Lesson 9: Teaching with Dramatized Experience

Dramatic is something that is stirring, affecting or moving.

Dramatic Entrance is something that catches and holds attention, and has emotional impacts.

Dramatized Experiences can range from:

Formal Plays

Pageants

Tableau

Pantomime

Puppets

Role-playing

Plays

- depict life, character, culture, or a combination of the three. They offer excellent opportunities to portray vividly important ideas about life. Teaching with dramatized experiences

Pageants

- are usually community dramas that are based on local history. An example is a historical pageant that traces the growth of a school.

Pantomime

- is an “art of conveying a story through bodily movements.” The effects of pantomime to the audience depends on the movements of the actors.

Tableau

- is a picture-like scene composed of people against a background.

Role-Playing

- is an unrehearsed, unprepared and spontaneous dramatization of a situation where assigned participants are absorbed by their own roles.

Puppets 

- a puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. Puppets can present ideas with extreme simplicity.

Types of Puppets

Shadow puppets 

– flat, black silhouette made from lightweight cardboard shown behind a screen.

Rod puppets

– flat, cut-out figures tacked to a stick with one or more movable parts, and are operated below the stage through wires or rods.

Glove-and-finger puppets

– make use of gloves which small costumed figures are attached.

Marionettes

– flexible, jointed puppets operated by strings or wires attached to a cross bar and manoeuvred from directly above the stage.