Talking
drama
into being: types of talk in drama classrooms
Kelly
Freebody, University of Sydney
Abstract
This
paper
explores the structure of talk in drama classrooms, particularly the
ways
students and teachers use different kinds of talk to achieve their
classroom
work and construct shared moral reasoning as the basis of their
practical
educational activities. The data and discussion presented here bring
together
the curricular setting of educational drama and the methodological
setting of conversation
analysis and membership categorisation analysis. The transcripts and
analyses
emerged from a larger study that sought to explore the particular ways
students
interacted within process drama lessons dealing with future life
prospects and
pathways. The identification of three distinct kinds of talk has
significance
for education scholars, teacher-educators and teacher-practitioners as
it has
the potential to enable a more detailed awareness of the structure of
classroom
practice and the particular ways students engage with significant ideas
in
classroom settings.
Keywords
Conversation
analysis, membership categorisation analysis, classroom talk, drama
education
Introduction
Macbeth
has
suggested that “There is…in the respecification of
familiar affairs as their
situated assemblage, the promise that we will come to know them
differently”
(Macbeth, 1996: 281). This paper reports on the types of
talk-in-interaction
found in the ‘familiar affairs’ of drama classrooms in high
schools. To do so,
it brings together the curricular setting of educational drama and the
methodological setting of conversation analysis and membership
categorisation
analysis[1].
This combination provides researchers with the opportunity to explore
the
particular ways in which students and teachers structure classroom work
and
share moral reasoning practices in the drama classroom. This paper
outlines
these methodological and curricular settings and how they were
integrated in
the implementation of the research before discussing the research
findings.
The
data and
discussion presented in this paper emerged from a larger research study
that sought
to explore whether students from schools located in differing
socio-economic
status areas interact differently in process drama lessons dealing with
future
life prospects and pathways. A preliminary step in exploring this
issue, and
the focus of this paper, was to identify the differing types of talk
that were
present in the drama classrooms involved in the study. This
identification not
only led to more precise answers to the research questions and to
clearer
professional and theoretical implications, but also helped develop a
deeper
understanding of the purpose and structure of talk in drama classrooms.
Such an
understanding is of significance to education scholars and
practitioners as it
has the potential to enable a more detailed awareness of the structure
of
classroom practice and the particular ways students engage with ideas
in
classroom settings.
The methodological setting
Developed
by
Sacks, and informed by the work of Goffman and Garfinkel, conversation
analysis
is concerned with everyday interactions and sense-making practices.
Sacks took
the view that social order was both observable and analysable in the
smallest
of interactions. He was concerned with investigating “the
procedures and
resources by which actors can engage in mutually intelligible social
interaction whose organisation is assured through an architecture of
intersubjectivity and moral accountability” (Drew & Heritage,
1992: 17). As
a result of this concern, Sacks and his colleagues (notably Gail
Jefferson and
Emmanuel Schegloff) developed a form of sociology that explored
particular
aspects of everyday interactions with reference to the way in which
participants in an interaction organised meaning, built and shared
understandings, conducted repair, and drew on particular understandings
of
identities as they exist in social categorises (sometimes known as
membership
categorisation devices (MCD); such as Mother in Family or Teacher in
School).
The
study of
conversation, regardless of particular theoretical perspectives it may
follow,
generally draws from three assumptions regarding talk-in-interaction:
Therefore,
not only is there an examinable structure evident in interaction, but
each turn
of talk shapes and reinforces the topic or action that the interaction
is
accomplishing. As a result of this, every detail of an interaction
impacts on
that interaction’s overall structure and action.
Emerging
from
Sacks’s work on MCDs, the study of membership categorisation
analysis is “that
of discovering the methods or practices members use to produce and
recognize
those connections that thereby render the world of actions, events,
persons,
and settings analyzably transparent” (Eglin & Hester, 1992:
250). Central
to this work is how participants make relevant, either explicitly or
implicitly, the presence of particular membership categories to which
they, or
those that are being discussed, belong. Membership categories are
classifications of classes of people that carry with them clusters of
expectable features, such as personality traits, preferences, or
possible
actions.
The
moral
reasoning of categorisations is informed by the shared understanding
that is
built between participants in an interaction, or members of a society
more
broadly, about what a particular kind of person a member of a category
is. For
example, the membership category Teacher contains general attributions
that
express what a teacher is, such as patient, informed and caring. These
attributions, in turn, have cultural or moral implications,
particularly in the
judgement of our shared understanding of a Good Teacher compared to a
Bad
Teacher. This moral reasoning can take place either topically, or be
drawn upon
as a resource, when a particular categorisation is made publicly
available
within an interaction.
Within
the
institution School, which is the institution of focus in this study,
much research
has explored the particular patterns and purpose of the talk of both
teachers
and students. A major finding of research into classroom interactions
is that
in school students are typically viewed as pre-competent rather than
competent
or incompetent, therefore much talk in classrooms is focused on is what
Students or Children do not have in relation to what Adults or Teachers
do have
(e.g., Austin, Dwyer & P. Freebody, 2003). As a result of this
focus,
conversation features often found in everyday interactions, are found
less
regularly in classrooms. For example, teachers seldom use the utterance
oh,
which is usually used to demonstrate acceptance of news or new
knowledge (Drew
& Heritage, 1992; Frieberg& P. Freebody, 1995). The fact that
Teachers
(as well as cross-examiners in courtrooms, news readers and many other
institutional roles) do not generally use oh indicates that within
classroom
interactions, there is not supposed to be new knowledge or news unless
the
teacher is introducing it: It is the
students’ ‘role’ to utter oh, not the
teacher’s. This feature of classroom
interaction is also evident in research by Mehan (1985) with an
exploration of
teacher questioning finding that teachers generally ask questions they
already
know the answer to, termed ‘exam questions’ by
Hutchby&Wooffitt (1998).
Classroom
interactions can be understood using Schegloff’s (2007)
understanding of the
sequence organisation imposed by teachers. Turn-taking in classrooms is
teacher-driven, which deliberately provides a reduction in the range of
interactional options for students and an increase in options for
teachers. These
options include the ‘right’ to: change topic when they want
without giving
reason, commence a discussion without referring to its relevance, and
provide
sanctions to those that depart from the teacher-driven turn-taking
structure.
This sequence organisation can also be used by teachers to maintain
control of
what topics are discussed within interactions. Teachers may use their
ability
to incite topic change, to stop issues becoming topics, and to keep the
students on the track of what is relevant for the lesson-at-hand.
It
has been
regularly found that turn-taking structures in classrooms often follow
a
pattern of initiation (usually by the teacher), response (usually by a
student), and evaluation (again, by the teacher) (IRE). This pattern is
thought
to be so prevalent in schools because it easily allows for instruction
and
review whilst maintaining teacher-dominance of turn-taking (Drew &
Heritage
1992: 40; Lee, 2007). The IRE pattern is significant in both the
sequential
analysis of an interaction because it affects turns, sequences and
orientation
to particular topics, and also in the analysis of categorisation, as
participants within these interactions orient to particular roles,
drawn from
their understanding of the MCD School and the expected attributions of
Teachers
and Students.
This
organisation of classroom interaction is also distinct because, unlike
mundane
conversation, many of the topics and possible turn-taking structures
are
pre-planned by the teacher. Macbeth, in a study of the classroom,
concluded
that “though lessons stand on behalf of knowledge, they first
stand on behalf
of practical tasks and orientations” (2000: 59). Therefore the
planned nature
of these activity sequences, and the perceived necessity teachers see
in
achieving them, not only affects the ways in which the sequences are
organised,
but also gives the teacher the power of being ‘in the know’
about the relevance
of interactions to upcoming sequences. A process drama classroom
– the
curricular setting of this research - allows teachers opportunities to
use less
exam-style questions, and instead ask more ‘freeing
questions’ (Wagner, 1979:
60). This gives students the chance to introduce new knowledge,
initiate
activities and ask questions to other members of the drama (including
the
teacher). This presents, at least the possibility of, disruption to
institutional features commonly associated with classrooms.
The curricular setting
The
classrooms explored in this paper were secondary drama classrooms in an
Australian city, both undertaking a unit on process drama.
‘Process drama’ is
the term used here to describe a particular style of educational
improvisatory
drama. Drama theorists and researchers have claimed that using process
drama in
the classroom provides opportunities for students and teachers to
disrupt the
generally accepted roles of teacher and student; that teachers are
co-artists,
answer seekers; and ‘structure operators’ (Taylor &
Warner, 2006: 6). Particularly
relevant to this paper, it is claimed that within process drama
lessons,
students not only talk more, but engage in talk for a variety of
purposes (Kao
& O’Neill, 1998). The specific features of process drama
outlined here have
been collected from the work of a variety of influential practitioners.
Some
defining features of process drama are:
A
process
drama employs the elements of drama and allows students opportunities
to
engage, develop and use their dramatic skills such as characterisation,
improvisation, voice, movement, playbuilding and so on. There is a
shift in
focus away from a finished dramatic product with the end product in a
process
drama often the experience of participating in the drama and the
reflections of
the students after the drama is over (Kao & O’Neill, 1998).
This shift in purpose
aims to allow for students to concentrate on the social and dramatic
context
and explore their understandings and assumptions about the world,
rather than
focusing on perfecting a performance. This shift also has the potential
to
allow for other shifts within the classroom. The institutional setting
of a
classroom is one with rather strict roles and expected behaviours. In a
process
drama classroom there are opportunities for those roles to blur; the
teacher
may become a facilitator or “enabler” of drama (Heathcote
& Herbert, 1985:
174) while allowing students to make decisions and choose which
direction they may
want the drama to take. This provides scholars
with a
rich site in which to explore classroom interaction as students and
teachers
shift and negotiate topic, relevance and control in their classroom
talk.
Methods
The
recorded
data were collected in two drama classrooms in two school sites. For
the
purpose of addressing the larger scale research question outlined in
the
introduction the school sites were located in differing socio-economic
areas. Teachers
in both classrooms used the same lesson plans and facilitated a process
drama
titled ‘The Future’ which explored the students’
hopes and goals for their
future. The collected data was analysed following a template provided
by ten
Have (1999), who listed the following set of procedures for studying
interactions:
Some
minor
deviations from these procedures took place. First there was a slight
modification to steps 2 and 3, whereby, owing to the vast amount of
recordings,
transcripts could not be made of the entire corpus. To offset this,
segments
were chosen from the raw DVD footage based on either their topical
relevance,
such as a discussion about money, or for their particular
organisational
relevance, such as segment of in-role activities. These segments were
then
transcribed, and particular exchanges within these transcripts were
chosen for
further exploration. The second deviation from ten Have’s
procedures involved
the inclusion of another layer of analysis. This study not only
involved in
sequence-based conversation analysis, but also included the exploration
of
category-based membership catetgorisation analysis. Throughout these
seven
steps, therefore, the aim was not only to explicate the
participants’ hearings
of interactions and the kinds of events taking place in the setting,
but also
to explore the categorisations and attributions the members explicitly
outlined
or drew upon as a resource.
Discussion
Within
the
overall structure of the drama lessons that were observed and
transcribed,
three distinguishable categories of talk were identified:
School
talk
has been found to have certain structural features that were found in
these
sites to be common across these three types of talk-in-interaction. For
example,
the IRE structure mentioned earlier was found in the transcripts within
all
three types of talk. However, different activities were achieved in the
different sequences in each type of talk. Understanding the structure
and
purpose of these three categories of talk allows for a more nuanced
understanding of what activities and actions were achieved through the
differing talk across the sites. The discussion below explores these
three
types of talk incorporating transcripts of classroom talk to illustrate
specific actions and activities.
Pedagogic/Logistic
Talk
The
Pedagogic/Logistic Talk in the two sites was concerned with making the
various
activities into a ‘lesson’ in ‘school’. It was
found that this talk referred to
two levels of relevance:
First,
teachers used PLT to manage school- or sequence-based pedagogical
issues. This
included opening/closing of lessons and the general management of
students’
bodies and attention with relevance to school in general. This type of
PLT was
not focused on the management of a particular activity, but rather the
management of Students and their roles and responsibilities within the
institutional context of the classroom. Second, the teachers used PLT
to manage
particular activities. This presented itself as either short
interruptive
utterances from the teacher, usually to manage the turn taking or
materials
within the activity, or as longer phases whereby the teacher and
students
worked on an activity that outlined the logistics of a SCT or IRT
phase. This
latter use of PLT also often included IRE sequences and the use of
resources
such as worksheets or whiteboards. A key element of these longer PLT
phases
that was distinctive to SCT phases was the extent to which teacher
questions
contained a ‘right’ answer that is both known to, and
judged by, the teacher.
Within
these
categories, the PLT achieved pedagogic and logistic work that
particularly met
the management needs of the participants. Specifically, it will be
shown that
PLT managed:
Examples
of
the intersection of these domains of management within PLT are
discussed
further below to provide a general sense of this category of
interaction. The
locations of these examples are given in Table 1.
|
Turns |
Bodies |
Materials |
Attention |
Topic |
Moral reasoning |
School in general |
|
|
|
PLT example 1 |
|
|
Activity here and now |
|
PLT example 2 |
|
|
|
|
Table
1: PLT
matrix with examples
PLT
Example 1: appropriate attention in School
3.
Nick: ok
(1) stop (1) talking (3) be respectful and give me eye contact can
everyone
give me eye contact and just close their mouths ok^ don’t talk to
anybody it
should be relatively easy that (2) ok give me eye contact don’t
be distracted
by little things that might be going on around you wherever they may be
happening concentrate on me
This
example
took place at the beginning of a lesson. Nick was organising the
attention of
the class before taking the roll. This transcript is part of a longer
utterance
from Nick. It is sampled here because it demonstrates the management of
attention with relevance to the institutional context of school. In
this
transcript, Nick introduced attention as equivalent to respectfulness.
Establishing appropriate attention as an attribution of Student that is
synonymous with respectful and contrasted with distracted. This
attribution is
expressed by Nick as not only necessary for the success of the
interactions in
the classroom, but also as relatively easy for the students to achieve.
The
description of appropriate attention as easy, coupled with the use of
the words
littlethings to express the possible distractions, made the roles and
responsibilities of being Students important and easy. In contrast the
distractions that may influence the behaviour of participants that are
not
being Good Students are insignificant. This excerpt demonstrates the
ways in
which Nick used PLT to formulate attention as an attribute of Good
Students in
general, not for a specific activity, but as morally compatible with
the
responsibilities of Students, that is, their respectfulness, within the
institutional context of school.
PLT
Example 2: Organising an activity
1.
Carol: I want you to stand next to the
photograph that you think is of the happiest person (.) so without
talking go
and stand next to the photograph of the happiest person (9) and just
take a
seat next to your photograph in the circle
This
excerpt
took place at the beginning of a particular activity. Again, it is a
segment of
a larger utterance, sampled here to demonstrate how Carol used PLT to
issue
logistical instructions specific to the particular activity-at-hand.
Unlike PLT
Example 1, where Nick formulated the attribution of attention for
Students
Carol’s utterance here is not concerned with attributions of
participants and
their relation to the MCD School. Rather, Carol used the PLT to direct
the
movement of the students’ bodies for the participants to
successfully complete
the task required. Although in Examples 1 and 2 the teachers expressed
the need
for students not to talk, in PLT Example 2 the request for students not
to talk
was connected to the instructions to stand next to the photo of the
person you
think is the happiest. Therefore the need for students to stand next to
those
photographs withouttalking implied to students that they should not be
sharing
their ideas or influencing each others’ decisions. The 9-second
pause during
Carol’s instruction suggests that students were acting on
Carol’s directions as
she was uttering them. This was confirmed at the end of the pause when
Carol
instructed students to sit next to their chosen photograph. Throughout
this
excerpt Carol used PLT to manage the students’ physical movements
as needed for
the particular classroom activity, then and there.
The
activities accomplished by interactions categorised as PLT related to
the doing
of school and the doing of an activity. Those that related to the doing
of
school were likely to make relevant the moral rights and
responsibilities of
Teacher and Student within a lesson. In contrast, PLT relating to the
accomplishment of an activity was likely to focus on directive
utterances aimed
at managing the particular task. The elements of the PLT phases that
made it
distinct other types of talk were the control of the teacher over topic
management and relevance, and the presence of a ‘right’
answer. This is
compared with SCT and IRT phases that tended to have the purpose of
exploring
multiple acceptable answers to create shared understandings. The PLT
phases
were often task-oriented, and revolved around the achievement of an
outcome, of
which only the teacher had prior knowledge. Again, in contrast, SCT
phases were
content-driven, tended to allow more scope for exploration, and usually
did not
require students to arrive at a predetermined answer.
Socio-Cultural
Talk
The
key
criterion for an activity to be included under the heading of
Socio-Cultural
Talk (SCT) in the drama classrooms was an interactive engagement in the
development of shared accounts of people/events/character actions, as
the
participants take these accounts to be either prospectively or
retrospectively
relevant to the drama. Within this, the exchanges generally oriented to
the
cultural/social/moral aspects of the drama as a socio-cultural event,
rather
than as an institutionalised classroom event. For example, after a
teacher read
out a story and asked students for their reactions, the students
responded with
agreement or disagreement with the characters’ actions, ideas
about the
fairness of the events in the story, or what they would have done
differently
had they been faced with similar events, and why. Students did not
respond to
the teacher’s invitation to share their thoughts with comments
focused on the
institutional importance or relevance of the story, its usefulness to
the
process drama, or whether they thought the story was a good pretext for
the
process drama. Students treated the invitation to express their ideas
as an
invitation to share their thoughts about the socio-cultural aspects of
the
story rather than its institutional importance or relevance.
Unlike
similar talk often found in humanities or arts-based classrooms
surrounding a
text, artefact or historical event, SCT did not, in the corpus of data
referred
to here, routinely show the teacher behaving as more knowledgeable than
students. Rather, the teacher generally facilitated the discussion and
usually
managed the turn-taking and topic selection for the group’s
public production
of reasoning practices. The teacher also monitored the adequacy of the
students’ reasoning practices according to their value to the
activities to
follow, in particular to the IRT.
The
activity
outcome of a sequence of SCT varied depending on the topic at hand, the
apparent
moral importance of the topic from the teacher’s perspective, and
the explicit
or implicit activity or topic connection with the in-role segments of
the
drama. Some identifiably typical functions accomplished through SCT
were:
In
these
instances the activity of SCT generally comprised stimulating,
modelling,
negotiating, and monitoring/evaluating, either by the teacher or
students, of
participants’ reasoning practices (categorisations, attributions,
cause-effect
relationships, and evaluations) relating to the topic at hand. Within
this,
participants scrutinised and evaluated utterances with respect to their
adequacy, coherence, productivity for the task in terms of generating
further
relevant exchanges, internal validity (i.e., not self-contradictory),
and
external validity (i.e., makes sense in the world). Examples of this
stimulating, modelling, negotiating, and monitoring of reasoning
practices are
noted in Table 2.
|
Categorisation |
Attributions |
Cause/effect relationships |
evaluation |
Stimulating |
|
|
SCT Example 1 |
|
Modelling |
|
SCT example 2 |
|
|
Monitoring |
|
|
|
SCT example 3 |
Negotiating |
SCT example 4 |
|
|
|
Table
2:
Matrix of SCT with examples in selected cells
SCT
Example 1: Stimulating cause-effect relationships
Nick:
do you think (1) do you think that’s
something he’s been doing for a long time
Liam:
yep
Nick:
why
Liam:
because you can’t just jump on a guitar (.)
you have to practice (.) it takes time
Within
this
excerpt Nick prompted the student concerning what he saw in a picture
of a
Rock-Star and stimulated the production of a cause/effect relationship
–
specifically that the categorisation Rock-Star conveys the attribution
of
having played music for a long time because playing a guitar takes time
and
practice.
SCT
Example 2: Modelling and assembling attribution
1.
Trac: his
parents are selfish
2.
Lin: that’s
what I was just going to say
3.
Nick: why
(.) why do you say that
4.
Trac: because
he’s like really smart and he wants to go and be one of those
genius people,
really smart people, and the parents don’t want him to go (.)
5.
Nick: they’re
encouraging him not to go aren’t they (.) why
6.
Trac: because
they’re [( )]
7.
Nick:
[just
prove] to me you were listening (.) go on
8.
Trac: because
they were poor and they wanted him to look after his brothers and
sisters
9.
Nick: ok
Brent
SCT
was
sometimes concerned with the modelling of appropriate or correct ways
of
publicly engaging in moral reasoning. In the 9-turn sequence above,
Nick
modelled a way in which attributions can be acceptably allocated to
categorisations for this practical purpose at hand, here and now, in
this
discussion. Tracy’s utterance his parents are selfish was treated
by the
teacher as not necessarily inappropriate in sentiment, but inadequate
in
expression and therefore needing to be justified (why (.) why do you
say that).
For this particular activity sequence, Nick extended the need for
justification
with the need for Tracy to connect her reasoning with the specific
scenarios
under discussion. He did this through further prompting in Turn 5,
followed by
Turn 7’s just prove to me you were listening (.) go on. After
Tracy’s Turn 8
utterance, the composite response (drawing together Turns 1, 4, 6, 8)
was
accepted as appropriate. This was the first student contribution in the
activity sequence, and so Nick and Tracy can be taken to have modelled
to the
members of the discussion what a successful and acceptable reasoning
would be
taken to entail.
SCT
Example 3: Monitoring evaluation
1.
Nick: Kate
why did that ((a picture of a jail)) stand out for you
2.
Kate:
I don’t know (.) it just did (.) it looked like a real unhappy
place to be and
it was just (.) the easiest one to do
3.
Nick: really
is that was that is that why you chose that because it was the easiest
one to
do
4.
Kate: yeah
because it didn’t have much to focus on or anything (.) but also
it drew
attention to me I don’t know why (.) just stood out
5.
Nick: I
think in some ways in some ways I disagree with you Kate because I
think in
that location in that environment there’s probably even more to
write about
cause it’s (.) well wha tell me what is prison (2) ((lots of
students answer at
once))
6.
Ant: where
you get bashed//
7.
Nick:
//am
just asking Kate (.) come on Kate
8.
Kate: where
bad people go to get punished (1)
9.
Nick: ok
(.) alright [can you tell] me Kate
10.
Kate:
[and
get locked away
11.
Nick: just
loudly as well can you tell me what you wrote down
In
this
sequence, Nick disagreed with Kate’s evaluation of the picture of
prison as the
easiest picture to write about. His disagreement is explicit in Turn 5
but is
continued by his prompting for a more acceptable and complex answer
through the
questions what is prison and can you tell me what you wrote down. This
is a
demonstration of how Nick monitored the evaluations made by the members
of the
group for their appropriateness to the task at hand. It was just (.)
the
easiest one to do was not an acceptable answer to the nuclear question
of the
activity (why did that stand out for you).
SCT
Example 4: Negotiating categorisations
1.
Carol: ok
and quickly guys (.) we’re going to go a bit faster this time (.)
ok this group
here (.) first of all what did you decide (.) what is sad about this
actual (.)
first of all what do you think the occupation is
2.
Em: we
have no// idea
3.
Nath:
//prostitute
4.
Em: she
could be a prostitute she could be (.) a mental patient she could be
anything
5.
Nath: mental
patient ^
6.
Em: yeah
7.
Nath: I
don’t see that
8.
Tina: she
could be a drug addict
In
this
sequence, students negotiated the possible categories depicted in a
photograph.
Besides initiating the question what do you thinkthe occupation is,
Carol had
no further input, and instead, students negotiated among themselves
what the
occupation could be, and therefore what category was going to be put
into play
when the group discussed the picture with the rest of the class, as the
activity required. Within the SCT, particularly when the interaction
was
focused on negotiation of ideas or understandings, the turn-taking was
often
organised in such a way that a participant who has something to
contribute
could self-allocate for a turn, as seen by Nathan’s interruption
and Tina’s
uninvited utterance.
The
activities achieved by SCT usually involved the introduction and
discussion of
individual formulations that lead to a shared understanding of
categorisations
relating to a topic at hand. It was the domain in which much of the
moral work
on or surrounding the topic(s) presented by the pretext for the drama,
and the
subsequent discussions surrounding the in-role segments of the drama,
was done
collectively.
In-Role
Talk
During
In
Role Talk (IRT) students are asked to work in role to produce a
simulation of
an authentic interaction. The basic structure of conversation (how
participants
did this through talk) warrants exploration because the students had to
work to
produce an artefact that seemed to be, and would be evaluated as if it
were, an
adequate simulation of authentic talk. Therefore, how members
demonstrated and
shared with the other participants even the simplest interaction was
self-consciously produced. Unlike the other types of talk outlined
here, IRT is
not defined by a common set of specific features. Nonetheless,
participants,
through their interactions, generally showed that they held themselves
responsible for:
During IRT,
participants’ utterances were used to advance, obstruct, shift or
reinstate the
plot of a drama. This was achieved through using their interactions to
confirm,
challenge, query or act out particulars. Therefore, a participant could
advance
the plot using an interaction within IRT by:
Examples
of
the ways students in the two sites achieved these various interactions,
for a
variety of purposes, are outlined in Table 3, and elaborated on in the
following section.
|
Advance |
Obstruct |
Shift |
Reinstate |
Confirm |
IRT example 1 |
|
|
|
Challenge |
|
IRT example 2 |
|
|
Query |
|
|
|
IRT example 3 |
Act out |
|
|
IRT example 4 |
|
Table
3:
matrix of IRT with examples in selected cells
IRT
Example 1 – advancing the plot through confirmation
1.
Carol: ok
ok look well I’ll see what I can do and obviously we’ll get
back to you (.)
sorry I know this has been tough on your family (.) um what was Kelly
planning
to do next year^
2.
Val: she
wanted to do journalism (.) but um due to the break up our financial
situation’s
kind of changed ( )
so we’re not sure if we’re going to be able
to send her (.)
3.
Carol: I
see she was very very keen I remember her getting up and talking to all
the
girls in assembly about focus and so do you think this might be part of
the problem
as well as the family side
4.
Val: I
think this will have definitely have a big impact
This
excerpt
demonstrates how Valerie-being-Mother confirmed the relevance of
Carol’s
question what was Kelly planning to do next year by using her response
to advance
the plot: introducing both the subject of the discussion’s dream
for the future
(to be a journalist) and a new dimension to Kelly’s problem
(financial issues
that may inhibit that dream). When Carol responded by orienting to the
severity
of the problem, Valerie confirmed her formulation – that this
added dimension
to the problem will have a big impact. This demonstrates how both
Valerie and
Carol used IRT within the context of this meeting to confirm and
advance their
existing understandings of the situation.
IRT
Example 2 – challenging the plot through obstruction
1.
Nick ok
do we think that’s going to help?
2.
Ant: yep
3.
Son: I
don’t
4.
Nick: ok
why
5.
Son: I
think yoga is (so dumb)
6.
Call: yeah
same
7.
Son: honestly
yoga doesn’t work
In
this
excerpt, Sonia-being-Teacher uses her turns of talk to challenge an
idea
introduced by another participant (that a student should take up yoga).
Her
formulations did not act to advance the plot or introduce a new idea.
Instead
they obstructed the furthering of the plot by providing only general
negative
formulations about the idea (that it will not help because it is so
dumb)
rather than outlining any specific problems she has with the idea that
would
allow other participants to discuss the idea. This excerpt demonstrates
how a
participant used the IRT to obstruct and challenge the furthering of
the plot
by expressing disagreement with another participant’s idea,
without providing
participants with avenues to discuss her challenge.
IRT
Example 3 – reinstating earlier ideas through a query
1.
Jane: has
she said anything to you
2.
Nad: um
no she just said she’s fine um what about the newspaper (.) is
she still doing
that^
3.
Jane: no
she gave the newspaper to me (.) I don’t know why
4.
Nad: oh
so you’re chief editor now (.) oh ok (she really did like that)
she wanted to
be a journalist I’m surprised that she gave it up
Within
this
excerpt Nadine-being-Guidance Counsellor responded to a query in Turn 2
by
demonstrating that she cannot further the plot in the requested way and
instead
introduced her own query regarding whether a student is still working
on the
school newspaper. This not only passed the responsibility for advancing
the
plot onto another participant, but also reinstated a component of the
plot that
had been discussed in previous lessons but not yet made relevant in
this
particular meeting: that the protagonist-in-question wanted to be a
journalist.
This demonstrates how a participant used a query to redirect and
reinstate an
element of the plot that they believed should be made relevant.
IRT
Example 4 – shifting the plot through action
1.
Ant: um
Mr principal I’ll just ask a question (.) did you invite um um
Jacinta’s
friends to this meeting
2.
Nick: well
we I I’ve spoken to Jacinta’s friends previously
3.
Ant: yep
4.
Nick: um
but (.) why why^
5.
Ant: um
cause um I was kinda thinking that if we bring them in and um kind of
like have
so with the Mum and just have a word with them (.) cause she said that
she
didn’t know that she had any friends so maybe the Jacinta’s
friends and Amber
can work something out to better help Jacinta (1) I think that the more
people
we have to help Jacinta out the better (1)
This
excerpt
demonstrates how a student (Anton-being-Chaplain) used IRT to change
the way
the situation was being acted out, in this case altering the characters
involved in the interaction by inviting Jacinta’s friends to the
meeting. Anton-being-Chaplain’s
acting out of an introduction to possible directions in the plot
shifted the
focus from the current participants of the meeting to possible new
participants
in the IRT.
IRT
is a
formal part of the drama lesson and therefore institutionally
demarcated, as
opposed to being distinct in its features. Despite being the easiest of
the
three types of talk to define, in that it is any talk-in-interaction
that
occurs while the participants are seen publicly to be in role as a
character,
it is the most difficult to analyse because it appears to have few
prevalent or
regular features; it can essentially follow any conversation structure
within
the organisational structure of ‘in role in the classroom’.
Conclusion
The
three
types of talk found in these lessons document how teachers and students
paid
close attention to both the dramatic and institutional contexts within
which
the interactions took place, developing close mutual understandings and
procedures for action. The context of the process drama classroom
further
allowed their artful manipulation of institutional roles to be pulled
into
view; with the classroom participants engaged in expert use of the turn
taking
systems and teachers and students both participating in interactional
structures usually reserved for teachers or students only. The
participants
demonstrated a resourcefulness in the ways they worked within and
between the
three types of talk to express both their understanding of the workings
of the drama
classroom, and their personal opinions and views on life.
Worthy
of
further investigation is the particular ways in which the in-role talk
is
informed by how teachers organise and facilitate the activity (PLT) as
well as
the socio-cultural understanding of who is involved and what are the
purposes
of the talk (SCT). Such investigation would offer researchers and
teachers a
unique perspective on how teachers and students do classroom work in an
interactionally distinctive setting such as process drama. These types
of talk
achieve specific actions individually; but the interplay between these
three
types of talk also reveals the nuance and artfulness of participants as
they
jointly produce a drama lesson by developing meaning, shaping shared
moral reasoning
practices, and establishing boundaries between the dramatic context and
the
classroom space.
So,
in
conclusion, we can re-pose Macbeth’s (1996) suggestion that
re-specifying
familiar affairs allows for a deeper, different, understanding of them:
Drama
classrooms offer a rich site for the study of discourse – with
students and
teachers disrupting conventional membership categorisation devices and
engaging
in talk that is relevant to both dramatic context and institutional
rules. The
detailed study of discourse offers the possibility of exploring
classroom talk
through a different lens and allows teachers, teacher educators,
students, and
policy-makers to understand the work they do better, develop new ways
of
working, and become more purposeful in the planning and implementation
of their
programs, lessons and activities. As Heap claimed “if some
activity is
important to our lives, then knowing how it is organized may make a
difference
to how we act” (Heap 1990, p.43).
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[1] This
methodology involves
the detailed study of transcripts in order to explore the sense-making
practices of those speaking. It is explored further in this article
under ‘the
methodological setting’.