Adding a bit of drama to the Science of Reading

 This post will be a little off the beaten track, but I had such a huge amount of fun in the last four weeks of term, that I just had to post about it.  It also has been an age since I have written about anything drama related that holds such a huge place in my teacher heart that I thought it deserved a place in my recent blog posts.

Firstly, how in the heck does this relate to the Science of Reading?  Well if we look at the rope, we would see it relates heavily to the language comprehension side and then in the Active view of reading (which I prefer, again it features here.) My focus was largely on vocabulary development and background knowledge, but there were a heck of a lot of micro-skills going on as well when it comes to comprehension.  

I have talked also before about the pillars of literacy.  This podcast with Lyn Stone is a great one to listen to, if you have not before.

https://soundcloud.com/ollielovell/errr-066-lyn-stone-on-literacy-instruction-and-the-big-six?utm_source=clipboard&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Follielovell%252Ferrr-066-lyn-stone-on-literacy-instruction-and-the-big-six

I have added oral language to the base of these pillars, because I really see it as underpinning them all and ten years ago, it was where my journey started.

Hugh Catts also has some interesting thoughts on the pillars, particularly around comprehension...you can find that in a previous post if you are interested.

Right back to the point of this post....my latest dramatic inquiry, or perhaps in many ways a mini mantle.  Whatever you term it, it was, as Viv Aitken would say "Real in all the ways that matter."

The adventure into this world, started with two very real goals. 

1.  To help children to develop the ability to see perspective and develop the skills of empathy and respect.

Like many schools, our children are really struggling at the moment.  Small niggly behaviours have crept in to our everyday lives, they have had a rough few years and it really shows.  They are much more 'sandpapered' or aggravated by each other and really struggle to see another's perspective.  What I know is that there is nothing like the gift of drama to explore these social, emotional skills in a safe way, so it was obviously what I saw most appropriate to use.  

Let's face it, kids do well if they can and if they can't, rather than rewarding those that can already with prizes and tickets, or thinking they can learn it from a programme or workbook, we need to develop the skills for everyone.  If you can't ride a bike, you work on riding a bike with support, if you can't read, we work on developing your reading skills, so in turn it is true of social and emotional learning, if you are not able to use these skills yet, we develop them in a way that we know works.  

In my opinion there are there are two top ways to develop these skills, play (where the teacher actively notices, responds, models and draws attention to these skills) and drama, where children are placed in  situations where they can explore these skills safely often through the eyes of another.

It is no coincidence that both these approaches have relationships as a core way of working, and we know that it is relationships that are transformative.

2. I wanted to really tune into background knowledge and vocabulary development in a rich way, of course facilitating oral language development along the way.  I also had a key goal of really thinking about micro-comprehension through the narrative that was woven.  More about this here

So to the actual adventure:

Many of you that follow my facebook page, will have read the instalments about the bunnies...but basically this is the scenario (this was my first facebook post). You can find the posts on my page if you want more info about each day.

Think about the movie Watership Down (that movie traumatised me for life)…a group of bunnies seeing yellow creatures moving towards them, making rumbling sounds, seemingly on a path to destroy their little bit of paradise, their beautiful habitat. Our weighty warrior cottontail delivered us this letter from their cousins.

Children were quick to invest emotionally…and quickly worked out what the mysterious yellow creatures must be.

We’ve written back, but are very worried about this group. Children brought up concerns around the need for them to find a new home, but were also concerned that any new home would be really different and scary for them. They’d need a lot of support.

So our next steps, it will clear that these rabbits will need to move, though not all will be keen straight away and some convincing will need to happen . It will also be clear that means we need to offer them that home. As they are many miles away from us they’ll need to travel and that journey won’t be easy. A map will appear that shows the location of their forest, the location of the machines and our location. This will allow us to track their journey and the journey of the machines.

We will talk about the fact they’ve been displaced and will be feeling vulnerable, allowing us to focus on the skills we will need to help them adjust. Kindness, perspective taking, empathy etc.

We will also touch on what people displaced from their homes are called and explore how this would feel.

We will also look at what destruction of natural habitats looks like around the world. We might need to talk to the operators of the machines and help them understand.

This little inquiry was inspired by the fact we are really struggling with children’s ability to take perspective, have compassion, treat others how we want to be treated and show respect. I wanted to give them a reason to develop these skills.

I’m not quite sure how this will unfold or what edgy adventures the bunnies will face on their journey, it will unfold like any good story, the children will help with that.

And yep a group of beautiful soft snuggly bunnies will eventually make their way to our doorstep for us to love, just like the real thing.

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The story evolved from there, a series of letters arrived, which we replied to and as with any great dramatic inquiry/mini mantle there was a lot of knowledge we needed along the way.  Bits and pieces from their world, linked to ours, like Big Old Tree, who stood for the Puriri tree in our grounds, that was planted at the end of the war.

Children largely drove the direction and the letters became my script.  

By the end of it, children were able to go into role as the main characters, explore and present arguments from their perspective and even found a compromise that would never have been on the table at the beginning.  The character they initially saw as the villain actually had kind intent and in the end there were many different needs to consider.

As part of our work we used this book, to be honest, it could be a whole dramatic inquiry on its own.  It is just beautiful and explores what it is to be homeless.

Children were captured by this world the moment the door opened.  They invested in it, while they knew it was imagined, there was so many correlations between the world of the bunnies and our world, that it felt so very real.  

They loved the bunnies, they loved Big Old Tree and when the last letter came, there were some tears.  One little lady summed it up so beautifully 

"The bunnies taught us so much, I am really going to miss them."

I have attached a mind map a the end of this blog post to show the areas we covered through this DI.

Children spent a lot of their own time drawing pictures for the bunnies and writing to them

What it looked like when our bunny friends contacted us.

Lots of things were made for the bunnies on a daily basis

We travelled ten years forward in time, to see what change we had created!  What I love about drama!

Children rejoiced when some lovely cuddly bunny friends arrived of our very own.  

A soft toy on the outside, but real in their hearts.

Here are the screenshots of the letters, hard to read as they are just screenshots, but it gives you an idea of my 'script.'

This was massively successful on many levels, but it was also just a fantastic way to end the term.  I know this group of children are just going to love it when we open the portal during maths next term.