persisted in reminding him to

try to be more temperate when dealing with sensitive topics. I think we both left the conversation

feeling a little awkward, and even now, I don‟t know if I handled the after conversation in the

best way possible.

It was difficult and valuable at the same time. I was torn between embarrassment for the student

who made the comment, sadness for African American students in the class who had to hear the

comment celebrated so egregiously, and guilt for not stopping the comment from happening in

the first place. But I suppose this is the real value of process drama. We have to deal with real

emotions and responses. We have to muddle through the awkward and the inappropriate. We

have to discuss, explain and negotiate. This is what happens when you leave the text books and

lectures behind and leave the learning up to the students. Dorothy Heathcote (1984) reminds

teachers thinking about process drama that it is a give and take of power, authority and

knowledge. The teacher delving into process drama must be prepared for this. I was not, really,

but this experience was an important reminder. Learning and growing isn‟t always pretty and

easy.

None of the students said anything about the outburst in their reflections, as I expected them to.

They did know that the student and I had a conversation, so even if they weren‟t privy to the

conversation, they knew how I felt about the outburst. This taught them something about me. It

seemed their overall experiences with the trial outlived their memory of the outburst. I also think

they understood that the comment was made in character. There seemed to be an implicit trust in

the harmlessness of the young man‟s comment. Yes, it was awkward, and mean, but so were

people in that time period who believed that way. I learned that the students were all more

resilient and trusting of one another than I thought. We were all growing.

In the next classes, I was able to discuss not only court room behavior and appropriate ways to

respond to winning the case, I was also able to re-emphasize the need for sensitivity. But

ultimately, I think that the outburst was something that had to happen. I needed to know that if I

wanted to use process drama in the future, that it would mean letting go of control. And in

letting go of control, and trusting in the students, we all came to some new understanding about

not only the time period we were dealing with, but also of one another.


Mock Trial: Owens vs. The State of Mississippi 1867 2nd

Amendment Rights of African

Americans

The defense team prepares closing Statements based on prosecution witness


Process Drama Helps Students Understand Complicated Texts and Ideas

The mock trial was more than a culture building experience. It was also a powerful way to bring

texts to life and help student construct deep and powerful meanings of the history we were

studying. In the post trial survey, students who reported finding value in the experience wrote

frequently that they felt they were learning more than just history. The trial required

understanding of The Constitution, the history of the Reconstruction and historical information

about the various characters I gave them. Students reported learning various elements of these.

But, more than the historical background, the short answer responses seemed to reveal a deeper

understanding of not only the time period, but also the complexity of the American system.

One student, a young woman who struggles with reading, played the part of an African

American woman from the time period. She read excerpts from “Aint‟ I A Woman” to get the

dialect just right, then researched the treatment of blacks in the South during this turbulent time.

She decided that as the witness, she would describe a scene of the pillaging of her town by

Klansmen. In her reflection, she wrote: “I actually felt sadness imagining how they were beaten

and killed.” In her court scene, she described a gruesome scene for the jury and cried– real tears.

The room was absolutely silent. I think the lawyer was surprised to see her so in character. The

activity allowed her a place to take all the research and make it real.

In another student reflection, I see the value of the activity from a literacy perspective. Prior to

the case, we had read, annotated and even done tableaus of excerpts from The Constitution. None

of those seemed to offer the lasting lesson about this living, breathing document quite like the

trial did. He wrote, “Through this process I learned that people can manipulate the wording and

meaning of the constitution and Bill of Rights in surprising ways to support their case.”

Of all the understanding and interpreting of the text we had done, I don‟t know if I could have

shown this element of the document that forms the laws of our land more clearly. It was no

longer text we were simply reading and placing somewhere in our bank of information in our

brains.

Tableaus and Understanding

Another process drama activity that helped mine student understanding of reading was the use of

tableaus. I used tableau activities several times. The students not only found them interesting and

beautiful to look at, but they also seemed to get quite a bit of value out of creating them as well

as looking at them. Prior to creating the tableaus, students were asked to demonstrate their

understanding of a particular reading assignment. They were then asked to create the tableaus of

designated lines from a particular reading assignment and then discuss each group‟s tableau. I

recorded their understanding of the text before and after the tableau activities.

Pre-Tableau

Students were asked to assess how well they understood the reading assignment prior to

participating in the tableau activity. Here is how 67 students in three different class responded.


Figure 2: Students’ respond to how well they understood difficult reading prior to tableau

activity

Students were then asked “What was the text about?” This question was asked before the tableau

and re-asked after the tableau creation and discussion.

We then engaged in, performed and discussed the tableaus. After the activity, student were asked

to return to the question ,”What is the text about?” and respond again, adding any new details or

insights gained after the tableau.

After analyzing their responses to the open-ended question, I compared the quality of their

responses prior to the tableau to the quality of the responses after the tableau. I rated the quality

of the responses as such:

A “Shallow Response” was one that said very little about the overall meaning of the text. They

either did not comprehend the text or didn‟t write enough to suggest there was an understanding

of the text.

A “Detailed Response” meant that students alluded to specific events or details in the text, but

did not connect those specific details to the broader implications of the text.

An “Accurate Response” were those that not only mentioned important events or details, but also

connected them to the larger implications of the text.

15

18

16

18

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

Yes, I understood the text

I mostly understood the

text, but struggled

I sort of understood the

text

No, I did not understand the

text

Pre Tableau: Did You Understand the Text?


Figure 3: Comparison of student responses and demonstration of textual understanding before

and after tableau activities

By merely looking at the numbers, it would appear that tableau positively impacted the

understanding of the text as well as the quality of students‟ description of the text. This type of

change in the student responses was common in the pre and post findings of tableau activities.

One thing I found interesting was that the analysis of the student responses was a more accurate

indicator of their understanding than the self assessment. Students who clearly demonstrated

understanding of the text in their writing said they only “sort of” understood, while several

students who demonstrated a clear lack of understanding indicated that they comprehended the

text perfectly. They in fact added that it was easy. As I looked over these responses, I noticed

that female students who would be categorized as “high achieving” and academically strong

readers were most likely to question their understanding when in fact, they demonstrated

understanding powerfully in writing. Those who wrote that the text was easy and felt they

comprehended it, but didn‟t show evidence of this in their writing, typically were lower-level

readers who were also “high achieving”. One of those students is a young woman who struggles

to identify the themes and main points of texts and to organize her own writing. She also

participates in the honors credit for the class and has a clear sense that she will go to college.

This was interesting because it showed that students‟ own perceptions of themselves as readers

may not necessarily match their testing ability. Or, perhaps they are more appropriately aware

that a test score does not measure their proficiency or ability to succeed in any subject.

In looking over my notes and observations from when the activity took place, I think the greatest

benefit of the tableau activity is that it allows a space and place to interpret and talk about texts.

As the students negotiate how to create the tableaus, what images to re-create, and what words

and ideas are most important to convey, they begin to work with the text in a more engaged way.

I do not, however, think that this substitutes for other active or critical reading activities.

Shallow

Shallow

DetailedDetailed

Accurate

Accurate

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Pre Tableau Post Tableau

Comparing Student Responses in Pre and Post Tableu Activities

Shallow

Detailed

Accurate


Student– Created Tableaus from Lines in The Declaration of Independence

We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble

terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered

only by repeated injury.

That to secure these rights, Governments

are instituted among Men, deriving their

just powers from the consent of the

governed, — That whenever any Form of

Government becomes destructive of these

ends, it is the Right of the People to alter

or to abolish it.


Karla’s and Sam’s Take on Tableaus

When I asked Karla if she found the drama activities helpful in understanding texts, she firmly

believed that they did. But after talking more with her about what specifically helped her, it

seemed that class discussions of the tableaus were more helpful to her than the creation process.

However, it was the opposite for Sam. In our interview he said, “I like seeing how other people

interpret the meanings” I could tell he liked the creation process because he was often very

involved in that phase of the activities. But, in the class discussions following tableaus, Sam was

often playing his air drums, letting me know he was bored. He seemed to find the discussion the

dull part, but the creation and visual element of the process drama activities most instructive and

beneficial. In the interview, he did state, “even if I already understand it. I think it‟s always good

to think about things in different way.” So, even if he was a little disengaged in that portion in

class, he seemed to find a value in a continued discussion of historical texts.

This allowed me to see the benefit of process drama in a heterogeneous grouping of students. In

a class with ranges in reading comprehension that are vastly different, it is important to cover the

basics, while also pushing more proficient readers to new levels or thinking about texts. It seems

for this type of grouping, process drama is a promising tool.

Process Drama Helps Students Refine Writing

Although I am interested in reading comprehension, literacy involves an ability to write as well.

The goal of critical literacy is to be able to produce or create something with what you read. The

study is also an opportunity to find the various ways that drama can be incorporated into a

classroom, and improving students writing appears to be another area where it proves helpful.

As mentioned above, students were asked to write dramatic monologues for a play based on

novels they read. As an exercise for refining their monologues for the play, students were asked

to perform their monologues in pairs and offer feedback to their partners. The feedback guiding

questions were as follows: What strikes you about the monologue you heard? Does the

monologue give you a sense of who the character is? What suggestions do you have for

improving the monologue? The feedback was returned to the partners and then refining took

place. Although I did not collect their feedback forms, I did collect an exit slip after the refining

took place.

The exit slip asked two questions: 1) Did performing your monologue help you improve your

writing? 2) What, if anything, was the benefit to you of performing the monologue for a partner?

Students were asked to indicate whether the assignment was “very helpful”, “sort of helpful” or

“not helpful at all”.

It seems that no one found reading their monologue to be a waste of time. Of 51 students, 46

(approximately 90%) felt that performing the monologues were “very helpful” and 5 (less than

1%) felt that it was only “sort of” helpful, while no students marked that the activity was of no

use at all.

The second question: What if anything was the benefit to you performing the monologue for a

partner? Was an open-ended question. To this question, there were a couple of themes that


emerged in the perceived benefits of the performance. First, that reading it aloud helped them

identify errors in the writing. Second, that performing the monologue helped them make the

characters come to life.

Several students noted that performing the monologues simply helped them identify errors. As

one student noted, “[performing the monologues] helps you notice what things sound [s] weird”.

Even students who are more sophisticated writers seemed to benefit from the exercise for this

same reason, as noted in this articulate student‟s response, “Hearing myself perform allowed me

to change some punctuation to better reflect how I was saying something. I changed my words to

flow a little more naturally.”

Another common response was that the performance allowed students to see or hear important

things they missed about their character through the questions raised by their partner. One

student wrote, “It helped me see what was missing” and another wrote, “It showed that anyone

should be able to pick up your monologue and feel what is written there.”

Yet another perceived benefit to students was the ability to make their characters come to life

through the performance. Since the final project, a play, will ask students to become these

characters, they found that making them feel real in the writing was important. One student

wrote, “Hearing the monologue helped me add more emotions to my character so that the

audience can feel my emotions more.”

See Karla‟s monologue. She read John Steinbeck‟s Of Mice and Men and wrote her monologue

about a lesser known character- the wife of Curly.

Sample Refined Monologue:

Monologue: Curly‟s Wife

I am a woman with an unknown name. That is how important I am. I always

had the dreams of living a different life not to something I would regret. My mother

denied my opportunities of joining a traveling show. I only wanted the world to

know who I was and to become famous. I was only 15 years old. A scout spotted me

and promised to take me to Hollywood to become a movie star but nothing ever

happened. So, I decided to marry curly whom I dislike. My husband curly was a big

mistake. I‟m never seen with my husband but because of the fact that he is so boring.

I look for entertainment from other men and that‟s only because my husband doesn‟t

provide it for me, when I know other men will. Honestly I don‟t even know why he

married me if he doesn‟t pay any attention to me. My life is ruined and there is

nothing I can do about it.

Figure 4: Sample of a student created monologue


I was struck by Carla‟s monologue for many reasons. First, because she was so sympathetic

toward a character that seemed to go unnoticed by her group members. I was also struck by the

difference in her writing and performance. When she delivered these lines in the class

performance, I felt she connected to the character. In the exit card, she said that the performance

helped her re-write this monologue.

In all, it seems that students found the performance of their writing to be valuable. The quality of

their finished monologues is a testament to that. As I read through the introductions to characters

like George and Lennie from John Steinbeck‟s Of Mice and Men, I was moved to tears. Students

who hadn‟t read the same novels were also greatly impacted by the stories told in the

monologues of other groups. I overheard many students exclaim after the final class performance

of the monologues, “I want to read that book now.” And others still asked if they could borrow

my copies and begin reading other novels right away. If generating student interest in great

American literature isn‟t a positive impact on literacy, I‟m not sure what is.


Cycle Two: Performance of a Student Written Play

A performance in front of a live audience, I have found, is a powerful way to connect students to

a text, to a teacher, to a class and to a belief that they can create beauty. I have found this to be

true in performing famous plays, and have now found it to be true when performing plays they

have written. Our second project of the year was just such a project. Students selected books

from a list that I compiled of novels relating to the American Dream. The novels were: Of Mice

and Men, Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, Beloved, Rain of Gold, and

The Great Gatsby. Students were assigned the task of writing monologues about various

characters from the play discussing their dreams. They were then asked to write scenes from

their book surrounding several themes: What are the challenges your character faces in obtaining

his/her dream? What are the triumphs your character experiences in obtaining the dream? What

are the sacrifices your character must make in order to make his/ her dream a reality? What is the

significance of names in America? After writing several monologues and scenes, we then

compiled their writing pieces into one complete play, telling the stories of all their characters. In

the end, they all wrote, refined, acted, and recreated their characters to answer the question: what

is the American dream? We performed it in front of their parents and friends at an 11th

grade

exhibition.

When I announced to our class that we would be putting on a play, there was a mix of emotions

in the room. I should explain. Approximately two thirds of the students have had me before.

About one third of them have had me two years before and this is their third year with me. Each

year, I have done a class play, and each year, students say in reflections and evaluations that the

plays are the most memorable and meaningful projects. Those who have not had me always

groan. One student this year wrote, “I have to be honest, I thought it would suck.” Her candid

response represents what many students feel when I say with a smile on my face “We‟re going to

put on a play!” For those horror stricken students, my returning students all assured them early

on “this will be cool!” Throughout the creation and rehearsal process, the believers carried the

non-believers on. They even carried me on. They were the ones who had performed so many

times before and knew the value. I have always just been an observer, wishing I had been able to

act as a young person.

This project was a little different than last year‟s project, though. We were not going to take a

famous play like Julius Caesar and simply perform it. We were going to write it. Not only that,

we were going to be writing it from many different perspectives and try to piece it all together.

The creation of a play is the epitome of a process drama activity. We would be testing how it

helped reading, how it helped writing, and most importantly, how it helped students as people.

After looking over the final project survey, it seems as though the project was largely successful

at accomplishing those goals.

The students began the project by selecting novels from a list I generated to read in literature

circles. It was important to have a variety of books in this offering at a variety of levels. As

mentioned above, the offerings were: Of Mice and Men, Malcolm X, The Autobiography of

Frederick Douglass, Beloved, Rain of Gold, and The Great Gatsby. There were other books on

the list as well, but these were the only books chosen with enough frequency to create literature

circle groups. We started just with the reading. There was time in class to enjoy the novels, and


students had weekly meetings to discuss characters and themes in their books. At the meetings,

we had snacks and called them book talks. While the students read their novels, we began

studying The Constitution, then we discussed the history of immigration in the United States, the

roles of women, minorities and the working class. We discussed the Robber Barons and the

Progressive Era and finally, the Civil Rights era and the centuries of build up toward that.

Several of the previous process drama activities were used to discuss these very topics. The

tableaus, Forum Theater activity and Mock Trial were all used to cover the historical content and

reading of these topics. I wanted to prepare the students to think about their characters as real

people from different time periods, with real histories and lives- not just fixed characters in a

book with little significance or value. As Ernest Hemingway so aptly put it, “Great literature is

truer than anything that has ever happened in real life.”

After the history was covered and the novels were completed, we started to work on the play.

The novels and history content coverage took about four weeks to complete, and the writing,

drafting, compiling, and rehearsing of the play took about the same- four weeks. In all, we spent

just over eight weeks on the project.

Their first playwriting assignment was to think of a character they felt most connected to, or a

character they felt was most interesting. Then, write a dramatic monologue introducing them to

the audience, and explaining what their dreams were. We looked at sample monologues from

films, and performed them in class to get an idea of the tone to use, and the types of things we

learn from monologues. They established somber tones, and serious tones, and depressed tones.

And, in attempting to analyze and become the main character from American Psycho, they

thought about specific things characters say that reveal their inner selves to an audience. All

members of the literature circle groups chose characters to focus on, then started their individual

writing.

The final survey asked two important questions. The questions were: Did the performance help

you understand your book with more clarity or insight? And, Did you find the performance to be

a valuable experience? I reviewed the surveys, and looked through my journals about the play,

there were a few new themes that emerged about the value of Theater Performance with students.

1. Writing and performing plays add new insight into text

2. Performance of texts makes them more memorable

3. Performance builds community


Writing and Performing Plays Add New Insight into Text

Just about half of the students wrote that the creation and performance of the text helped with

understanding. These responses came from several different students from several different

levels or reading comprehension abilities. The range was simple understanding of plot to deeper

connection to and understanding of characters. One thing I worry about is making sure that

projects and texts appropriately challenge all students, while also allow all students to

comprehend what is being offered. These responses show that half of the students felt that the

performance was doing just that.

Did the performance help you understand your book with anymore clarity or insight?

The responses to this question were interesting. Of 45 students polled, 23 (51%) offered an

emphatic “yes!” with statements that supported that performance can bring understanding to

text. For those that stated an emphatic yes, there were very wide ranges of readers represented.

Those who I would categorize as struggling readers wrote that the performance helped them

understand the plot structure.

Emerging Insight: Understanding

Sandra, a young Latina student who is hard working and committed to becoming a more

proficient reader and writer, wrote, “Since I read Beloved it was a lil‟ confusing. The play helped

me with what I already read.”

She took on the Toni Morrison novel knowing it was more difficult. For her, it seemed the

performance allowed her to take more time looking back over the text and clarifying confusing,

prosy chapters. As Dorothy Heathcote aptly put it: “By putting yourself in someone else‟s shoes

and by using your personal experience to help you to understand their point of view, you may

discover more than you knew when you started” (44, 1984). For Sandra, writing and acting the

parts of Morrison‟s characters helped her understand them as living people, with living

experiences. The play took away the complications of long descriptions and confusing scene

shifts. It instead made the characters people that Sandra could identify with and sympathize.

Carla, another struggling reader wrote this about how the play helped her understand Of Mice

and Men: “It did help me understand what the main point of my book and also the most

important parts that I needed to know better” Although she did well on reading quizzes, and

seemed to be following the novel‟s plot, she found that the performance helped her understand

major scenes and other details in the story line.

Developing Insight: Bringing Texts to Life

For students who I would categorize as strong academic readers, there were also many who

wrote that the performance helped them understand the novels they read, although in a more

nuanced way. For the more advanced readers, the value of the performance for understanding

text came from having to become the characters or from analyzing smaller scenes.

“ The performance made it more clear to understand the feelings of my book‟s character like

Gatsby to Daisy.”


“Performing the text as Frederick Douglass truly made me see literature through his eyes, I not

only read his book, I felt like I wrote it.”

“Yes! By coordinating the monologues and performances it taught us different things about the

story that we might not have seen before.”

Despite the fact that these students weren‟t having any difficulty with the text, they found the

performance instructive. It was valuable to see that even high level readers were viewing this

performance as academically appropriate. I so often worry about struggling readers in the class,

and sometimes forget that high level readers need to be appropriately challenged, too.

For those who stated that the performance didn‟t help them understand the text, necessarily, they

qualified their responses by saying that there was value in the performance. Of the 45 responses,

20 (44%) students indicated that they already understood their novels without the performance.

In that group of students, the following comments were drawn:

“It helped me develop new thoughts and opinions though.”

“It was entertaining to watch it even though I already understood it.”

I think it is important to note that many students don‟t struggle with texts. Many don‟t get plot

structure confused. What the performance as a project offers is something to do with the text that

makes it interesting. Performance allowed them to showcase their understanding. That seemed to

be the students‟ sentiment too. I was not really dismayed to see that the performance wasn‟t as

instrumental in offering my advanced readers textual understanding, as long as it offered them

something of value.

Performance of Texts Makes Them More Memorable

I have taught novels for a few years now. Sometimes students enjoy the books they read, and

sometimes they don‟t. What happens so often with reading novels, and any text for that matter, is

the reading activity, some sort of assessment that articulates a student‟s proficiency, then we

move on. With this performance, and all of the reading assignments we did process drama

activities with, I hoped to give students something tangible to take with them about the text:

some facial expression, some emotion or some feeling. One of the aims of educational drama is

to reach different types of learners. For tactile learners process of attaching physical movement

and action to a text can add a layer of not only meaning, but also attach memories. I can say that

I hope students remember their novels for a test or for the purposes of knowing important

American literary works, but I also want them to remember the struggles the characters went

through. When life is challenging, or they encounter someone difficult, to say to themselves “I

bet George would have done it this way” is much more important. Literature is important not just

because we have to analyze it for college, but because it can help illuminate life. It cannot be

instructive or illuminating if it is forgotten once it is read.

Below is a graph representing responses from the final survey question: was the play a valuable

experience?


Figure 5: Students reflect on the value of the performance

Of 45 students, 42 (93%) said yes, while three students said no. The no responses came from a

student who managed the lights for the performance, from a student who was absent for a

majority of the creation and rehearsal and another student who was dissatisfied with his role.

Their perspectives did not go unnoticed, but an overwhelming majority of students felt the

performance was very valuable. Most reflections were so positive that I don‟t think I can deny

that students find this type of a project meaningful. Responses to the question “Was this project

valuable to you?” revealed that students found to overall experience as a powerful one; because

of the deeper understandings of the texts, the connections they made to the theme of the play and

fact that it will live in their memories. Their survey reflections indicated that they felt that the

performance brought light and life to their texts and the project‟s larger question about the

American Dream in a way that I don‟t think simply reading and analyzing a text could. They

talked about making deep connections to their characters and the project, not simply

understanding stories and plots. Here are some of their reflections:

“It was very valuable because it gave me a glimpse of other interesting books to read as well as

my specific character.”

“The book is clear enough, but the play just made it memorable.”

“Performing was liberating. Not only did it help me understand the book it helped me understand

the American Dream.”

“Our performance sent a really powerful message.”

“I thought it was a lot of fun.”

I knew the night of the performance would be powerful. I could see the children all beaming as

the audience applauded them. Some of the scenes yanked tears from the audiences eyes, and the

students knew that there was something important happening. Some of the songs performed

93%

7 %

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Yes No

Was the play a valuable experience?

Was the play a valuable experience?


broke the audience‟s hearts. Some of the students became someone else entirely on stage. I often

told students that dramatic performance is the highest art form. It has been used to communicate

the human story since ancient times, and has evolved as a means to open people‟s eyes to the

world in many ways. As the students danced, sang, froze, moved, and became other people, they

also became artists on the night of the performance. The transformation it inspired in them was

palpable.

Looking at the graph it is clear that the students perceived the play as a valuable experience, but

the class was not without naysayers. I had 3 students write that the play did not help them and

they did not see a value in the project. Two of the three did not actually perform in the play.

They were adamants about not performing. One of those two was absent for about a third of the

creation of the play. The other simply didn‟t see his value as a lighting technician. The third,

however, haunted me a little. Here is the voice that struck me most:

“I couldn‟t relate to a racist, sexist slave owner […] It‟s just the part I played had nothing

I could relate to making it hard for me to be interested in the material.”

This reminded me of an egregious error I made. The students wrote the plays, but I assigned

roles since we needed so many actors. Several students were trying to avoid performing, so I

compensated by stating that all with the exception of lighting technicians and sound needed to

perform. In this area, I left little room for discussion. And I also assigned roles as away to keep a

handful of dramatic minded students from snagging the choice roles. I had to find a balance.

There were enough students who wanted to act that larger roles were sought after, and there were

enough students that didn‟t want to act that I had to make them realize that if they didn‟t our

performance would be incomplete. This student reminded me the importance of negotiating and

communicating with students about performance.

Asking people, young people especially, to perform in front of an audience is not easy. I trusted

in my students past experiences that said “we were scared but we faced the fear and are happier

for it” with respect to performance. But, not all people will walk away with the same response,

especially when the characters are so challenging. I felt a tinge of guilt as I read that scathing

review of the project and the experience. I had pushed too far, struck a nerve, and maybe created

the opposite of a learning experience for a student. On the other hand, although he left with

negative feelings about his character, perhaps it was an important lesson too. Although in the

future, I would prepare students for this better and debrief with them after, perhaps it is a good

lesson to learn to become even a “bad guy.” All humans need to be understood, and perhaps a

healthy discussion about that with my students could have helped us get somewhere even further

than we did. I know I didn‟t handle that situation as delicately as I could have, but I know that it

will help me in the future to be more mindful of the students and have more dialogue before

placing students on stage that are hesitant to begin with.


Performance Builds Community

After the students gave their final bows on performance night, and we hugged and chatted with

parents, one of the most heart- warming, and unpredicted outcomes of the performance was

revealed. The performance provided an opportunity for students to come together as a group and

bond with one another in powerful and meaningful ways. We had worked for months developing

as actors and thinkers with the process drama activities, then worked for months to write and

create this performance together. The process drama activities building up to the writing and

performance of the play helped prepare us for the task of coming together as a community to

create something, while helping us to value each other‟s work and ideas in a safe, fun and

engaging space. By the time we reached a point in the year where we were writing and

performing the play, students had already begun to value each other‟s ideas and work. The play

and performance seemed to solidify all the confidence they built in one another.

Again, responses in the final reflection responding to: “Was the play a valuable experience?”

The last section discussed how students wrote about the fact that the performance mad e the texts

memorable. But many students also wrote that the value came from working with each other, and

seeing what everyone was capable of. This too, added to the value.

Here are some of their responses:

“ Yes, I did I think it was a lot of fun and a very interesting and valuable way to show our

understanding about the books.”

“Yes because I really thought that the play was a not so great idea but at the end I loved it,

everyone did. Everyone did awesome and it definitely connected to the American Dream.”

“Yes because we worked more as a classroom and we got the chance to really work together.”

“I will never forget my book or what it was about. Also, we got to experience brighter

perspectives on our classmates.”

“Yes! We utilized many skills while producing this performance and students all shined with

their specific talents.”

It seemed they were not only proud of themselves, but also their peers and me. There was a new

level of trust on everyone‟s part. I trusted them to pull off a beautiful performance, they trusted

their partners in their scenes, and their peers watching not to ridicule mistakes. They also had a

newfound trust for projects in my class. The student who wrote earlier that she thought the

performances would “suck” came up to me after the performance night and gave me a hug telling

me how happy she was she performed in the play. She had previously been a very pessimistic

student, questioning the value of all projects in class and the value of projects in general. It

seemed for her, the performance quelled her doubts.

The morning after the performance, I gathered the students together in a circle for a

“connections” activity. They were told they could share one thing about the performance night

that stuck with them. It could be good, bad, indifferent or just something they noticed. They were


told only to share once or simply listen. One student, Randi, a sweet young man who keeps to

himself, said this:

“I really liked when we were waiting to go on stage and Kevin lead everyone in a group huddle

and pep talk. It made me feel like we were all friends for the first time.”

The moment Randi described was not initiated by me. I wasn‟t even present. I didn‟t even know

it had happened, and wouldn‟t have if he hadn‟t shared. If the moment he described had never

happened, I don‟t think he ever would have shared. At that moment I realized that our play had

established a community of learners. We were no longer a group connected by a class period and

a teacher, but rather a group connected by memories, art and a common intellectual purpose. I

couldn‟t help but shed a tear.

One critique that I think is apropos to mention is one that all teachers who incorporate projects

into their classrooms grapple with- the amount of time something like this takes. One student

wrote:

“It was a good experience because I had never done acting before but I think the performance

prep took most of our time and that we could have been learning more.”

To this student, I must honestly answer that sometimes I feel the same way. I have struggled with

this question with each play I have helped students put on. Are they learning enough? I think I

walk away with not an answer to her question, but a soothing for my own soul. The soothing

goes like this. I do hope that the performance helps students read better or at least want to read

more. I do hope that the performance helps students find real applications and emotions for

writing. But, something that is of value, too, is the ability to give young people an opportunity to

create beauty. The standards do not measure beauty or confidence or art or engagement,

memories or personal value. A play, however, does.


Conclusions: From Comprehension to Community

Figure 5: Students engaged in a group celebration right before show time

Early in the year, I set out to see if process drama activities in conjunction with non-fiction

reading assignments helped students better understand a text. I found that process drama

activities were helpful in improving reading comprehension, but also in creating a community of

learners that value and trust each other to become vulnerable and grow as learners.

Students of all levels and ranges wrote that process drama activities were fun. The level of

engagement in class on process drama days was palpable. Students worked in groups, made

make-shift costumes, laughed at peers, and paid attention in class. This was because they were

learning from each other. The students frozen in space and time as a 1930s sheriff rested

comfortably in a chair with a gun and a smirk. A young African- American student protecting

her face from a blow by another student. These images said more to students than my

explanation that the Nadir was the darkest period in American race relations could ever have

done. Having fun creating, and taking each other seriously as actors helped make class feel more

“fun” and I would argue learning was happening. So, too, would the students. The “fun” level

helped students get more engaged in class. It also helped build a classroom culture comfortable

with performance before our play.


Students also wrote frequently that process drama activities were helpful in breaking down a

text, though it was difficult to measure if that was true. Perhaps merely feeling they can break

down a difficult text is enough. When I compared students‟ responses to the same question “Did

this activity help you break down a difficult text?” after using more traditional text coaching

activities in conjunction with reading assignments many said that the text coaching and

annotating activities were as, if not more, helpful than process drama activities in breaking down

difficult texts. I think this was important for me to see. I never had any intention of abandoning

other methods of reading instruction. There is a value in having many strategies to teach reading

and comprehension. That there were benefits to process drama as well as to text coaching

couldn‟t be denied, nor was it discouraging. As a teacher, I wasn‟t looking for a strategy to take

over my entire practice, but rather, a different and novel approach to add to my repertoire.

Literacy and reading is a complex skill that people develop throughout their lives in many

different ways. By varying strategies, we offer students a tool kit for understanding. I saw the

process drama as a way to see why they can love and connect to literature. I saw it as a way to

bring deeper meaning to literature. I think those goals were accomplished, but this is just one

way of doing it.

As I moved into the play creation portion of the project, my focus shifted from using the drama

activities to understand texts, to using process drama to make texts come alive. I wanted the

students to see the characters in their novels as real people with real emotions and life

experiences, as characters in books often represent aspects of the lived world. The more alive the

characters became, the better students were able to connect with them. The better they connected

with characters, the better their understanding of the novel. Writing the voice of the characters

and becoming the characters changed their perspective on drama and mine on literacy. I started

to see the value of creation, and art as viable means of literacy.

I started this research project thinking only of the students‟ ability to break down a text, but their

performances revealed an understanding about characters and life that I would not have been

able to see in any other medium. When I saw a student who had once stated that he hated reading

become Lennie Small, and later write that he now loves reading, I couldn‟t help but feel there

was something more to the way we think about reading. Somewhere along my journey through

this project, I came to see reading and literacy in a new way. This quote from Antoine de Saint-

Exupery helps sum it up:

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and

give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

True, the findings suggest that on some level, process drama met the goals of the research

project: to help students enjoy and comprehend texts better. As far as critical literacy being a

goal, there is strong evidence that it was developed too. When I started this action research

project, I only had a vague conception of what the full complexity of the term meant. As I think

back over the project, and remember all the work that went into building the dramatic culture and


creating the play, I know that I was witnessing critical literacy. They were working together to

construct meaning. They were interpreting characters and plot to bring them to life. They were

placing themselves in the shoes of the characters they read about. The act of reading took on a

life that was being analyzed and critiqued by the students.

So, did they all read and understand their books a little better through the performance? Yes. But,

in the end, I don‟t feel like this is the biggest benefit of the project. By the end of the play, we all

realized that we had come together to create something beautiful. That beauty is what students

will carry with them for the rest of their lives, and it helped to bring us all closer together as a

group. The memories of their performance, their writing, their books and most importantly, their

new found trust in one another, will certainly not be forgotten.

Process Drama and Critical Literacy

Critical literacy, according to Friere (1970) is what people do with texts. Or as Cummins put it,

“It is that which people utilize all forms of literacy in the shaping of their own destiny (1994, p.

305). Dorothy Heathcote tells readers that process drama is, “the isolation of the human

condition, particularization, distortion and forming so that you can contemplate it” (1984 p. 114).

This dissection of text or events and creation of scenes allows for an understanding of

happenings from the learners‟ perspective. According to Cecily O‟Neill (2006), process drama is

a continuum of activities that explore themes rather than sketches or plays; actions that are not

dependant on a script, improvisation and script are generated through actions.

It almost feels blaringly obvious, now, that process drama leads to critical literacy. The active

involvement, dialogue and negotiating required in the activities all lead to a deeper

understanding of a text for two reasons. First, more time is spent on the text. Second, the process

of turning text into art allows students to instinctively look at the text in a more interpretive

manner.

The young woman who lamented the amount of time spent on the play may have been

dissatisfied with not getting more information in class, but in the end, that may be one of the

benefits of the activities. To conduct these activities, I spent quite a bit of time pre-reading, then

allowed students to interpret through some process drama activity, then discussed the artistic

renditions with the class, and asked others to gather meaning from the student interpretations. All

of these steps took time. Time. This is perhaps the key ingredient to the recipe of developing any

skill. Literacy is no different. Giving this time is not easy. Students and teachers who are

accustomed to getting ten new facts a day may feel uneasy with the time devoted to these

activities. But in the end, I think students got information that would stick. This builds real

context for future learning, which is what Ed Hirsch (2009) insists is what students lack most in

their ability to read well.


Because drama is considered an art, it helped students move away from seeing their creations as

being able to be quantified into “right” and “wrong” categories. That of course took a little time,

too. This understanding, once established, makes process drama an ideal medium for developing

critical literacy. Many students intuitively understood that I would never call their tableau “bad”

or “incorrect” so there was little fear about approaching their creation. There was little hesitancy,

and most importantly, their reliance on me for guidance slowly lessened as we used tableaus

more frequently. The freedom that an art form in conjunction with a text offers, invites students

to construct meaning and simply play with the words. They had to imagine what certain words or

ideas looked like. This, of course, caused some debates and discussions among the students. Ah

ha! That is critical literacy! They were doing something with text, not passively sitting and

accepting information about a text. Not having their heads filled with my conceptions of Gatsby

and Daisy. Although, I have to be honest, I was swept up in some heated debates about who was

more evil: Daisy or Tom Buchanan. I couldn‟t help myself. I am a lover of these stories and

these characters after all!

When it came time to write a play, we were delving even further into the arts. We were drifting

out to sea to discover something new entirely! Through the creation process of writing the

various monologues and then finding ways they could all work together as a single story, we

stopped worrying about understanding plot and the story told in the novels alone. Instead, we

focused on our own understandings and interpretations of the writing from an artistic standpoint.

We had to ask ourselves how the stories worked together, how they connected so that we could

make all of the stories tell a larger tale about America. In a sense, this is what the students were

doing with one another, too. We were finding and making connections across literary pieces at

the same time as we were finding and making connections to one another. In the end, it led to

critical literacy and a strong and close knit community. This is much closer to critical literacy

than answering what happened in the plot on a test.

Celebrated author, Alice Walker once wrote that, “art is the mirror, the only one in which we can

see our true collective face. We must honor its sacred function. We must let art help us.” By

asking students to use language and literacy to create art, I came to see, and I think the students

came to see, that language too has a place in the arena of art. Art, then helps us understand the

world –just as words, characters, history and various texts do. It all came full circle.

In my own work, I found that process drama activities can be used in many ways with texts and

without. When using them with texts, the activities are designed to allow students to manipulate

text to meet their starting point understandings. One of the goals, according to both Heathcote

(1984) and O‟Neill (1998) is to shift the role of teachers from instructors to facilitators. This

helps students‟ gain authority over their own learning. It also changes the power paradigm in the

classroom so that students aren‟t always deferring to the teacher for answers, and thus, empowers

students. The idea is that this empowerment will help students “do” something with what they

read, and thus help foster critical literacy.


I saw all of these things in my classroom. Not only were students doing something with texts, but

they were taking creative charge. There was a give and take of power over the creative process.

Some students had strong feelings about adding a dance scene or changing dialogue after the

script was released. In the classroom activities like the mock trial, I didn‟t know what was going

to come out. In many ways, the children were steering the ship because ultimately it was their

writing, their performance and their story. There were several moments when a student would

stop mid-rehearsal and say “this seems contrived, I think I should just say…” or “I wrote a

longer monologue and it was cut in editing, but I really want to add this…” and I said “Great!”

They owned the performance. I managed it.

I did not give comprehension exams, though. This may have been an interesting and even an

important component for teachers looking to raise test scores. But in the end, the value of process

drama activities were measurable in other ways- not just in test scores. I ended up with students

loving their books, and feeling proud of themselves for their performance and their artistic

creations. They wrote and performed to demonstrate their understanding. I still work on finding

new strategies that show students how to analyze texts, because as Lisa Delpit (2006) reminds

educators, we cannot neglect that the power paradigm insists students test well and demonstrate

proficiency in traditional ways. But this project has helped me see that reading, literacy and

learning are all a part of a larger microcosm that is art.

The Value of Drama for Classroom

There are many practical uses for process drama activities in the humanities classrooms. It seems

like a natural extension of the curriculum that covers not only the arts, but also the more

classically identified college bound curriculum. I think one thing that many teachers look for in

devising classroom activities and experiences, are things that allow them to not only delve

deeper into topics and engage their students, but also activities that allow them to meet the

challenges of powering through the required annual content. Although I am not at a school where

I feel tremendous pressure to cover all the items on the never ending list of state standards, the

test each year does loom ominously over my head. I have found that process drama can be an

important part of a class, even if it doesn‟t result in a culminating project.

I don‟t quite agree with Ed Hirch‟s (2006) assertion that we must use as much class time as

possible to fill students‟ minds, but I do think there is something to be said for context

understanding helping readers with comprehension and literacy. For this reason, I understand a

teacher‟s initial hesitation to spend a great deal of time on a theater project. It was a concern I

often grappled with in my mind, and one that was echoed in one of my students‟ reflections after

the play was complete. Even without a play, process drama activities are useful classroom tools.

But, I think that my students found the most value in the experience with the creation of a play,


with becoming living artists. Tableaus, debates, acting out the news– these are all terrific stand

alone activities that can enliven a classroom of dull eyed teenagers who tire of listening to

teachers talk at them. If the time to write, choreograph, edit, rehearse and perform a play is too

great, start small. But, I think at some point, we all need to let go of the notion that we must fill

students‟ heads with information. Whether we dedicate time to drama, painting, constructing or

planning, some day, we do need to give students time: time to do something beautiful.

Heathcote (1984) and Boal (1979), both say that process drama must allow for interpretation or

creative understandings. It is this aspect of process drama that teaches perspective, and the

limitless capability of the human experience through the character being developed. I think that I

found the tableau exercises an important way in the classroom to give this flexibility with a text.

Students were picking out words they knew and creating movements and gestures. They were

negotiating with peers the meaning of words and phrases to see how to best become the text.

Cecily O‟Neill (1998) points out that second language teachers have long recognized that

dramatic activities create opportunities for struggling readers and language learners to gain

access to language and literacy. Teachers getting used to these activities should be prepared to

give these activities a few tries before assessing their benefit for struggling readers, though. Even

though most students quickly bought into the concept of creation, students who had a history of

difficulty with reading were a little slower to believe that they couldn‟t be “wrong”.

My struggling readers were slowest to rely on themselves and their own interpretations, but I

have to say that they eventually did. Some students initially wanted confirmation from me or

their peers whom they viewed as stronger readers. They deferred to others or asked me if their

tableau was “right” in our first few rounds of tableau. It took time to move away from them

seeing me as the arbiter of truth as opposed to a facilitator of learning. In the end, I think we got

closer. The growth in independence I observed among struggling readers was perhaps the most

important by-product of this type of work. At first, I worried these activities were not working. It

took that key ingredient, time, to get to a point where struggling readers could feel safe jumping

in and getting dirty with these activities. My hope is that some of their initial fears about reading,

and being “wrong” have been quelled so that as they encounter future texts, they continue to take

risks in analysis.

Tips for teachers using process drama

1. Use theater activities to help build your classroom culture early

On the first day of school, use activities that require movement and expression to

get students used to using their bodies to express meaning. Also, these activities

are helpful in building community by building trust. I found many useful

activities early in the year at Arts Literacy (www.artsliteracy.org)

http://www.artsliteracy.org/


2. Use process drama in conjunction with other reading strategies

One thing that I found with high school students is a need for diversity in the

classroom. Doing the same activity too many times seemed to result in

carelessness. I found that mixing up process drama activities with text coaching

and annotating strategies showed students that reading is a serious endeavor, but

that seriousness can also be fun, interesting and engaging.

3. Give time to reflect on drama activities

The benefit of the process drama activities was that students were negotiating

texts, but also that students were spending more time talking about texts.

Analyzing tableaus, or a partner‟s monologue or emotion in a scene is giving

more time and therefore importance, to a text.

4. Set ground rules

I like to make sure that students are calm. Then I ask them to remember to take

their part seriously. Whether they are demonstrating “sour” or creating a frozen

image of terror, or becoming a runaway slave, they must always give that role

truth. Their job is to show the class, or me, or a live audience something. Without

the ground rules talk, the activity can devolve into silliness that distracts from the

seriousness of this teaching and learning medium. (Mandel, Wolf; 2000)

5. Remind them before each activity that they are living artists

Somehow, reminding students of the great tragedians of Greece and Rome and

hearkening their attention to Shakespeare seems to offer credibility to students

who initially treat these activities as silly. As I stood before them on our first dress

rehearsal, I told them they were all artists, and the work they had created was as

important as any authors, scholars or artists of the past. The reverence they had

for themselves and their performance after that was palpable.

6. Remember that you are not always in control, so be prepared for the unexpected

We must always remember that when allowing students to interpret a text, we

are giving them a portion of the power in the room. We must therefore remind

them of the importance of taking that power seriously. Although we don‟t want to

stifle their creativity, we do want them to see that their interpretation will impact

the rest of the class. As important as making sure they participate and follow time

restrictions, it is important to remind students of the power of their performance.


One thing that process drama should do is give students ownership of the performance. I do feel

that students felt the play was theirs, but I also see that in many ways, I had contrived some

connections I was hoping they would make. As we moved into the play writing and preparation

for the performance, I see now that the writing often had an end in mind. The novels for the

literature circles were selected by me. As such, I knew the places where each story about the

American Dream connected. I knew what they had in common and imagined before we began

how I saw the plays ending up. In fact, I even had sketched in my mind a sort of rough outline.

Augosto Boal (1979) explicitly states that the goal is to see that outcomes are not fixed. Stories

are not set in stone. Each person‟s destiny is not pre-determined. As I gave writing prompts and

selected vignettes and monologues for the production, I suspect I was not entirely working

within the realms of process drama. I was not an absentee figure in the creation of the play

leaving it entirely up to the students. But, a Brown University study by Jan Mandell and Jennifer

Wolf (2000) reminds teachers of theater that setting limits and knowing the goals are paramount

to a play‟s success. I think I was ensuring our project had not only an artistic goal, but also

content goals.

The year began intent on helping to lift up my struggling readers to some measure of college

proficiency, and offering all students some empowerment in the hopes that they would all see the

benefit of reading, and college, and education and… Steinbeck, of course. The goals of the

project were two-fold: raise critical literacy and reading comprehension.

In the end, students reflected that they felt that the project was valuable. After the final bow and

the dying applause, the students and I were all left with a sense of power: in the performance, in

ourselves, and in our new found trust in one another. They reported feeling proud of themselves,

and some even reported feeling excited about a new found love of reading. Although I was afraid

of missing much needed practice with reading by exposing them to more texts, the grand finale,

smiling faces and exclamations of love for reading were all worth it.


Coming Full Circle: Final Reflection

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we

started and know the place for the first time.

This quote of the famous poet, T.S. Eliot, resonated with me when we first read it upon entering

this program. I feel that I started on a journey to understand how to better help my students with

respect to literacy. Although I feel I have found new strategies to get better at this goal, I also feel

that there is still work to be done. With that in mind, I feel that the strategies I developed as a

teacher researcher will continue to help me as I wade through the difficult challenges that

bringing critical literacy to young people will always bring. The most rewarding thing that the

research provides is hope: hope that students can be guided toward critical literacy and hope that I

will get better at being a guide.

In the year that I was developing my question, I was confronted with two struggling readers that

constantly made me worry. I wanted desperately to help them. I wanted desperately to bring them

to a playing level with other college bound students. I hoped that process drama might be a

productive tool in this endeavor. The idea just sort of sprang on me. I knew I liked process, or

educational, drama activities in the classroom for the fun and frivolity they brought to my class. I

had used them a handful of times in my class before. Through this action research process, I have

come to a much deeper understanding and appreciation of process drama activities and projects. I

have also come to a different understanding about literacy. Although I can‟t say I have solved the

literacy gap with one project, I can say that I have refined my thinking about literacy and the

many tools that work toward that goal. I still have questions and investigating to do with respect

to helping all students reach literacy levels that allow them to shape and control their destinies,

but the skills I have gained throughout the action research will certainly help me as I continue on

in my journey toward helping to empower young people.

The research had a two-fold impact on my practice, first during the literature review, and second

during the action research. During the literature review, I realized that I was not just looking up

strategies on-line for a day time activity. I was investigating an art form that many respected

academics had spent many years examining and sharing their ideas about. This added a whole

new level of depth to my understanding of these activities that I was able to communicate to the

class. When I introduced the activities and projects, I felt as though I was speaking with authority

and purpose. I came to the understanding that these are powerful tools of art, and help transform

the people who perform them into artists.

During the action research project, I came to see the value of regular feedback and reflection from

students. The goal of any teacher is to know how he or she is impacting, helping or facilitating the

learning for students. Regular feedback is yet another way to assess how much or how little

students are getting out of any given activity. This was perhaps the most powerful lesson because


it became so easy. I started using surveys and questionnaires, but as the project quickly became

more daunting, I realized that using smaller, less planning required, exit cards would be just as

useful. I use exit cards all of the time now. I have a bin of scrap paper, and can cut up the paper

into squares and write a question for final reflection or response every day. I ask questions as

simple as:

What did you learn today?

What worked for you?

What didn‟t work for you?

What would you like to see more of?

On a scale of 1-4, how would you rate this activity?

On a scale of 1-4 how would you rate the difficulty of this text?

Although during the research process, there were more specific questions I asked students, and

often left open-ended questions, I started to use exit cards outside of the research project. When

my team wanted to know if the students found our SAT preparatory classes valuable because of

off task behaviors during the class, I had the students fill out exit cards, compiled the data in

twenty minutes and shared it with my team. It turned out that 90% of the students did find it

valuable but were simply tired after lunch. We knew then we needed to spice up the classes for

sleepy, food comatose teenagers. The use of exit cards really allowed me to see the value of

collecting data regularly as a way to solve challenges.

The most challenging thing for me was coming to the realization that my initial goals did not

necessarily comport with what I was doing. I wanted to find a tool that helped all students

comprehend texts, but I was calling it critical literacy. Interestingly enough, the activities I had

the students doing comported with my notions of critical literacy, but somewhere in my mind I

wanted to solve a great problem. I wanted to see something that said “Look world! This activity

will help your students read better!” But that isn‟t critical literacy, necessarily. In analyzing the

data of pre and post tableaus, I realized, yes, the numbers certainly make it look like textual

comprehension is increasing with this activity, but it didn‟t feel like critical literacy. I don‟t think

it happened intentionally, but I think I stopped analyzing pre and post reading because I stopped

thinking about looking at something that could be measured on a test. I started looking at how

students were growing. How they were interacting. What they were saying.

I think if I had this to do all over again I would stick to the pre and post analysis of all activities

and structure my time so that I work in opportunities to measure the before and after effects of

process drama. When I started to put it in graphs, it was useful, to an extent. And, I know that

those numbers are what people like me are often curious about. I don‟t think it was a bad thing


that I abandoned that approach, but I do think that something was happening to me and my

thoughts about what it was I was looking for that couldn‟t have been avoided. I was deciding that

what mattered more to me, and in the end, the reading comprehension took a back seat to

developing lovers of reading. Carl, a young man who professed in my previous year teaching him

that he “hated reading” ended this year with a new appreciation of books. On his final reflection

about the play he wrote that he “loved his book!” This was what I was after.

Another challenge for me was balancing developing curriculum with being creative with the

process drama activities. I am still a new teacher, and this is the first time I have taught eleventh

grade at High Tech High. This newness added a little stress to my plate. I felt a bit bogged down

searching for reading materials to bring to class and deciding exactly what I would cover for the

history of each project. I had an idea over the summer, but I think every teacher understands what

happens as the school year starts. The reality of needing to decide what, precisely, I was going to

cover content wise hit me hard. I spent so much time researching readings, primary source

documents and re-reading all the novels in the literature circles, that I feel I gave less attention to

getting more creative with the process drama activities. I feel like I used several drama activities

while preparing for the play, but have since reflected on the various ways I could have used

process drama differently with readings throughout the year. Next year, I would like to play more

with Forum Theater. I could have done so much more with impromptu theater activities. I would

also like to experiment more with “Using Bodies” types of activities. I hadn‟t planned how to use

them in conjunction with texts during the project, and did them as more isolated activities in

preparing for performance. But in my journal reflections I started coming up with more ways to

use these activities. The research helped me see that there are many ways to use process drama

and I would like to spend more time developing more and varied ways to incorporate them into

class. I know that I have only begun to mine the gold in this rich reserve of process drama. I may

well spend the rest of my career developing, refining and understanding this educational tool.

In the end, I know I am changed as an educator. I think differently about struggling readers. I

think differently about theater. I think differently about my role in the class. I think differently

about how to solve problems in the class. I started wanting to raise a reading score and ended with

wanting to raise a reading awareness. I think that although it may not be evident right away, the

two ends will meet. I will trust in that for now, and continue to look closely at student reflections

and work to see if I am helping with either of those two goals.


References

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student writing and diversity awareness. Multicultural Education, 16(1), 53-58.

Delgado-Gaitan, C. (1994). Sociocultural change through literacy: Toward the empowerment of

families. Ferdman, B., Weber, M., & Ramirez, A. (Eds.) Literacy across languages and

cultures. (pp. 143-170). Albany: State University of New York Press.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Boal, A. (1979). Theater of the Oppressed. New York: Urizen Books.

Etherton, M., South Asia‟s child rights theater for development. (188-220). Boon, R. & Plastow,

J. (Eds.).2004. Theater and Empowerment: Community drama on the world stage. Cambridge:

UniversityPress.

Kao, S. & O‟Neill, C. (1998). Words into Worlds: Learning a second language through process

drama. Stamford: Ablex Publishing.

Cummins, J. Frome Coercive to collaborative relations of pwer in the teaching of literacy. (1994)

Ferdman, B., Weber, M., & Ramirez, A. (Eds.) Literacy across languages and cultures. (pp.

295-326). Albany: State University of New York Press.

Heathcote, D. (1984) Collected Writings on Education and Drama. Johnson, L. & O‟Neill, C.

(Eds.)Evanston: Northwest University Press.

Wilhelm, J. (2002) Action for deepening comprehension. New York: Scholastic Professional

Books.

Wink, J. (2005) Critical pedagogy: Notes from the real world. San Francisco: Pearson

Mandell, J. & Wolf, J. Acting, learning and change. Providence: Heinemann

Kozol, J. (1991) Savage inequalities. New York: Harper Perennial.

Delpit, L. (2006) Other people’s children: Culture conflict in the classroom. New York: New

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