Critical Affective Positioning Theory and Social Studies

Critical Affective Positioning Theory regards the different identities that we put out and the way that others read our identities, and how the way that others read our identity also affects how we portray ourselves as well. Our stable identity includes our race, gender, physical characteristics and family. Our flexible identity includes our interests/hobbies, jobs, moods, relationships and the context in which we are situated. Critical affective positioning theory regards this process of portraying and reading identities.

This is a wonderful strategy to incorporate with social studies as social studies is heavily based on social and cultural context. In our own class, we explored a problem with polar bears in a fictional city we lived in, where all of the students represented different groups of civilians. This included the oil drillers, researchers of polar bears, and citizens of the town. Here, we were able to divide into groups to discuss the problem, as well as come together and work as a 'city' to decide what should happen with the various problems presented in the scenario. This included the oil drillers feeling unsafe to the polar bears, the citizens being concerned about the oil drillers and the researchers needing money for research and resources. At first, we were told each group had $1 million dollars to solve their problems, but by the end, it turned out the whole city had $1 million, so all groups had to work together to decide where to allocate the money. This allows for role play for the students assuming the role of their character in the town, while exploring sociological problems and perspectives.

Multimodal theory and the creative process

This was probably my favorite theory and strategy to explore as it integrated so many different strategies and subjects; as a teacher this is a great tool since we all know the year doesn't provide as much time for teaching as we would like! Multimodal theory regards the process of designing, producing, negotiating and disseminating. It is a non-cyclical process, meaning it may not happen in that order, and is a continuous process in that you could do the same activity again using this process.

Multimodal theory

In our own drama class, we were able to integrate this theory into language arts and the dramatic strategy of news reporting. I really liked this as news reporting is a part of the curriculum for language as students must learn about non-fiction reports and procedural writing! What a great way to integrate subjects, conserve time and have fun all at the same time! This also involved the creative process, which encourages students to inspire, imagine, plan, explore, produce, revise, present, and reflect. In our example, we had the teacher in role as the news reporter, with the students situated in a circle. The news reporter can approach various students (ensuring the right to pass is always an option), asking for their opinion on the current situation, which in our situation we called 'Crisis in Perfectville'. This strategy of approaching different people or characters for their opinion is called hot seating. Hot seating allows for the development of characters within the classroom setting in regards to a specific story, subject or activity. A way to modify this activity for students who may be uncomfortable participating or hard of hearing would be to allow the use of pictures and drawings by providing students with white boards before beginning the hot seating activity. As previously stated, but worth repeating, it is also important for students to know they always have the right to pass.

This activity relates to the Drama expectation which states that students will be able to:
B1.2 demonstrate an understanding of the element of role by communicating thoughts, feelings and perspectives appropriate to the role being played (e.g., devise and share a group of mime showing how characters respond to the tension in a situation of conflict, departure, or anticipation; use voice expressively to convey an interpretation of a character's attitude). 

 The Creative Process

This is a great activity that could even last a few days if you wanted to incorporate it within even more subjects, such as math or science. The possibilities are endless when it comes to incorporating drama into the classroom and I surely hope this blog is starting to demonstrate that!

Bloom's Taxonomy and elements of movement

Bloom's taxonomy is salient within the teaching world and in this post, I would like to discuss how this theory can be put into practice through the use of drama! Bloom's taxonomy includes key words in describing the cognitive processes of which thinkers encounter and work with knowledge. Each part of Bloom's taxonomy can be further broken down into descriptive words you may provide to students to help them through cognitive processes:

 In our own drama class, we incorporated this theory with drama's elements of movement.Through this, students are able to remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create and re-create. This can be especially helpful when looking at books or exploring a specific concept in science or social studies. An idea could be to invite students to move according to how they feel (while keeping some restraints on how far/suddenly they move to avoid injury) while reading a novel, listening to a certain music piece, or to re-create pieces of a story or information regarding science or social studies. In science, you may ask students to move around the room or act as though they are solid or liquid to demonstrate the different properties of each. The students are experiencing the properties of liquids and solids themselves by trying to re-create them through movement.

Those are some ideas of how Bloom's Taxonomy may be integrated with the elements of movement to incorporate drama with various subjects. I shared a few examples, feel free to share yours too!

Multiple Intelligences and Choral Work

The theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) has long been significant to teachers. However, this post is to demonstrate how multiple intelligences may be integrated into choral work to incorporate drama into the classroom. The multiple intelligences include:

• visual/spatial
• kinesthetic
• musical
• linguistic
• mathematical/logical
• interpersonal
• intrapersonal

 These intelligences are important for teachers to regard as students will come to our classrooms with various learning styles and preferences to how they learn. When a teacher incorporates Gardner's (1983) multiple intelligence theory, they have a better chance of meeting multiple students' needs when learning in the classroom. 

In our own drama classroom, we incorporated this theory with features of choral work. Choral work is using the elements of voice and speech which can be used to portray certain feelings, opinions, expressions or elements personally or of a specific character or subject matter within the classroom. By using choral work, students are able to explore different features of their own voice and speech to portray a specific feeling or opinion towards something, or perhaps taking on the character of a story or video. This also allows for students to bring forth their own intelligences through what they see or how they use their voice. Someone who is musical may decide to sing, while someone who is more logical might present things in a more neutral, moderate pace. Choral work is an excellent area to drama that can be incorporated easily into a variety of subjects and activities.

A great integration of this tool, surprisingly, could be with math! You could use choral work to encourage students to create their own patterns using their voices, determining a core and repeating the pattern for the class to determine the core themselves. This allows the integration of the dramatic strategy of choral work with the math curriculum, specifically patterning!

Learner's theory and tableaux

Learner's theory (Dwyer, 1996) states that students learn:
20% of what they hear
30% of what they see
50% of what they read or write
70% of discussion
80% doing or experiencing
90% through teaching.

This theory is extremely important to teachers as it shows teachers that using classic direct instruction and simply relaying information and knowledge to students is not enough to help them learn. Most importantly, it shows that students learn 90% of what they teach. This presents teachers with the task and challenge of incorporating and encouraging students to teach knowledge themselves, in order to get a better and more practical understanding.

Tableaux is an excellent tool that you can incorporate in the classroom to integrate drama and to allow students to teach information and knowledge themselves. An example of this may be asking students to represent different parts of a book or novel in a novel study through tableaux and teach the class about that book. This provides a chance for students to teach the rest of the class about the book they read, while using the elements of tableaux to express different aspects, elements or perspectives within a book or novel.

Tableaux is such a great tool because it can be modified across grade levels. When I was in my placement, I was able to observe a drama teacher coming into the classroom and specifically teaching the elements of tableaux to grade 1/2s. She used the description of levels, expression and body when creating tableaux, and students were able to use these elements to create their own tableaux.

In our own classroom, we mixed tableau and position mapping. Position mapping is simply positioning yourself in accordance to an object and how you feel about the subject/question stated. On the first day, our professor asked us how we felt about teaching drama, and we were to positions ourselves regarding how comfortable we felt with it (the more comfortable you were, the closer to the chair you would be). We were to represent our bodies and facial expressions to express how we feel through tableau. I decided to shrug and I positioned myself about midway to the chair. I had taken drama in grade 9 and enjoyed it, but wouldn't say I was 100% comfortable with teaching dramatic strategies and terminology as I was not too familiar with them. I can honestly say that I am now more familiar with the both of these things, as well as the curriculum. This specific activity could connect to the Grade 2 Drama Curriculum which states that by the end of Grade 2, students will:
B2.2 identify, using drama terminology, the elements and conventions of drama used in shared drama experiences and theatre and describe how they can help communicate ideas ad feelings and create interest (eg., as a class create a checklist of the elements in a drama and what each element contributes and helps communicate; use a tableau to share a moment of importance in the story).  



This is a short video providing an example of tableau and the importance and potential of integrating drama into the classroom.

How might you use tableaux in your own classroom? Feel free to comment below and let me know!