Reflection 10 - School Drama @ Paddington P.S. (‘The Lost Thing’ by Shaun Tan with year 3 students)

School Drama: 'The Lost Thing' by Shaun Tan

In this reflection I will be discussing my experiences of in School Drama at Paddington P.S. with year 3 students. The in School Drama workshop looked at the story of ‘The Lost Thing’ by Shaun Tan. The class itself was already concentrating on machines and how they worked, and what features they had. This story was a great accompaniment to their unit of work because it allowed for them to really understand what machines can feel and think (personification of non-living objects). In this workshop the year 3 students were given a chance to warm up by doing little exercises like the game ‘You, Me!’ This helped them to break the nerves and get them into the motion of Drama. The main activity for this drama workshop was making a machine and showcasing it to the class. In groups students worked with volunteers (us) and became the machine in the story ‘The Lost Thing’. Each student had a part as the machine and one student had to be the boy who met the machine on the beach. Once again quality literature is an important aspect within Drama and any type of artform as it allows for creativity (Ewing, Hristofski, Gibson, Campbell & Robertson, 2011, p. 34). This experience was very interesting to see because it allowed me to see the capabilities that students have and can apply when they are having fun. Any student has the potential to apply Drama and have fun; it’s the matter of making the surrounding area a safe and comfortable place to work in that will help students stay calm and at ease during Drama.

Reference:

Ewing, R., Hristofski, H., Gibson, R., Campbell, V. & Robertson, A. (2011). Using Drama to Enhance Literacy: The School Drama Initiative. Literacy Learning: the Middle Years, 19:3, pp. 33-39.