Week 9 - Drama

In this week’s lecture and tutorial we were asked to consider the question: what is storytelling?

These were some of the important characteristics that we decided go into making a story.

·       Generally contains a beginning, middle and end.

·       There is a protagonist

·       Generally a linear narrative that has an orientation, series of complications and unexpected moments and tension which builds and is resolved

·       The protagonist is usually much better off at the end or has changed. They have gone through an experience.

We also learnt that rather than reading a story, we need to learn to tell a story.

The focus of storytelling needs to be on the listener. We need to understand the listener by giving them the opportunity to engage their own imagination in the telling of the story. The storyteller should be free to use his or her own words to a certain extent - personal authenticity is enhanced in oral storytelling because it allows for the natural language, grammar, syntax and physicality of the storyteller.

In the workshop we began by doing a warm up exercise where we partnered up and assumed the ‘mantle of the expert’. This involved choosing an object in the room (I chose a door) and improvising an explanation of how you invented that object. This was a fun way to get into the re-telling of the Selkie myth.

We were told a story in the lecture, which is an old celtic story about a Selkie - a half seal woman who was captured by a fisherman who married and had children with her. The Selkie eventually returned to the sea after re-discovering her sealskin that her husband had locked away from her.

  

We were asked to re-tell the Selkie story to our partner but improvise an alternate ending. As the listener we were able to interrupt the teller by saying ‘Detail’ or ‘Advance’ which would either require the teller to improvise more detail about a certain section of the story or to advance to the next part of the story. My ending involved the children following their mother out into the sea and upon diving into the water they discovered that they were also selkies.

Finally we were asked to tell an original story from our childhood to each other with the idea of choosing one of the stories to present to the class. The class then had to guess who the story actually belonged to.

I now realise that as teachers we need to reconceive the curriculum as a set of great stories that engage our listeners (students) and inspire them to want to learn.

I have had a brilliant time exploring drama during the four weeks of lectures and tutorials and my only regret is that we do not have longer to learn more about it. I will definitely look to employ drama techniques heavily in my future teaching career.