1
Master of Teaching (MTeach) Institute of Education, University of London
Practice Based Enquiry (PBE)
Report
How can in-‐role drama activities, particularly writing in role, develop
students’ writing in English?
Lucy WHEELER
Month and Year of Submission:
September 2014
Word count: 10,997
This report may be made available to the general public for borrowing, photocopying or consultation without the prior
consent of the author.
2 Abstract
This report explores how in-‐role drama activities, particularly writing in role, can be used to
support and develop students’ understanding and writing in English. The report seeks enquiry
into the nature of role and the type of learning that takes place when students are immersed
in dramatic activity. The study aims to examine the potential advantages and benefits of in-‐
role work in the study of literature, exploring students’ engagement with such tasks and the
implications for their writing.
School based research took place within the context of an inner-‐London all girls’ independent
school, focusing on a Year 8 class of thirty students. Samples of students’ work were analysed
to explore the effect of role on their written language. Interviews were held with students
from the Year 8 class and teachers from the English Department to discover opinions and
attitudes towards in-‐role work. In addition, an online survey was completed by Humanities
teachers from various departments across the school in an attempt to discover whether in-‐role
activities were being used beyond English and for what purposes.
The report concludes by stressing the importance of dramatic teaching strategies, such as
writing in role, within a turbulent educational climate that seems to downplay the significance
of creative forms of learning. The research will benefit my own professional practice and
possibly influence the classroom approaches used by my colleagues.
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Contents
Abstract 2 Introduction 4 Hypothesis 6 Literature Review 8 Methodology 16 Ethical Considerations 18 Data Collection Methods 19 Findings and Analysis 24 Conclusion 41 References 43 List of Appendices 46 Appendices 47
4 Introduction
My interest in the connections between writing and drama stems from my own school
memories of writing in role in English lessons. I have a vivid recollection of the sense of
immense pride I felt when my Year 9 English teacher read aloud to the class a diary entry I had
written in role as Lady Macbeth on the night of King Duncan’s murder. During this task I had
thrived on the creative challenge of having to put myself in Lady Macbeth’s situation: ‘getting
inside’ the character’s head and living through her experiences whilst also experimenting with
my expression and vocabulary choices in an attempt to refashion Shakespeare’s use of
language but with my own flair. The liberation from more traditional comprehension or essay-‐
based activities had brought a sense of pleasure and stimulation, a sense of ‘creating’
something as well as responding to Shakespeare’s play, that still resonates with me and
illuminates issues that I will investigate in this research.
During my PGCE year I was encouraged to explore writing in role as a way into a text. As an
NQT I began integrating various in-‐role strategies into my teaching, observing the enjoyment
and engagement this practice offered a broad range of learners. After some productive
lessons in my NQT year with both Year 7 and Year 12 classes studying Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein, I explored the benefits of dramatic approaches to literature teaching for my
assignment in the Master’s module ‘Developing Understanding in English, Drama and Media
Studies.’ I was fascinated by the type of learning that goes on when students inhabit a fictional
role and the kinds of work that can be produced out of dramatic contexts. My principal
argument in my DUEMDS essay was that drama in the English classroom can serve as an
influential tool to further students’ understanding of and response to literature, investing
them with a sense of agency. The effects of role-‐play and hot-‐seating were my key areas of
focus although I touched briefly on the benefits of writing in role. These are ideas to which I
shall be returning and developing in this research as writing in role has continued to interest
5 me as my practice has evolved and as I have gained confidence in orchestrating in-‐role
activities.
This research was conducted in a highly selective all girls’ independent school in West London
where expectations and attainment are exceptionally high. In 2013, 82.35% of students
achieved an A* grade in GCSE English Literature and there is considerable pressure to maintain
such excellence. The school champions creativity and resources are plentiful; a £15 million
building project has recently been completed, equipping the school with state of the art
sports’ facilities and a fully functioning Drama Studio and Theatre Workshop. Creative
approaches, an idea to which I will return, within English teaching are actively encouraged and
drama based tasks are embraced at the discretion of individual teachers. However, most end-‐
of-‐unit written assessments at Key Stage 3 have an analytical focus. The justification for this is
that more creative forms of writing, such as writing in role, form a very minimal proportion of
the GCSE examination specification at Key Stage 4 and so, as is often the case, the demands of
assessment have shaped our practice. This research was done with my Year 8 class of 30
mixed ability students whom I taught three times per week, with activities based on the texts
being studied.
6 Hypothesis
During my three years as a qualified English teacher I have come to believe the following.
These beliefs have shaped the aims and purposes of my research:
• Being in role frees students – encouraging them to use their imaginations and gain
confidence with experimenting linguistically.
• Drama tasks give students a voice, enabling them to ‘speak about the world of the text
from within it’ (O’Neill and Rogers 1994: 51), subsequently fostering empathy for, and
developing their understanding of, complex literary characters. Arguably, this also has
wider implications for students’ social and emotional aspects of learning.
• In-‐role techniques can be used as a way of assessing students’ reading and
understanding of a text.
• In-‐role work can support students’ understanding of historical time periods, cultures or
genres with which they may be unfamiliar.
• Writing that develops out of in-‐role work is often powerful as students are able to
embed their responses within a dramatic context that has personal relevance to them
in their lives and relevance to them as writers.
• For me as a teacher, marking writing that comes out of experiences in role is often far
more engaging than critical analysis as responses frequently demonstrate a more
sophisticated usage of figurative and rhetorical devices and more ambitious semantic
and syntactical structures.
In this research I aim to investigate the potential advantages and benefits of in-‐role work in the
study of literature: does it increase engagement and are there implications for writing?
7 My research questions are:
1. Does writing in role develop students’ confidence and motivation in writing?
2. How can in-‐role activities help to develop students’ written language, in general and in
relation to their semantic choices, rhetorical and figurative devices?
3. How are in-‐role activities being used currently in my department and possibly even
beyond and how do teachers and students feel about them?
Ultimately, the purpose of this research is to gain knowledge and insights that could improve
my own professional practice and possibly that of the English Department within the school.
8 Literature Review
English and Drama: A tale of two spheres?
The place of drama within English as a method or ‘learning tool’ has long been an area of
debate in relation to how or whether English teachers should be using dramatic approaches to
support pupils’ learning and what exactly ‘counts’ as drama (Neelands 1992:3). Whilst drama
currently sits as a sub-‐section of Speaking and Listening in the outgoing National Curriculum
(QCA 2007), it is alarming to note that draft plans for the new programme of Secondary Study
from September 2014 seem to completely bypass drama altogether, except for a reference to
the mandatory reading of ‘two plays by Shakespeare’ (DFE 2013: 4). Reducing drama simply to
the reading of play scripts is ‘a very limited form of drama, if it can be called drama at all’
(Winston 2004: 22) and seems to close down opportunities for developing both a personal
response to a range of literary texts and, as I want to focus on in my report, language use and
writing skills. Furthermore, the Government’s decision to abolish the Speaking and Listening
component of the English Language GCSE in August 2013 (Ofqual April 2013, August 2013), in
which creating and sustaining dramatic roles was a key skill, casts further shadows over the
recognition of this discipline. I believe that drama within English needs defending now: I hope
that the findings drawn from this research may help confirm that drama activities can do more
than just help reading and writing, although I argue that this is an important dimension of
drama work in English. In addition I want to highlight the learning that takes place in relation
to identity and society, key terms I will be exploring in the course of my discussion.
Role and play
Role is a key term in my work but what does it really mean to be ‘in role’? What type of
learning is made possible and how? Much has been written about Dorothy Heathcote’s
pioneering portrayal of role as a way of ‘expanding understanding of life experience, to make
sense of the world in a new and deeper way’ (Wagner 1976: 147 cited in Hamilton 1992: 9).
9 These ideas underpin the potential of role to support emotional aspects of learning, prioritising
feeling and meaning as the chief qualities of the in-‐role experience. Heathcote’s ‘process
drama’ advocates less emphasis on story and character development and more on problem
solving or living through a particular moment by adopting a role, thus learning through the
drama (Wagner 1991: 1). I was struck by Heathcote’s suggestion of using role to magnify
awareness as this seemed to tie in with my hypothesis that in-‐role work is beneficial to
learning in ways beyond the academic. If role is a way of looking at ‘reality through fantasy, to
see below the surface of actions to their meaning’ (Wagner 1991: 1), then arguably the
multiple perspectives adopted through being in role offers learners a transformative
experience, a way to reflect on and understand more about our actions and motivations.
Neelands (1992) upholds Heathcote’s idea that role can provide learners with ‘authentic’
experiences removed in temporal, geographical and physical contexts from their own
immediate environments:
‘Encouraging students to work through dramatic situations, in fictitious roles, enables
them to view their own behaviour, and other people’s, from unfamiliar perspectives.
The emotional experience is real for the students even though the activity is fictional
(think, for example, of the real sadness that may move us when we read a story). As a
consequence, the students can be helped to reflect on their behaviour in the drama
from ‘another’ person’s point of view.’ (Neelands 1992: 5)
Here Neelands highlights the emotional intensity of, and empathetic potential for, in-‐role
work, touching on the possible psychological implications as learners develop creative ways of
understanding and exploring their emerging views of human experience. I will address these
ideas later on in my analysis of my findings.
10 The concepts of role and play are arguably situated within a social-‐constructivist view of
learning, encouraging learners to participate through the creation of shared fictitious worlds
(Vygotsky 1978, Bruner 1986). There is a clear link between being in role and play and
therefore Vygotsky’s theories of play have become central to my research. Whilst Vygotsky’s
main focus was on the child, by engaging in in-‐role activities, adolescent students inhabit an
imaginary world similar to that of younger children in play. Vygotsky viewed play as a
powerful form of ‘pretence’, arguing that that much learning takes place through play as
children’s interactions contribute to their ‘development of language and…construction of
knowledge’ (Mooney 2013: 101). One example of this in Vygotsky’s work is the child who
treats an object as standing for something and as embodying a meaning. The situation is
imaginary but the child constructs a meaning to guide his action: a stick becomes a horse
because it can be ridden. By treating the stick as if it were a horse the child symbolically ‘acts
out’ a meaning which is separate to the object. This play then develops through the linguistic
mediation of the meaning-‐object relation in which words stand for their objects and meaning
is transferred: ‘The child accepts a word as the property of a thing, he does not see the word
but the thing it designates. For a child the word ‘horse’ applied to the stick means, ‘There is a
horse’ i.e., mentally he sees the object standing behind the word.’ (Vygotsky 1976 cited in Lee
1985: 91).
Amongst his observations of children engaged in dramatic play Vygotsky witnessed what he
terms a ‘dual consciousness’ between the role created and the child engaged in the role: ‘the
child weeps in play as a patient, but revels as a player’ (Vygotsky 1976: 549, cited in Hamilton
1992: 24). In this imaginary world, a child is able to enter what Vygotsky terms a ‘zone of
proximal development’ which allows them to learn ‘a head above’ themselves (Vygotsky 1978:
74), thus suggesting the influential power of dramatic play as a scaffolding device. It would be
easy to dismiss play as trivial, ‘what you do in the ‘playground’ outside the school’ (O’Toole
1992: 96), yet from a Vygotskian perspective, play is potentially much more than a reflection of
11 a child’s level of cognitive development: it is a process with the ability to propel development
and accelerate understanding. Perhaps then it would be more fruitful to champion the belief
that ‘make-‐believe play should be seen not as competing with academic learning but rather as
enhancing it’ (Bodrova 2008: 358), issues explored later in my analysis of how students and
teachers feel towards the use of in-‐role activities.
Role and writing
There is a range of literature concerning the effects of drama and role on literacy development
yet most of the reading I encountered was targeted at primary level (Baldwin and Fleming
2003, Winston 2004). Very little of the literature focused specifically on writing in role yet still
served to illuminate my understanding of the interplay between drama and writing. Cremin et
al (2006) assert that relatively few empirical studies have investigated the potentially
reciprocal relationship between drama and writing. Those that have tend to concentrate on
the function of drama in motivating young writers and improving writing skills, or the benefits
of drama as a more effective precursor to writing activities (Booth and Neelands 1998). In my
work I am hoping to explore the effect of role on the writing produced.
McNaughton’s (1997) research proposed that primary students who engaged in pre-‐writing
drama based work wrote more successfully and at greater length, using richer vocabulary
choices that had more expressive and emotive insights. Her studies found that writing using
drama often possesses a clearer sense of voice, which she defines as ‘writing-‐in-‐role where the
writer appears able to ‘get under the skin’ of the character and identify with him / her on an
affective as well as cognitive level’ (McNaughton 1997: 79). Booth’s (1994) studies support
these ideas and go on to suggest that the physical contextual structure provided by drama can
urge students to write in response to an imagined scenario, stimulating creative development
and enhancing writing skills as a result of the experience being embedded in a context that has
a personal significance for the writers.
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‘Writing in role or as a result of having been in role lets children enter a new sphere of
attitudes and feelings. As they try for a more complex imaginative understanding of
what is happening in drama, their writing generally becomes more complex and their
language deepens. Because writing may be used within the drama and may be read or
listened to by others, there is a built-‐in reason to proofread and edit.’ (Booth 1994:
123)
Booth’s comments here chime with my view that writing in role frees students to try out
different voices and styles, often resulting in writing that is more technically ambitious. I was
keen to investigate this further: can experience of entering this ‘new sphere’ stimulate
learners to write in a way that otherwise might not be possible?
More recently, Dalby and Burton’s (2012) study into the impact on six ‘underachieving’ Year 4
children’s choice of language and development of character when writing in role demonstrates
that in-‐role writing enables learners to take control of their learning, developing ‘their
metacognitive awareness’ (Dalby and Burton 2012: 88). However, I felt this study lacked
sufficient analysis of actual samples of students’ writing; progress was measured statistically
against National Curriculum targets (AF1 and AF7) and sub-‐levels, rather than a close linguistic
deconstruction of the writing produced. It is difficult to consider how language or vocabulary
choices were enhanced without seeing more ‘evidence’ of this in the children’s work. I was
inspired by the case study conducted by Cremin et al (2006) which sought to examine both
‘genre specific’ and more spontaneous ‘seizing the moment’ writing produced in the context of
drama by identifying any features of writing which regularly surfaced in children’s drama-‐
related writing. Whilst this research again focused on primary aged learners, I was impressed
by the exploration of emergent themes in the work such as: the presence of tension, the
degree of engagement, time for incubation, a strong sense of authorial stance and purpose
gained in part through the adoption of role. Practitioners found that when all of these
13 ‘connecting threads’ were evident in a drama and a moment for writing was seized, the writing
produced was consistently high in quality and the children’s concentration and focus positively
affected (Cremin et al 2006: 16). These critical readings helped me to consider how I might
analyse samples of my own students’ writing in this study and will be further explored later on.
Role and reading
In seeking to understand more fully the relationship between drama and writing, I felt I
needed to explore literature focused on the way in-‐role activities might engage learners with a
text in order to support writing that develops out of reading, for example in response to a class
reader or an examination set text being studied. Barrs and Cork’s (2001) investigation into the
study of high quality literature as an aid to writing development at Key Stage 2 affirms the
value of writing in role as a way of building on children’s perceptions of the human
experiences on which fictions are based. Evidence from the series of case studies suggests
that while the texts themselves offered the impetus for writing, where children were writing in
role they were ‘able to access areas of language and feeling that they might not normally be
thought to be aware of…often in this kind of writing children seemed to be ‘trying on’ mature
experience, thinking their way into the responsibilities, cares, joys and griefs of adulthood’
(Barrs and Cork 2001: 209). This once more highlights the Vygotskian link between role and
dramatic play as the role gives learners the opportunity of becoming ‘a head taller’ (Barrs and
Cork 2001: 209), serving as a level of protection whilst they experiment with ideas and
language freely as if ‘acting on the page’ (Southerden 2011: 6). The case studies presented in
Barrs and Cork’s (2001) The Reader in the Writer have been with me since the beginning of my
teaching career and have continued throughout this investigation to resonate with my own
experiences in the classroom of using role as a response to literature to develop writing.
Yandell’s (2008) research makes a strong case for the value of creative literacy practices and
writing activities other than traditional forms of ‘literary criticism’ to support students’
14 understanding of more challenging, canonical texts, such as Shakespeare. I was struck by his
exploration of Billy, a Year 9 student studying Richard III who often had difficulty ‘finding an
appropriate way of saying what he knows within the discursive constraints of the examination
essay’ yet who was able to compose a powerful and arguably sophisticated representation of
Richard’s consciousness when writing a diary entry in role (Yandell 2008: 79). I have often felt
that the PEE-‐style analysis my Key Stage 3 students produce when writing about literature is
not a real gauge of their understanding of the text and that in-‐role writing can provide fairer
assessment of engagement with the complexities and subtleties of literature, particularly for
those students who do not own the ‘cultural capital’ (Bourdieu 1977 cited in Sullivan 2002:
145) Analysing students’ in-‐role work compared with other more analytical writing may be a
useful way for me to gain a comprehensive picture of the writing repertoires of my learners
and force me to consider the effects of different literary practices within my urban English
classroom.
Cremin and Pickard (2009) offer a range of practical, handbook-‐style suggestions for using in-‐
role activities as a way in to studying challenging literary texts, offering learners the chance to
‘actively interrogate texts’ by exploring and making meaning as they look beyond the words of
the author (Cremin and Pickard 2009: 3). Their ideas documented the types of in-‐role writing
tasks that I routinely set for my classes (diary entries, letters, interviews, messages) serving as
a ‘minibook’ written for ‘busy professionals’ rather than a detailed analytical study. However,
their research was one of the few that alluded to the benefits of using writing in role within
the wider Humanities curriculum, issues that I will explore later when analysing the responses
of my colleagues’ attitudes towards in-‐role activities.
These themes emerging from my critical reading fuse to highlight possible pedagogical
advantages of using in-‐role strategies in English. I was surprised by how little reading focused
on the secondary classroom and this research, whilst acknowledging the small scale nature of
15 the enquiry, seeks to add to this field, offering tentative insights into the potential benefits of
in-‐role work and its implications for writing.
16 Methodology
My chosen methodological approach, broadly speaking, was one of action research as I wanted
to explore a particular ‘practical…real world issue’ (Denscombe 2003: 73) -‐ how can being in
role enhance students’ writing? It was obvious that much of my research would take place in
the classroom, setting up and investigating a range of in-‐role activities with a particular group
of students. Therefore, there were also elements of a case study approach in my focus on a
particular Year 8 class. I felt that these approaches were best suited to the ‘hands-‐on…small
scale’ (Denscombe 2003: 73) nature of my study, one that essentially aimed to investigate and
go deeper into understanding in-‐role activities and their effects on writing. As my research is
primarily concerned with ‘building a complex holistic picture…within [the] natural setting’ of
my Year 8 classroom (Creswell 1994), I felt strongly that this would be a predominately
qualitative piece of research, with an in depth focus on a relatively small sample.
The concept of teacher intervention commonly associated with action research was one that I
found puzzling. Arguably, my project involved what might be termed, in line with the
principles of action research, an ‘intervention’: I would be intervening before the writing
process by trying out different types of in-‐role drama activities and conducting some short,
focused in-‐role writing tasks with Year 8 in order to explore whether immersion in drama
affects or enhances writing. However, I was not primarily concerned in testing the
effectiveness of my intervention or proving that it would improve the students’ writing, what
Bell (2005) recognises as the ‘problem-‐solving’ nature of action research. I found the idea of
‘before and after’ problematic for what I was trying to investigate and wanted my study to be
one of ‘discovery rather than the testing of hypotheses’ (Denscombe 2007: 29).
Denscombe (2007) argues that action research is ‘specifically geared to changing matters’ and
this to an extent applied to my study as I was concerned with how I could investigate my own
17 teaching practices, and possibly those of my English Department colleagues, ‘with a view to
altering [this] in a beneficial way’ (Denscombe 2007: 75). Critically reflecting on and adapting
my practice would enable a cyclical process, thus exemplifying Denscombe’s (2007) four
defining characteristics of action research as being: practical, cyclical, participatory and having
change as its goal. However, the very nature of action research suggests that the question is
not wholly and neatly answered after the conclusions of the study, thus my findings may raise
issues that could provide a way in to further future investigation.
18 Ethical Considerations
I followed the BERA (2011) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research at all stages. Year 8
were informed of my research from the outset of the academic year and I openly discussed my
aims and purposes with them. I felt it best to be completely transparent about the progress of
my research whilst reiterating that no student was obliged to have their work analysed or
participate in an interview if they were unwilling, thus allowing participants the ‘right to
withdraw’ at any stage (BERA 2011). A letter of consent was sent home to all parents of the
students in my Year 8 class, offering them an opt-‐out option (Appendix 11). I sought written
consent to conduct my research from the Headmistress and discussed my intended study with
colleagues in the English Department. I took care to handle my data sensitively to prevent
data loss which might compromise those involved. Culturally appropriate pseudonyms have
been used throughout this report to maintain student confidentiality.
19 Data Collection Methods
Observation and teacher journal
This research took place in the second half of the spring term while Year 8 were studying a six
week scheme of work on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Observing the class’s
responses and behaviour during the in-‐role activities was an integral part of my research; thus
I was conducting ‘participant observation’ in a natural setting (Denscombe 2007: 192). I
wanted to observe things as they normally happened in my classroom. To encourage this I did
not take field notes whilst in the classroom but wrote up my general observations and
reflections in my teacher journal directly after the lesson, or if this was not possible, at the end
of the day. I tried filming one lesson early at the start of the research but found it impractical
in that it disrupted the ‘naturalness of the setting’ (Denscombe 2007: 193) as students were
incredibly distracted by the camera’s presence. I realise that they might, with time, have
accommodated the presence of the video; even so I had more success acquiring photographic
evidence, using a digital stills camera to capture interesting moments during the ‘hot-‐seating
Demetrius’ activity.
My observations of what went on in the classroom aimed to be holistic in the sense that I
would note all that I saw but I was conscious of the potential for bias with this method.
Denscombe (2007) acknowledges that it is not possible to remember every detail of the events
and situations that researchers observe: was I recalling selectively? Was I only concentrating
on what I wanted to see? I was also aware of the arguably ‘anecdotal’ evidence documented
within my teacher journal. As brief outlines of particular incidents, anecdotes may be a highly
subjective form of evidence due to my personal involvement as both teacher and researcher.
On the other hand, one could argue that ‘anecdotes’ in the sense that these are ‘narratives of
classroom activity’ that are then viewed through a critical lens, are valid and indeed potentially
revealing as ‘evidence’ of teaching and learning. I used the journal to record questions that
20 came to mind in light of my observations, noting my thought processes and evaluations.
Whilst this served as a valuable form of reference throughout the investigation, I struggled
with the time-‐consuming practicalities of keeping a journal whilst working full-‐time and my
entries petered out towards the end of the investigation.
Students’ written work
I collected a range of samples of students’ writing, both in and out of role. Having taught Year
8 for the whole academic year I knew the learners and their writing well and had access to
their exercise books and work from units other than A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Moreover,
because they were a Key Stage 3 class, I had more scope for flexibility when planning activities
as I was not constrained by an examination syllabus. I tried out various types of drama
activities and short, focused in-‐role writing tasks with the class. These shorter written pieces
ranged from diary entries they wrote in-‐role as different characters, an interview with
Demetrius, a job application in role as Puck, a lonely hearts advertisement placed by Helena
and scripting a custody battle between Oberon and Titania. To conclude the unit, the class
also wrote a lengthier piece in role as either Helena or Hermia at two different stages from the
play.
Whilst the written samples were an exceptionally rich data source, I knew I must be selective
in my analysis. I considered using the eight indicators devised by Barrs and Cork (2001) in their
study of the progress of primary school children’s writing; four ‘countable’ and four ‘scored’
against which they analysed the writing samples for evidence of trends in ‘syntactical maturity’
and development of narrative voice. However, I felt this approach was too rigid for my
purposes as I wanted a more holistic evaluation of the semantic, figurative, rhetorical and
structural features of a student’s writing. I was aware of the difficulty of ‘proving’ that any
differences in language usage were due to the nature of the task, i.e. working in role, and tried
21 to overcome this by analysing comparable samples and pieces that had been written soon
after the in-‐role work had taken place.
After some of the written tasks I asked students to complete an anonymous short review or
self-‐summary of the in-‐role work produced, describing their feelings before, during and after
the task (Appendix 3). These were completed in class, immediately after the writing activity.
The open-‐ended nature of the questions was designed to help evaluate students’ views and
their emotional engagement with the different tasks so that I could gauge which they had
most enjoyed or found successful. This allowed me to identify trends and build up a picture of
what was happening in my classroom. However, this method generated an unwieldy amount
of paper and the subjective nature of the responses suggests that these findings may be less
representative and difficult to ‘generalize to other similar instances’ (Denscombe 2007: 281).
Questionnaires
Questionnaires appealed partly for the ease of response rate: they could be completed
straightforwardly in a lesson and respondents were posed with exactly the same questions,
thus reducing scope for the data to be ‘affected by interpersonal factors’ (Denscombe 2007:
159). I recognise that this aspect of the questionnaire as a tool for research might appear
limited but at the same time their ease of use served as highly practical within the constraints
of a small-‐scale enquiry. I devised an initial questionnaire completed by the whole class to
determine their early feelings towards in-‐role activities before the drama intervention,
allowing me to consider general trends (Appendix 1). The questionnaires were anonymous so
as to promote honest feedback and students were given fifteen minutes to complete them
during the first lesson in the unit. As with the self-‐summaries, the wording of the questions
was open-‐ended to encourage students to respond openly and in detail. A potential limitation
of this method was that some students may not have been able to express themselves
confidently in writing although I did not feel that this was a problem within the context of the
22 class being studied. Additionally, at the end of the scheme of work I asked all students to
complete a post-‐unit questionnaire, reflecting on whether their attitudes towards in-‐role work
had changed during the research period (Appendix 2). However, this questionnaire was far
less successful than the first as it was conducted after the May half-‐term break on the lesson
prior to Year 8’s summer examination. The students were not in a focused frame of mind to
think about anything other than their upcoming test and many had forgotten what they had
said in the initial questionnaire. It was also difficult for me to chart patterns in individual
learners’ attitudes due to the responses being anonymous. In retrospect this post-‐unit
questionnaire was not thought out as thoroughly as it could have been; nevertheless, some of
the comments gathered were surprisingly perceptive, as I explore later.
I was keen to explore whether in-‐role activities were being used in my school in subjects
beyond English: how often and in what ways? Using an internet survey website I devised a
short online questionnaire consisting of seven questions and invited thirty colleagues from
Humanities subjects including History, Geography, Religious Studies, Drama, MFL and Music to
respond (Appendix 4). However, only seventeen teachers completed the survey. Denscombe
(2007) warns of the implications of a sample size smaller than thirty yet I was more concerned
with examining comments ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’ rather than formulating statistical
analysis (Denscombe 2007: 27). I knew the questions needed to be incredibly clear as, unlike
with the student questionnaires, I would not be present to offer clarification when participants
were answering. The final responses were fascinating and something I will draw on in my
analysis.
Interviews
In order to triangulate the data from the questionnaires, I conducted face-‐to-‐face interviews
with both Year 8 students and colleagues from the English Department. For the pupil
interviews I selected two groups of four students, chosen based on friendship groups as I felt
23 that this might encourage students to be more open and honest in their responses whilst also
helping to put them at ease. I had wanted these interviews to take place on the same day to
avoid students from each group discussing what they were asked with one another but due to
timetabling and lack of cover this was simply impossible so the second group were interviewed
a week later. The format of the interview was relatively unstructured: I had some prompt
questions to aid the flow of conversation; I referred back to the in-‐role activities completed in
lessons and to some of the comments that had emerged from the questionnaires. Bell (2005)
calls this a ‘guided’ or ‘focussed’ style interview in that the participants can move freely from
one topic to another but the interviewer must be skilled in probing at the right time. I tried to
ensure this by attempting to keep my responses neutral and to a minimum.
I was extremely aware of the limitations of this method in that students may simply be telling
me what they felt I wanted to hear or would be led by each other. Indeed, towards the end of
the first group interview, one student, Delilah, exclaimed ‘I feel like I’m saying everything
wrong’, suggesting that she may have felt obligated to share a particular opinion. Due to the
power dynamics in any teacher/student relationship I felt that this was relatively unavoidable
but I tried to reassure students before and throughout the recording that any comments,
positive or negative, were valued contributions.
The separate staff interviews with my Head of Department, Elizabeth, and another English
colleague, Emily, were relatively informal. Again, I had some key questions to stimulate the
direction of talk but I wanted to gain an insight into how they personally were using in-‐role
work within the units that we all teach. Both staff and pupil interviews were recorded using a
Dictaphone and then transcribed in full. The comments were invaluable and raise issues I will
explore in my analysis.
24 Findings and Analysis
Here I refer back to my overall focus of the investigation: does in-‐role work increase
engagement and are there implications for writing? I have used my research questions to
structure my analysis, serving as different strands for exploration of my findings. By exploring
each question in turn I hope to draw on the range of data I collected to create a clearer
depiction of how in-‐role techniques are being used within the context of my school.
Through the various interviews, questionnaires, observations and samples of writing I ended
up with a vast amount of data. To stay within the confines of the word count of this report I
have had to be exceptionally selective in the data analysed. Samples of students’ work that I
found particularly striking were selected for analysis and insightful comments gathered from
student questionnaires are referred to. Transcriptions from both student and staff interviews
have been colour coded according to recurring themes and patterns to aid triangulation
(Appendices 6-‐9). Full results from the online survey of Humanities teachers can be found in
Appendix 5 with comments for the open-‐ended questions presented in full so as to highlight
the qualitative nature of this method.
1.) Does writing in role develop students’ confidence and motivation in writing?
Whilst acknowledging the difficulty in defining or ‘measuring’ confidence, many positive
comments emerged from the questionnaires about Year 8’s attitudes and feelings towards
work in role. The comments detailed below seem to confirm my hypothesis that working in
role frees students, offering opportunities for imaginative and empathetic thinking whilst
helping to consolidate understanding of a text or character.
25 Initial questionnaire
• ‘I like writing in role because it is more creative and you get more freedom to explore
the characters.’
• ‘I like in-‐role work because you don’t have to be yourself, you can be whoever you want
to be.’
• ‘Being in role helps me learn because I feel free and I get more carried away with
writing.’
Post-‐unit questionnaire
• ‘I liked looking at how the character feels. You look at someone else’s perspective and
put yourself in their shoes. That makes you think things through and question things –
why does the character act in this way? You go through what they went through and
try to understand.’
• ‘I remember more about ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ having done role-‐work as I can
think back to memorable performances.’
• ‘I feel like my writing skills are more developed in in-‐role writing. I got very excited
about it!’
• ‘I LOVE in-‐role work. Can we do more please?’
This enthusiasm for in-‐role work was also evident in comments made during the student group
interviews:
• Mary: I really like it because you get to imagine that you are there and you are them
and that you can just drift off so you can be far more detailed and be imaginative.
• Ashanti: It’s easier to kind of go into depth with that character if they’re from the
actual story.
26
• Natasha: I prefer writing in role because you like get to grips with the character’s
characteristics and personality...
I propose that part of this confidence and enjoyment comes from the level of ‘protection’ that
being in role provides. By ‘protection’ I am referring to how role enables fictional material to
be distanced and thus becomes less intimidating. Delilah, a naturally reserved yet highly
talented learner, commented in the first group interview that she was more driven to write as
a character from within a story rather than writing about herself:
Delilah: I think it’s easier to write as a character from a story because I’m kind of
embarrassed to write as myself in case I start flattering myself and none of it’s true
and when you’re writing as a character…it’s a lot easier to…understand how they feel
in certain situations…whereas if it’s yourself…it’s not exactly like you’re going to fit into
the situation like with a love triangle I wouldn’t know. But if you’re writing as a
character from within the story you can get to know the plot and your storyline and
what might happen next.
Delilah, understandably, as a twelve year old in an all girls’ school, may not have first-‐hand
experience of the man she admires being in love with her best friend, as with the Helena-‐
Demetrius-‐Hermia ‘love triangle’ she refers to in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Adopting a
role, using a fictional text as impetus, allows Delilah to ‘try on’ mature experience, thinking her
way into the emotional complexities of tempestuous romantic relationships. It is Delilah’s
trying out of how Shakespeare’s characters ‘feel in certain situations’ that help develop her
‘insights into the human experiences that fictions are based on’ (Barrs and Cork 2001: 209),
highlighting the powerful potential of role to aid social aspects of learning. Barrs and Cork’s
focus here seems to be on empathy, an emphasis that was acknowledged as a key learning
benefit by seven teachers in the online survey. Teacher 7 encapsulates this idea:
27
Teacher 7 -‐ If [students] can understand a character well enough that they can describe
an event from their perspective, and then do the same from another character's
perspective, not only do they know the text well (and it often helps to make them think
harder about it as, if they haven't thought about it in some detail, they won't have
anything to write) but also develop a more empathetic and open-‐minded approach to
the world around them (hopefully!)
Whilst happy to put herself in role as a character, Delilah feels ‘embarrassed’ at the prospect of
writing as herself. This supports Wagner’s argument that writing in role provides children with
a more authentic voice than when they write as themselves as they often perceive themselves
as ‘relatively powerless or insignificant’ (Wagner 1998: 122). By adopting a viewpoint removed
from her own, Delilah is able to experience alternative ways of being and knowing. As a
teacher I frequently stress the importance of encouraging students to see the ‘relevance’ of
what that they study ‘to their own experiences and aspirations’ (National Curriculum 2007:
Inclusion Statement), but is it possible that this might at times make it more difficult? What
about the students who may not have these experiences, the personal ‘plot and storyline’
sophisticated enough to impress those examining them? Perhaps, as Delilah suggests, it is ‘a
lot easier’ to be freed from the baggage of our own identities in order to ‘try on’ those of
someone else?
Another key issue that emerged from both student questionnaires and interviews was that
writing in role may be enjoyable for students because there is less opportunity for it to be
‘wrong’ which thus becomes a motivating factor. One anonymous questionnaire response
highlighted:
28
‘I really like doing in-‐role work as there is no right way to write the story and I have
freedom to explore all areas. I would much prefer to write a piece in role as a
character. This is because I get really stressed when a sheet of paper is put in front of
me and I am told I have to write an essay under timed conditions. I find in-‐role better
as I can think about the feelings of the characters and then I naturally carry on writing.’
So what is it about pretending to be someone else that allows this student to put pen to paper
and write ‘naturally’? Booth suggests that ‘thinking in-‐role’ as another enables learners to
move into unknown areas, developing and testing hypotheses through imaginary problem
solving activity. It is this balancing of the imaginary and real world experience at the same
time that allows children to make meaning, in the case above in the form of ideas for writing,
as learners ‘forge links with their real world and the world of illusion’ (Booth 1994: 112).
Perhaps it is through this negotiation that students can come to understand and celebrate the
process of imaginative enquiry rather than seeing what they produce as either ‘right or wrong’.
In addition, comments in the group interviews revealed that some students engaged more
fully with in-‐role writing compared to more traditional forms of literary criticism, such as Point-‐
Evidence-‐Explanation, due to the personal response, even nonconformity, that it encourages.
From interview with students (1)
[Referring to writing in role]
LW: Do you think it’s equally as useful? Does it help you to learn?
Ashanti: I really think it is because when you do PEE you can get like overcomplicated with
following that structure and everything and you don’t actually take a moment to think about
the character so doing this is much more free and creative and you can kind of just get into the
character and try and understand them and just be free of that structure.
29 LW: so are you saying you feel a bit more liberated and have a bit more freedom than
following that particular structure?
Isamu: yes cause for this you can write whatever you want but when you’re doing PEE you
have to write about something else that the other person has written and like comment on
that. But with this you can write anything, whatever you want.
From interview with students (2)
Alexandra: I hate writing PEE paragraphs
LW: why?
Alexandra: because you have to have that structure and if you don’t you get marked down
Natasha: yeah you get it wrong
Alexandra: but if you’re writing a diary entry [in role] it doesn’t have to have any structure you
can start it how you want, you can finish it how you want, you can put in what you like as long
as it’s relevant to the topic.
LW: yeah
Alexandra: it’s free writing.
Perhaps then, the PEE framework so frequently used in classrooms to help students structure
their writing may actually restrict learners by limiting the content of their responses, their
sense of what is ‘allowed’ and what counts as a legitimate response to the literary text? The
comments in the exchanges above support the notion of role as a liberating opportunity.
Arguably, this liberation comes from role allowing pupils to ‘bring what they know’ to their
work; as Booth suggests, ‘the drama then engages their imaginations, and they inevitably
move closer to the story’ (Booth 1994: 43). Whilst it must be acknowledged that in-‐role and
PEE writing are of course different styles, I found it dispiriting that the students’ comments
above suggest that the writing they produce is inherently tied to assessment. This was an
issue also addressed by Teacher 7, a Drama teacher, in the online survey:
30
Teacher 7 -‐ Those that are crippled by the fear of analysis are much more engaged
generally [when writing in role] as ‘it's creative writing’ and therefore ‘doesn't count’,
as it were, because they know they are not assessed formally on it, in end of year
exams or GCSEs. Their vocabulary is much more natural, instead of them trying to
sound sophisticated and actually not making sense as they sometimes do in analysis,
but they are more likely to use words that they have seen in text to create a more
authentic voice which means they still can have a go at varying their vocabulary. I
regularly use stream of consciousness with in-‐role writing, which means putting pen to
paper pretty quickly… they are normally very engaged, and this generally tends to be
the case anyway as, again, because it is creative and ‘not assessed’, or at least not as a
summative assessment, there is no ‘right answer’ so they feel less scared of it and can
have a go without trying to recreate the ‘right answer’ or guess what the teacher
wants or needs them to say to pass.
I found these ideas about creative responses ‘not counting’ concerning: can’t creative work
also be critical? Moreover, if the nature of role encourages learners to enter a sphere in which
they inhabit an imagined world, giving them the freedom to write what they envisage, how do
teachers go about ‘assessing’ this fantasy when marking pieces written in role? Franks (1997)
proposes that in order for dramatic work to be effective, ‘students have to feel secure in their
creative work, and this is the responsibility of teachers’ (Franks 1997: 144). Reassuring
students to write without fear of grammatical or technical mistakes could be one way of
encouraging learners to immerse themselves fully when writing in role but does that then put
greater onus on teachers to go back and correct ‘errors’ in order for the writing task to be
academically meaningful?
31 Fiona Richards-‐Kamal (2008) addresses this dichotomy of creativity versus criticality arguing
that more creative written forms, such as writing in role, should also be classed as critical as
they encourage opportunities for pupils to stand back from their own writing and think
explicitly about what they were doing in its construction. Richards-‐Kamal asserts that the
‘culture of reading and writing to fulfil exam criteria has all but destroyed opportunities for
creative engagement with texts’ (Richards-‐Kamal 2008: 68). This resonated with my own
experiences of more creative forms of writing reducing as students move through secondary
school. In common with Richards-‐Kamal in her study, I have observed students in Year 11
write less confidently than those in Year 8 with comparable ‘abilities’ because of the lack of
opportunities for creative engagement dictated by current GCSE specifications. Perhaps pupils
analysing their own in-‐role writing could be the next step towards their being able to critically
evaluate what writers are doing and why? There is evidence to suggest that opportunities for
this type of reflection are already being used by colleagues within my department in the form
of accompanying commentaries alongside in role pieces:
From interview with students (1)
Isamu: you can write an essay about what you wrote. Like in Year 7 we did some in-‐role
writing and then we had to write about our thing.
LW: ah like a commentary?
Mary: yeah to go with the letter
Isamu: yeah like ‘I wrote a simile because I wanted this effect’…
I will continue to address this concept of criticality as I move on to analyse some of the writing
in role produced by students, framed by my second research question.
32 2.) How can in-‐role activities help to develop students’ written language, in general and in
relation to their semantic choices, rhetorical and figurative devices?
Three lessons into studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream, students were asked to write a letter
to an agony aunt in role as Hermia explaining her predicament after Lysander has hatched a
plan for elopement. Prior to writing, the class had read up to Act 1 Scene 1 and role-‐played
Hermia’s possible responses to this situation in pairs. When setting up the task I tried to
remain open to Cremin et al’s (2006) approach of ‘seizing the moment’, encouraging students
to write directly after their involvement in the process drama and from within the context of it,
rather than providing a prescribed agenda dictating the contents of their writing.
As the girls put pen to paper I was struck by the unusual sense of urgency in Bianca, a
somewhat ‘reluctant’ learner who has often told me she is ‘no good’ at English and frequently
has to be cajoled into settling down before starting any individual, silent writing. Bianca’s
work, below, shows evidence of how her craft as a writer has been enhanced by immersion in
the drama:
Dear Agony Aunt,
I am desperate! I have turned to you, my last resort, as I am in need of your advice I
need you to help my bleeding heart. My lover wishes I would ran run away to his Aunt’s
house in secret! Lysander is tall, blond and handsome and my heart is in pain shatters
every time we are apart. My dad father wishes me to marry Demetrius but no matter
how worthy he is I cannot return his affection. My father has summoned the Duke of
Athens and says I will be sent to a nunnery if I fail to obey. Neither of them can see
how much I love Lysander. I am full of The venomous vexation I have towards my
father is beginning to numb my love for him. Will our relationship ever be the same
again? Please Pray, help me!
33
Yours in desperation,
Hermia
There is a clear sense of voice in the writing as Bianca appears able to successfully ‘get under’
Hermia’s skin, identifying with her emotionally as well as intellectually (McNaughton 1997: 79).
What is particularly striking is the confident sense of an implied reader whom Bianca, in-‐role as
Hermia, wishes to influence and perhaps gain sympathy from. Figurative images of a heart
that ‘shatters’ and is ‘bleeding’ heightens emotion and her use of triadic structure, a rhetorical
feature, enhances the splendour of Lysander’s physical attributes thus stressing Hermia’s
inability to resist her lover. Bianca shows an emerging ability to self-‐edit, correcting tenses
with control and replacing ‘dad’ with ‘father’ to establish a more appropriate register for a
formal letter. Similarly, her alteration to her second sentence enables a skilful use of
repetition of the pronoun ‘you’, directly addressing her reader as a way of evoking empathy. I
was notably impressed by Bianca’s ability to emulate features of Shakespeare’s language: in
describing Demetrius as ‘worthy’ she recycles the lexis used by Shakespeare in Thesus’
evaluation of Demetrius’ character in an earlier scene. Similarly, ‘Pray, help me!’ is reminiscent
of the cries of an Elizabethan damsel in distress and a phrase unlikely to be used by Bianca in
her own speech. By echoing the language of the text in her writing, Bianca is moving out of
her ‘home style’ and into ‘new areas of language’ that she may not have been able to access
previously thus becoming a ‘head taller’ in her learning (Barrs and Cork 2001: 210).
Whilst Bianca conveys Hermia’s angst at her father’s threat, the alliterative ‘venomous
vexation’ heightening the tension, I was intrigued by her closing sentence. By questioning
whether Hermia’s relationship with her father ‘Will…ever be the same again?’, Bianca was
moving on to interrogate implications for character relationships which, at this stage, had not
been previously discussed in class. Most of the talk prior to this activity had centred on the
situation of the lovers, whereas here Bianca is beginning to touch on the potential
34 repercussions of Hermia’s decision on her relationship with Egeus. From a Vygotskian
perspective, here Bianca ‘moves forward essentially through play activity’, entering a ‘zone of
proximal development’ in her exploration of a fresh concept (Vygotsky 1976: 552). Perhaps, it
is in the ‘no penalty zone’ of drama (Heathcote 1980 cited in Cremin et al 2006: 15), Bianca
feels bold enough to explore different stances and ideas to those voiced earlier.
Bianca’s writing shows a significant understanding of Hermia’s motivations and emotions and
is rich in stylistic features. Yet I am confident that, had I asked her to write a summary of the
character at this stage in the play, she would have complained that she didn’t understand: she
would have felt constrained by the ‘genre’ of the literary critical essay. Notes from my teacher
journal after this lesson confirm that the class were keen to listen to examples of each other’s
writing. I comment: ‘I doubt I’d get that if I’d asked them to write a paragraph of
comprehension!’ Examining Bianca’s writing confirms my belief that it is the process of being
in role that allows students’ own subjective realm to come into play, ‘helping them understand
the meaning of the story as they live through the drama experience’ (Booth 1994: 42).
Four weeks into the unit, having tried out multiple, short, focused writing in role tasks from a
range of characters’ perspectives, students were asked to compose a longer piece of writing: a
sequence of two diary entries written from the viewpoint of either Helena or Hermia at
contrasting stages of the play (Act 1 Scene 1 and Act 3 Scene 2 were suggested as examples).
By this stage I was less concerned with using the writing to assess students’ understanding of
character and plot but wanted to examine whether regular dramatic immersion had affected
students’ writing in general. As with writing from Barrs and Cork’s (2001) study, the diary
entries produced by Year 8 showed much evidence of students writing from ‘inside’
Shakespeare’s story, cultivating an inwardness in their exploration of characters’ mental
states.
35 An extract from an entry by Esther, in role as Helena towards the beginning of the play, read:
I cannot explain the fury inside of me when I see lovers together, holding hands,
embarrassing one another and exchanging their love. If only Demetrius could see how
my heart urges for his love, his attention. I will throw my love upon him. How much I
would cherish his love but the more I love, the more he hateth me!
Right now my stomach is churning. The thought of Hermia and Demetrius being
together sickens me. Hermia, Oh Hermia! Never as fair as I. How she sticks her nose
in the sky when Demetrius is nearby. She doesn’t appreciate his love towards her,
instead she curses him blind. I spoke to her today. How does she not know the luck
that has come to her? DEMETRIUS young, dark, dashing Demetrius. Oh why does the
course of true love never run smooth!
Emphatic vocabulary choices ‘fury’, ‘sickens’, fused with material and dynamic verbs ‘urges’,
‘throw’, ‘cherish’, ‘churning’ capture Helena’s utter desperation, suggesting Esther’s
engagement with the emotionally powerful themes of heartbreak and unrequited love. Whilst
some phrasing is lifted directly from Shakespeare, ‘the more I love, the more he hateth me’ and
‘…true love never…run smooth’, there is an undeniable poetic quality to the line ‘Hermia, Oh
Hermia! Never as fair as I. How she sticks her nose in the sky when Demetrius is nearby’; the
internal rhyme and sibilance working together for strong phonological impact. Whether
consciously or unconsciously, Esther’s phrasing seems to mimic and absorb the ‘rhythms and
patterns’ (Barrs and Cork 2001: 210) present in the Shakespearian verse that she has been
reading.
Esther’s complete diary entry (Appendix 10), was the longest piece of work I had seen her
produce all year, typed in a font evocative of calligraphy and embellished with hand-‐drawn
36 pictures of fairies and stars. She is flagged on my register as an SEN student with a high
absence rate following a parental divorce and was described to me by her form tutor as a
learner who ‘severely struggles’ within the context of a high achieving school. However, I
believe here Esther is ‘playing her way forward’ (Cremin et al 2006: 10): in her writing ‘under
the influence’ (Barrs and Cork 2001: 200) of a canonical text, Esther adopts a highly literary
style, producing work that offers strong potential for critical response. Barrs and Cork
advocate the benefits of probing children to become ‘both author and reader’ in order to
make the purposes of writing more explicit (Barrs and Cork 2001: 200). Perhaps if I were to
spend time with Esther discussing how she had crafted her use of role in this text to engage
readers, she might be empowered to identify these effects and techniques in the language
used by other authors?
Another extract with a distinctively literary quality comes from Eliza, a gifted student who told
me that she often writes at home ‘for fun’. Here she is writing in role as Helena, reflecting on
her fight with Hermia:
Gone are the days we wove trinkets together and sat in the cooling breeze. Gone are
the days where Hermia was my strongest companion. She calls me a thief of love, a
canker-‐blossom, as if it is I who has committed the deplorable misconduct, as if it is I
who call in the men like a relentless claxon that is just never satisfied with what it has.
She is lower than I ever thought. She is lower than the burning floors of hell.
An intensely imagined piece, tension is built through a sophisticated use of anaphoric
repetition ‘Gone are the days…’ and ‘She is…’. Apt word choices and the vivid simile ‘…call in
the men like a relentless claxon…’ serve to engage the reader in the detail of Eliza’s perceived
judgement of Hermia’s behaviour. Eliza, like Esther, has absorbed details from Shakespeare’s
text, here reworking examples of the pejorative insults the female lovers hurl at each other in
37 Act 3 Scene 2, ‘thief of love’, ‘canker-‐blossom’. Neelands asserts the potential of in-‐role work
to act as ‘a vehicle for exploring human nature and experience’ (Neelands 1992: 5). In her
conveyance of Helena’s contempt of Hermia’s behaviour, Eliza is arguably working through
central societal concepts such as friendship, justice and love. I advocate that Eliza’s use of role
not only allows her the opportunity to explore her emerging world views of these concepts but
enables her to find a stronger voice and identity as a writer.
3.) How are in-‐role activities being used currently in my department and possibly even
beyond and how do teachers and students feel about them?
Whilst acknowledging the small-‐scale nature of this enquiry, the results of the online survey
and interviews with colleagues from my department show that writing in role is being used
relatively regularly in many Humanities subjects and in far more inventive ways than I could
have imagined prior to this study. For example, in Spanish: write your daily routine in role as
Rafa Nadal (Teacher 5), and in Music: imagine you are Beethoven composing a piece: what
musical features and mood would he try to create? (Teacher 2)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Very regularly (e.g. a few omes per half term)
Open (e.g. about once per half term)
Someomes (e.g. about once a term)
Rarely (e.g. once a year)
Never
Q.3.) WriYng in-‐role acYviYes can be defined as acYviYes used in the classroom where students take on the role of someone else and then
produce wriYng from the perspecYve of that person. How o\en do you use these types of acYviYes?
Number of teachers
38 Interestingly, when reflecting on the written work produced by students having been in role
(Question 7), some teachers noted that ‘the length of the work will often be longer’ (Teacher
5), more ‘verbose’ (Teacher 15), more ‘eloquent’ (Teacher 1) and in ‘LOTS of detail’ (Teacher
14) which reinforces patterns I identified earlier when discussing the work of Esther and
Bianca. One teacher comments further:
Teacher 4 -‐ Some pupils produce outstanding pieces which I tend not to see in their
regular classwork. They all seem to enjoy these exercises and love reading them out
loud to others.
Such enjoyment for hearing in-‐role work aloud appears to be shared by the students
themselves. When interviewed, Alexandra seemed positively motivated to look up new words
to use when writing in role before sharing with her peers:
Alexandra: …I learn more vocabulary because when I want to use a word I go to the
thesaurus and find another word so I learn more vocabulary writing creatively whereas
with essays you have to use all of the terminology. And if you’re reading your work
out to the class you want to sound more sophisticated…so yeah in-‐role writing helps
me learn more vocabulary which is what I need to learn.
Barrs and Cork deem this notion of making a text ‘nicer to listen to’ as an integral stage in
children’s developing awareness of themselves as writers. How does Alexandra know whether
her writing sounds ‘sophisticated’? She must be reading it back to herself and listening to it,
thus strengthening her relationship as both reader and writer (Barrs and Cork 2001: 95).
Other findings show that in-‐role tasks were used most frequently at Key Stage 3, with
comments indicating that the heavy demands of covering examination syllabi leaves less time
for such activities higher up the school:
39
Teacher 1 – It is quite time-‐consuming…I use rarely at GCSE/almost never at A level -‐ I
suppose I think it is too 'creative' and therefore 'childish', but now I am questioning
myself!
Teacher 15 -‐ I tend not to use it as much with my KS5 classes because they feel as
though it is a waste of time when actually all they need to do is learn the facts and then
apply them to exam-‐style questions. I have attempted to do it though. I guess time is
the real issue here.
However, there were inconsistencies within departments with some teachers specifying that
they do use in-‐role strategies with Key Stage 5 to engage learners with more advanced texts,
for example in Latin: ‘imagine you are Ovid -‐ explain why you have come to the races’ (Teacher
11). There seems to be a generalized view amongst some educators that imagined responses
are too ‘easy’ for older learners, a view reiterated by my colleague Emily:
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Key Stage 3 (Years 7 ,8 ,9)
Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and
11)
Key Stage 5 (AS/A2)
None
Q.5.) With what classes do you use these types of in-‐role wriYng acYviYes? Please Yck all that apply.
Number of teachers
40
Emily: I think it works less well with Key Stage 5 although I’ve never actually tried it so I
might be wrong! But I imagine that the task is not sophisticated enough for the text
being studied.
Having used in-‐role tasks when teaching Frankenstein to Year 12, an area I explored in my
DUEMDS assignment, I advocate that there is scope for using role with older students: for
example, mimicking a writer’s stylistic conventions such as dialect when using direct speech.
However, such tasks need to be carefully planned, set-‐up and scaffolded by the teacher. How
role could be used fruitfully at A-‐Level, or even cross-‐curricularly, could be an area of
investigation for a completely new piece of research. However, if learning benefits are
recognised, as suggested by the results of this survey, surely to it is up to teachers to adapt
their practice and do their best to work with current examination policies in an attempt to
stretch and challenge learners, using such ‘play’ to propel development? As Heathcote
suggests, ‘being in-‐role…is a complicated tool and takes some patience to learn how to use it’
but the inherently flexible nature of drama is what enables decisions to be placed in the hands
of the learners. The teacher, according to Heathcote, ‘acts as midwife’ (Heathcote 1984: 101).
41 Conclusion
As newly appointed English Second in Department, the value of this research for my practice is
considerable as it is likely that, in light of the upcoming national changes to GCSE and A-‐Level
examinations, I will be heavily involved in planning new schemes of work. My findings have
affirmed my belief in the learning benefits and enjoyment students experience when working
in role and I hope to incorporate a range of in-‐role activities into this future planning. Where
possible at Key Stage 3, I would like to discuss possibilities of using writing in role responses as
end of unit assessments, as opposed to the essay style pieces used currently. Encouragingly, it
seems that some GCSE examination boards (beyond that of AQA, used in my school) are
occasionally using writing in role as a way of assessing reading in Literature examinations, yet
these style questions appear infrequently (WJEC 2013). Ultimately, I hope to cascade ideas for
writing in-‐role activities that were particularly successful with Year 8, down to other colleagues
in my department.
I have found my enquiry so absorbing that it has been difficult to stay within the boundaries of
this report. If I could carry out the research again I would conduct some individual interviews
with students, discussing their reflections on specific pieces of writing in role they had
produced. I would also like to analyse further samples of writing, perhaps from students in
other Year 8 English classes, to see if wider trends concerning enhanced semantic, rhetorical
and figurative usage were identifiable. New directions for future research could explore how
the use of in-‐role activities in English could support cross-‐curricular work in other secondary
subjects, or even support the writing of learners with English as an additional language.
Based on this research I propose that, where possible, teachers should plan time for students
to create shared imagined worlds through role and to return to these in and through their
writing. Drama, as ‘a form of shared cultural activity’ (Neelands 1992: 4), offers boundless
42 opportunities for teachers and learners to play their way ahead together, ultimately enabling
the potential to become in Vygotskian terms, ‘a head taller’ (Vygotsky 1978: 102).
43 References
Baldwin, P. and Fleming, K. (2003) Teaching literacy through drama, London: Routledge Falmer. Barrs, M. and Cork, V. (2001) The Reader in the Writer, London: Centre for Language in Primary Education. Bell, J. (2005) Doing your Research Project, 2nd edition, Buckingham: Open University Press. BERA – British Educational Research Association, (2011) Ethical Guidelines For Educational Research. <http://mteachvle.ioe.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=3866> (accessed 30th May 2014). Bodrova, E. (2008) ‘Make-‐believe play versus academic skills: a Vygotskian approach to today’s dilemma of early childhood education’, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 16:3, pp.357-‐369. Booth, D. (1994) Story Drama: Reading, Writing and Roleplaying Across the Curriculum, Ontario: Pembroke Publishers. Booth, D. and Neelands, J. (eds) (1998) Writing in-‐Role: Classroom Projects Connecting Writing and Drama, Ontario: Caliburn Enterprises. Bruner, J. (1986) Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cremin, T., Goouch, K., Blakemore, L., Goff, E. and Macdonald, R. (2006) ‘Connecting Drama and Writing: seizing the moment to write’, Research in Drama Education, 11:3 November, pp.273-‐291.
Cremin, T. and Pickard, A. (2009) Drama: Reading, Writing and Speaking Our Way Forward, 2nd edition, Leicester: United Kingdom Literacy Association.
Creswell, J. (1994) Research Design: qualitative and quantitative approaches, London: SAGE. Dalby, M. and Burton, N. (2012) ‘What is the impact on six underachieving Year 4 children’s choice of language and development of character when ‘writing in role’?’, Education 3-‐13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 41:1, pp.82-‐89. Denscombe, M. (2003) The Good Research Guide for Small-‐Scale Social Research Projects, 2nd edition, Maidenhead: Open University Press. DFE. (2013) English Programmes of Study: Key Stage 3 National Curriculum in England <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/244215/SECONDARY_national_curriculum_-‐_English2.pdf >(accessed 23rd March 2014). DFES. (2007) The National Curriculum: Inclusion Statement (archived) <http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130903160926/http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/curriculum/b00199686/inclusion> (accessed 22nd July 2014). Franks, A. (1997) ‘Drama, Desire and Schooling: Drives to learning in creative and expressive school subjects’, Changing English, 4:1, pp.131-‐14.
44 Hamilton, J. (1992) Drama and Learning: A Critical Review, Victoria: Deakin University Press.
Heathcote, D. (1984) Collected Writings on Education and Drama, (ed.) Johnson, L. and O’Neill, C, Hutchinson: London.
Heathcote, D. (Undated) Some Notes on Role Work <http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com/studying/articles/DH%20-‐%20Some%20Notes%20on%20Role%20Work.pdf> (accessed 26th May 2014).
Kamal-‐Richards, F. (2008) ‘Personal and Critical? Exam criteria, engagement with texts and real readers’ responses’, English in Education, 42:1, pp.53-‐69.
Lee, B. (1985) ‘Intellectual origins of Vygotsky’s semiotic analysis’. In J.V. Wertsch (ed.) Culture, Communication, and Cognition: Vygotskian Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.66-‐93.
McNaughton, M.J. (1997) ‘Drama and Children’s Writing: a study of the influence of drama on the imaginative writing of primary school children’, Research in Drama Education, 2:1, pp.55-‐76. Mooney, C.J. (2013) Theories of Childhood: An Introduction to Dewey, Montessori, Erikson, Piaget and Vygotsky – Second Edition, Minnesota: Readleaf Press. Neelands, J. (1992) Learning Through Imagined Experience, London: Hodder and Stoughton. O’Neill, C. and Rogers, T. (1994) ‘Drama and Literary Response: Prying Open the Text’, English in Australia, 108, June, pp. 47-‐51. O’Toole, J. (1992) The Process of Drama, London: Routledge. Ofqual. (April 2013) Consultation on the Removal of Speaking and Listening Assessment from GCSE English and GCSE English Language. <http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/files/2013-‐04-‐25-‐gcse-‐english-‐consultation-‐on-‐the-‐removal-‐of-‐speaking-‐and-‐listening.pdf> (accessed 26th May 2014). Ofqual. (August 2013) Analysis of Responses to the Consultation on the Proposal to Remove Speaking and Listening Assessment from the GCSE English and GCSE English Language Grade <http://ofqual.gov.uk/files/2013-‐08-‐29-‐analysis-‐of-‐responses-‐to-‐the-‐consultation-‐removal-‐of-‐speaking-‐and-‐listening.pdf> (accessed 26th May 2014). QCA. (2007) The National Curriculum: English Programme of Study for Key Stages 3 and 4. <http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/e/english%202007%20programme%20of%20study%20for%20key%20stage%203.pdf> (accessed 23rd March 2014). Southerden, G. (2011) ‘How can ‘in role’ work, particularly writing in role, further learning in English and beyond?’, RPBE Masters Dissertation, Institute of Education. Sullivan, A. (2002) ‘Bourdieu and Education: How Useful is Bourdieu’s Theory for Researchers?’, The Netherlands’ Journal of Social Sciences, 38:2, pp.144-‐166. Vygotsky, L.S. (1976) ‘Play and its Role in the Mental Development of the Child’, in Bruner, J.S., Jolly, A. and Sylva, K. (eds.) Play: Its Role in Development and Evolution, New York: Penguin. Vygotsky, L. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
45 Wagner, B.J. (1991) Dorothy Heathcote: Drama as a Learning Medium – Revised Edition, Portland: Calendar Islands Publishers. Wagner, B.J. (1998) Educational Drama and Language Arts: What Research Shows, Portsmouth: NH Heinemann. Winston, J. (2004) Drama and English at the Heart of the Curriculum: Primary and Middle Years, 26-‐7, London: David Fulton Publishers. WJEC. (2013) GCSE English Literature specification for assessment from 2013. <http://www.wjec.co.uk/uploads/publications/19228.pdf?language_id=1> (accessed 25th July 2014). Yandell, J. (2008) ‘Mind The Gap: Investigating test literacy and classroom literacy’, English in Education, 42:1, pp.70-‐87.
46
List of Appendices Appendix 1: Initial student questionnaire Appendix 2: Post-‐unit questionnaire Appendix 3: Writing in role review / self-‐summary Appendix 4: Questions used in the online survey completed by Humanities teachers Appendix 5: Results of the online survey completed by Humanities teachers Appendix 6: Interview with Elizabeth, Head of English Appendix 7: Interview with Emily, English Department colleague Appendix 8: Interview with students (1): Delilah, Mary, Isamu and Ashanti Appendix 9: Interview with students (2): Natasha, Alexandra, Anna and Cara Appendix 10: Samples of a student’s written work: Esther Appendix 11: Letter of consent to parents and guardians
47
APPENDIX 1 – INITIAL STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE
Being in role – Student Questionnaire
Please try and be specific in your answers, giving examples of things you have done in English lessons wherever possible.
1.) Describe your feelings and attitudes towards doing in-‐role work.
2.) Describe how you feel when you are asked to write a piece in role as a character, rather than write a summary or an essay.
3.) Do you think there are benefits to writing in role? How do you think it helps you to learn?
4.) Can you think of a time in any English lesson you’ve had in Year 7 or 8 when you’ve done a drama based activity (e.g. a role-‐play, improvisation, hot-‐seating, a written piece from a character’s perspective etc) that you particularly enjoyed? Explain why you think it was successful.
5.) Do you value in-‐role activities during English lessons as much as other tasks such as
reading, analytical writing and/or discussion? Why or why not?
6.) What do you think could be done to improve the types of in-‐role work that you do in your English lessons?
7.) Any other comments?
48
APPENDIX 2 – POST-‐UNIT STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE
Being in role – Post A Midsummer Night’s Dream Student Questionnaire
Please try and be specific in your answers, giving examples of things you have done in our English lessons wherever possible.
1.) Describe your feelings and attitudes towards doing in-‐role work now that we have finished studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Have your attitudes changed at all?
2.) Describe how you feel about the final Helena/Hermia diary entry that you produced. What were you pleased with? What could be better?
3.) Think back to some of the drama based activities we did around A Midsummer Night’s Dream (e.g. hot-‐seating Demetrius, Puck’s job application, Helena’s lonely hearts advertisement, Helena/Hermia diary entries, Oberon and Titania custody battle). Which of these, if any, did you enjoy and why? What do you feel you learnt from being in role during this activity? Be specific!
4.) Are there any other types of in-‐role work that you would have liked to have done whilst studying the play?
5.) Any other comments?
49
APPENDIX 3 – WRITING IN ROLE REVIEW/SELF-‐SUMMARY
Year 8: Writing in role review
Task: Describe your feelings before the task Describe your feelings during the task Describe your feelings after the task What do you think was the point of the task? How could the task be improved?
50
APPENDIX 4 – QUESTIONS USED IN THE ONLINE SURVEY COMPLETED BY HUMANITIES TEACHERS
1. What subject do you teach? Drama History Geography Religious Studies MFL Latin 2. For how many academic years have you been teaching? 2 years or less 3 to 5 years 5 to 10 years Over ten years 3. Writing in-‐role activities can be defined as activities used in the classroom where students take on the role of someone else and then produce writing from the perspective of that person. For example, ‘Imagine you are Juliet on the night that she meets Romeo – write a diary entry exploring your feelings after this event’, or ‘Write a letter to Rochester in-‐role as Jane Eyre explaining why you left Thornfield’. How often do you use these types of activities in the classroom (tailored to your subject)? Regularly (e.g. a few times per half term) Often (e.g. about once per half term) Sometimes (e.g. about once a term) Rarely Never
4. Please explain why you use these activities regularly / not so regularly.
5. With what classes do you use these types of in-‐role writing activities? Please tick all that apply. Key Stage 3 (Years 7, 8, 9) Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and 11) Key Stage 5 (AS/A2) None
6. What do you think could be the benefits of pupils writing in role? How might it aid their learning in your subject?
7. Have you noticed any differences in the writing that students produce when they are in role? Please consider length, vocabulary, style, engagement with the task etc.
51
APPENDIX 5 – RESULTS OF THE ONLINE SURVEY COMPLETED BY HUMANITIES TEACHERS
Q.1.) What subject do you teach? If you teach mulYple, please select your main
subject.
Drama (2)
History (5)
Geography (2)
Religious Studies (1)
MFL (4)
Laon (2)
Music (1)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
For 2 or less 3 to 5 years 5 to 10 years Over 10 years
Q.2.) For how many academic years have you been teaching?
52
Q.4.) Please explain why you use these types of activities regularly / not so regularly.
Teacher 1 We use them sometimes in History to enable the students to really understand a perspective that may not be the one they naturally agree with. For example writing a report advising Stalin on his Eastern European policy, or writing an account of a bonus marcher in the Great Depression. So it is good for the skill of empathy, and getting girls to fit the facts and context together-‐ thus testing their comprehension. However I don't use it a lot as it is quite time consuming and I use rarely at GCSE/almost never at A level-‐ I suppose I think it is too 'creative' and therefore 'childish', but now I am questioning myself!
Teacher 2 Perhaps not relevant to my subject? I would, however, ask a pupil to compose a piece of music 'in-‐role'. I may do this about once a term.
Teacher 3 To me they seem to be part of a broad-‐based approach to teaching History: they promote empathy which is a key historical skill; I prefer to use it as one of a range of techniques and methods.
Teacher 4 Ideal for Historical empathy, especially where injustice involved e.g. slavery.
Teacher 5 Owing to time restraints and the amount of
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Very regularly (e.g. a few
omes per half term)
Open (e.g. about once
per half term)
Someomes (e.g. about once a term)
Rarely (e.g. once a year)
Never
Q.3.) WriYng in-‐role acYviYes can be defined as acYviYes used in the classroom where students take on the role of someone else and then produce wriYng from the perspecYve of that person. How o\en do you use these types of acYviYes?
Number of teachers
53
grammar to cover I don't do it as often as I would like. However when I do, it is often to make the topic more interesting; i.e. write your daily routine in role as Rafa Nadal.
Teacher 6 They are good at engaging students in the text and at exploring character. We do not have literature at KS3 so I do more of this at KS4 and beyond but should perhaps do more in general.
Teacher 7 They allow students to show me how much insight they have into characters and their motivations, and also play around with writing in different voices, which is fun and creative!
Teacher 8 Increase of empathy, development of writing skills secures understanding of character development and themes.
Teacher 9 Empathy from different countries perspectives, or rural/urban perspectives, projection for the future about what the world be like such as impacts of climate change, different leaders or groups perspectives, role play follow up.
Teacher 10 There is often a great deal of concrete material to be covered (vocabulary / grammar) so we dedicate more time to these. In the summer term, KS3 students are offered more creative and cultural activities. Recently, some Year 9 girls did a presentation on King Juan Carlos and Frida Kahlo where one member of each group was that person, talking about their life.
Teacher 11 When we get time to do more creative activities in Latin I might do this sort of activity (one character defends himself in a law court speech in the underworld) and many of the stories in book 9 are written from 1st person perspective (practicing their 1st person and we verb endings mostly). It is by far easiest to include in-‐role activities during lessons on background -‐ sometimes we might also do these activities at GCSE/A Level as fun activities to get them more involved with the text e.g. Imagine you are Ovid -‐ explain why you have come to the races today/imagine you are Aeneas -‐ what do you think when you are fighting Turnus?
Teacher 12 It is not part of the MFL curriculum except maybe in KS4 when they sometimes write 'imagine...' but it is a story about themselves.
Teacher 13 Skipped question Teacher 14 It can lead to students drifting away from the
facts of History and writing a general piece of creative writing about feelings. They are best
54
when given guidance e.g. they have to include certain places/names/events as part of their narrative.
Teacher 15 I like using these activities particularly at KS3 because it forces the student to have a more holistic and expansive understanding of the context as well as the characterization. It also allows the students to examine other features of History and historical life which has not been taught. I tend not to use it as much with my KS5 classes because they feel as though it is a waste of time when actually all they need to do is learn the facts and then apply them to exam-‐style questions. I have attempted to do it though. I guess time is the real issue here.
Teacher 16 It is part of a variety of activities-‐ the girls quite like writing about themselves but it’s good to try being creative sometimes.
Teacher 17 To enable pupils to empathise with Geographic events (such as migration; natural hazards; poverty). It also provides an opportunity for differentiation.
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Key Stage 3 (Years 7 ,8 ,9)
Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and 11)
Key Stage 5 (AS/A2)
None
Q.5.) With what classes do you use these types of in-‐role wriYng acYviYes? Please Yck all that apply.
Number of teachers
55
Q.6.) What do you think could be the benefits of pupils writing in role? How might it aid their learning in your
subject?
Teacher 1 It would aid their understanding of a particular perspective, help with the skill of empathy, and also make them aware of the provenance of a historical account, as by them writing as a particular person, they are using the made up provenance to instruct their writing and viewpoint.
Teacher 2 To recognise musical features/terminology associated with writing in-‐role. To empathise with characters/music with a specific mood or meaning. For example, ‘imagine you are Beethoven composing a piece: what musical features and mood would he try to create?’
Teacher 3 I think it requires empathy with a range of individuals; and empathy is one very key way of understanding different interpretations & perspectives -‐ absolutely critical in History.
Teacher 4 It allows them to research the topic and understand the perspectives that different groups might bring to an historical event.
Teacher 5 Makes the topic more interesting, fun and engages them more with the subject. Makes them empathise with others more, understanding how people would feel/ act/ think/ their life be according to who they have chosen. Is excellent when the pupils don't want to write from their perspective if they are writing about a sensitive subject such as family, eating disorders etc. They will often need to find out new words which expands their vocabulary.
Teacher 6 Skipped question Teacher 7 If they can understand a character well
enough that they can describe an event from their perspective, and then do the same from another character's perspective, not only do they know the text well (and it often helps to make them think harder about it as, if they haven't thought about it in some detail, they won't have anything to write) but also develop a more empathetic and open-‐minded approach to the world around them (hopefully!)
Teacher 8 Yes, to secure understanding and develop sensitive analysis.
Teacher 9 Empathy, prediction of trends, superpower status, reflecting back at looking at actions to
56
take. Teacher 10 Strengthens key grammar, through repetition
of 'I' form (most commonly used in oral examinations); encourages them to use new vocab as it does not relate specifically to their life and world; allows them to develop confidence speaking another language 'behind' someone else's character.
Teacher 11 Gets the girls to think a little more widely about the characters and the plot/situation they are in. Some of the girls are very creative and thrive more on this kind of task rather than straight translation.
Teacher 12 Develop their imagination/ feel what other people might feel/ look at things from a different angle.
Teacher 13 Gain a better understanding of what is being taught -‐ can engage with the subject matter more.
Teacher 14 It could enhance their imagination about the past and make them more interested in what actually happened: it personalises events.
Teacher 15 As answered above it allows them to get a rich and deeper understanding of the period. I cannot teach them everything they need to know about the period so by writing in character they consider the untaught and unconsidered which then enhances their own understanding. Moreover, it allows them to empathise with situations and also take different perspectives from their own about events and people. Interpretation is very important in History and this type of activity allows students to see why people have different opinions.
Teacher 16 Helps creativity, means they can use more variety of language as they are not just talking about what they know.
Teacher 17 It provides an opportunity to develop SPAG and enables depth of understanding.
57
Q.7.) Have you noticed any differences in the writing that students produce when they are in role? Please
consider length, vocabulary, style, engagement with the task etc.
Teacher 1 It is longer, always in full sentences, can be quite wordy! For some, more eloquent than short fire more typical History questions.
Teacher 2 Students love writing music in-‐role! They think carefully about which musical features are appropriate for the role and recent compositions have been very good.
Teacher 3 In terms of what I'd call technical writing e.g. sentence structure, length -‐ no. In terms of vocabulary, yes; because it promotes the use of chronologically appropriate vocabulary from the period under study.
Teacher 4 Some pupils produce outstanding pieces which I tend not to see in their regular classwork. They all seem to enjoy these exercises and love reading them out loud to others.
Teacher 5 The length of the work will often be longer as they look up information and want to include everything they find out about the person. They also use new vocabulary and often produce more aesthetically pleasing work which shows they are engaged with the task.
Teacher 6 They often improve the speed of their ideas. However, they can be less specific at giving evidence for their characters opinions which is what is required for pupil examinations.
Teacher 7 Those that are crippled by the fear of analysis are much more engaged generally as ‘it's creative writing’ and therefore ‘doesn't count’, as it were, because they know they are not assessed formally on it, in end of year exams or GCSEs. Their vocabulary is much more natural, instead of them trying to sound sophisticated and actually not making sense as they sometimes do in analysis, but they are more likely to use words that they have seen in text to create a more authentic voice which means they still can have a go at varying their vocabulary. I regularly use stream of consciousness with in-‐role writing, which means putting pen to paper pretty quickly, and which means they are normally very engaged, and this generally tends to be the case anyway as, again, because it is creative and ‘not assessed’, or at least not as a
58
summative assessment, there is no ‘right answer’ so they feel less scared of it and can have a go without trying to recreate the ‘right answer’ or guess what the teacher wants or needs them to say to pass.
Teacher 8 It tends to be more informal in register and not use such technical expression, but has a wider function of developing their appreciation of the text.
Teacher 9 Added enjoyment and depth of research sometimes extended when writing as someone else!
Teacher 10 It tends to be oral work where they do this most. There is not much difference, to be honest, but it tends to rely more on dictionaries and websites (wordreference.com), so may be more adventurous in terms of vocabulary.
Teacher 11 Some students engage more readily with this type of task, but for others I get the impression they see it more as an easier/quicker Latin homework (i.e. not translation and vocabulary learning) so don't always put as much effort in to the tasks. When I set these sorts of tasks there is always a big variety in the work that the girls produce -‐ some really go for it, others not so much!
Teacher 12 Not seen enough to comment about. Teacher 13 Students tend to enjoy the activity more when
they are in role. Teacher 14 Many students use some of the techniques
learned from English, such as metaphors and similes. This is very different to their standard answers in History. They can get carried away and write LOTS of detail, e.g. a diary entry from a soldier in the trenches becomes a whole series of letters and diary entries.
Teacher 15 Students are much more verbose when they write in role. Whilst it can be a little silly at times, on the whole they do develop and engage with their ideas more. The vocabulary can be a bit of an issue as they try to write in a historical style or more colloquial style which is not entirely helpful. But again because they have created a character they feel much more attached and so they are inclined to develop their ideas more.
Teacher 16 They are more engaged often and more ambitious with their choice of vocabulary, sometimes at the cost of accuracy. They usually write about the same amount. Some pupils are less engaged than when they write about themselves.
59 Teacher 17 Greater development than comprehension
style questions.
60
APPENDIX 6 – INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH, HEAD OF ENGLISH Key to colour coding of transcriptions References to positive comments about in-‐role work e.g. enjoyment, engagement, enthusiasm, confidence References to assessing understanding or gauging empathy References to creativity, imagination and freedom References to developing writing skills and vocabulary References to assessment or examinations References to the limitations or unbeneficial nature of in-‐role work
LW: Do you or have you used writing in role before and with which classes? Elizabeth: Yeah I have used writing in role almost exclusively with Key Stage 3 classes. I’d like to be able to use it further up the school as well as it may be useful at Key Stage 4. But you know time constraints mean that it is difficult to include in the schemes of work and tailor it or make it completely linked to the assessment objectives to mean it is a productive enough use of classroom time. LW: Yeah so why do you think it works best with Key Stage 3? Elizabeth: I think it can encourage a reading of characters as ‘real people’ if not used correctly so the more analytical focus of Key Stage 4 makes it harder to make productive. However, saying that at Key Stage 3 I think it enables students to understand and engage with ideas of narrative perspective and its importance as well as enabling an engagement with characterisation, allowing them to ‘get under the skin’ of a particular character. LW: Yeah definitely Elizabeth: Exactly, it’s also a useful tool in developing an understanding of the writer’s linguistic choices, for example how they create a ‘voice’ for a character or character’s perspective and can enable a more subtle appreciation of a writer’s ‘style’. LW: So do you regularly use writing in role in the classroom? How often? Elizabeth: I suppose I don’t use it ‘regularly’ but perhaps once in a particular unit of work. Chains for Year 7 I’ve done things like write from a different character’s narrative perspective to develop more sophisticated appreciation of the impact of narrative perspective. And with Private Peaceful for Year 7, tasks like write a letter as Tommo. LW: Yes Elizabeth: Oh and always with Romeo and Juliet for Year 9, things like write to an agony aunt as Romeo and then write the agony aunt’s reply. LW: Great Elizabeth: and a context opportunity for different Elizabethan attitudes to love and relationships in the agony aunt’s reply as well there! LW: Indeed. Anything else? Elizabeth: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry for Year 8, writing as a character other than the narrator to explore different perspectives on the same event. LW: Great so when you set these types of writing in role tasks, how do the students commonly react, like are they excited or reluctant etcetera? How do they behave during the task? Elizabeth: They are generally excited but I think the task has to be pitched correctly and varied in the type of form/purpose provided. If it’s always ‘write a diary entry in character as X’ then students tend to feel they are ‘beyond’ this type of activity by the time they get to Year 10. However, I think writing in role can be used to stretch and challenge as well as be a comfortable task for those who find analysis harder. Whenever I have used writing in role students take it seriously and remain engaged and focused throughout the duration of the task. LW: Can you give me an example? Elizabeth: A specific example would be getting Year 9 to write in role as Romeo in the form of an agony aunt letter exploring his difficulties. I think this activity needs careful setting up, for
61 example, emphatic focus on the form/purpose/style required and stretch and challenge expectation of students using their own literary devices based on the ‘style’ of Romeo’s speech. Like oxymorons and vivid imagery to explore his views on love. Otherwise they do tend to just retell the plot but from Romeo’s perspective. However, when set up with precision, students got a great deal out of this task in terms of an appreciation of Romeo’s character as well as Shakespeare’s stylistic choices to evoke Romeo’s views on love and how they change. LW: So would you say this is an example of a time when you used writing in role and it was a real success? I suppose I mean in terms of the quality of the work produced and in terms of content and understanding. Elizabeth: Yes, the students in Year 9 were able to write with great fluency and confidence when asked to write a letter about their problems in role as Romeo at the end of Act 1 Scene 2. Because the task was scaffolded carefully with clear expectations about the style of the letter, which needed to integrate particular linguistic features to convincingly convey Romeo’s ‘voice’. For example, HOW he talks about love as well as what he says about it. The resultant letters not only showed understanding of Romeo’s attitudes towards Rosaline and his perspective on love but also how Shakespeare uses language to reveal his confusion. Some less able students simply took Shakespeare’s own language and turned it into a ‘modern’ version but more able students were able to deploy their own creative choices in a fitting style. LW: Great, I’ll have to try that one! Anything else? Elizabeth: Yes the Year 7 students writing in role as a character other than the narrator in Chains were able to produce writing which displayed an appreciation of the influence of narrative perspective on how an event is portrayed. By focusing very precisely on a particular moment or key event in the novel, students were able to show awareness of the language changes and change of tone necessary for a different perspective on the same event. In some cases, this showed very sensitive understanding of related contextual background we have discussed in class as well as mimicking the writer’s stylistic conventions such as dialect when using direct speech. LW: So hypothetically, in a world where we teachers set the curriculum, do you think writing in role could be used as a way of assessing students’ understanding of literature? Like in an exam or controlled assessment? Elizabeth: Yes but it would need to be very clear what the assessment focus was. For example, an appreciation of writer’s style/the significance and impact of narrative perspective/understanding of character etc… as there is a danger that less able students would regurgitate the plot of the text through the voice of a character if the question was phrased poorly.
62
APPENDIX 7 – INTERVIEW WITH EMILY, ENGLISH DEPARTMENT COLLEAGUE
Key to colour coding of transcriptions References to positive comments about in-‐role work e.g. enjoyment, engagement, enthusiasm, confidence References to assessing understanding or gauging empathy References to creativity, imagination and freedom References to developing writing skills and vocabulary References to assessment or examinations References to the limitations or unbeneficial nature of in-‐role work
LW: So have you used writing in role before and with which classes? Emily: I have used writing in role with Year 7 this year, and previously with Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 at my old school. I think it works best with Key Stage 3 when trying to understand character and motive, often in relation to studying a novel, and this year when studying ‘Poetry and Painting’ for monologues and characterisation. I’ve also used it when teaching War Poetry to Year 9 this year. LW: So how often roughly? Emily: I would say that I use writing in role, on average, once or twice per half term. LW: What about with older learners? Emily: I think it works less well with Key Stage 5 although I’ve never actually tried it so I might be wrong! But I imagine that the task is not sophisticated enough for the text being studied. LW: So what do you think students get out of it? Is it an important strategy? Emily: Definitely. I think writing in role is useful for understanding of character, motivation, empathy. It can be used to develop students’ understanding of the first person, subjective narrative voice, solipsism and so on. LW: and do your learners generally like these types of activities? Emily: I think students really enjoy writing in role when producing letters, diary entries etc. I think they can sometimes be tricked into not realising they are doing proper work as it is creative and fun. In this sense I think it shares a lot with drama activities in terms of learning through fun and creativity. LW: Can you give me an example of an instance of this? Emily: Yeah I used writing in role successfully in conjunction with hot-‐seating while studying An Inspector Calls at GCSE. Students had to hot-‐seat all the main characters about their involvement in the death of Eva Smith. Questions from the class had to incorporate quotations from the text, as did the answers. Students could then choose to write a diary entry in-‐role, using quotations from the text, about their feelings about being questioned, their guilt or innocence and feelings for Eva Smith. I think it helped them to understand important characters and themes in the play and to learn and incorporate quotations. LW: So you’ve said these types of activities can be successful when used with students higher up the school, like at GCSE, so do you ultimately think that writing in role could be used as a way of assessing students’ understanding of literature for example in an exam, or controlled assessment? In a hypothetical world where we get to decide what is in the exams I mean. Emily: Yes I do think it is an excellent way to assess understanding so yes definitely. Having said that, it is harder to write about language I would say so it would depend on the assessment objectives of the exam. It always comes back to that.
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APPENDIX 8 – INTERVIEW WITH STUDENTS (1): Delilah, Mary, Isamu and Ashanti
Key to colour coding of transcriptions References to positive comments about in-‐role work e.g. enjoyment, engagement, enthusiasm, confidence References to assessing understanding or gauging empathy References to creativity, imagination and freedom References to developing writing skills and vocabulary References to assessment or examinations References to the limitations or unbeneficial nature of in-‐role work
LW: Ok right ladies so first of all, I’d like you to tell me, when I set a writing in role task, so something like erm, write a diary entry in-‐role as Hermia after her fight with Helena as an example, how do you feel when I set something like that? What are your reactions? Mary: I really like it because you get to imagine that you are there and you are them and that you can just drift off so you can be far more detailed and be imaginative. Isamu: yeah I agree with Mary I like it as well cause you can get into the character and you can understand their feelings and their thoughts or what they feel like. LW: what do you mean by ‘get into the character’? Isamu: errr like to understand what it’s like to be them. Because it’s in first person it is just easier to write about them as if you are them. LW: ok yeah right so if I said write as yourself, so Delilah ‘I am Delilah -‐ I am doing this and then I did this…’ compared to write as a character from the story, what’s the differences with those? Is it easier to write as yourself or easier to write as a kind of character from a story? Delilah: I think it’s easier to write as a character from a story because I’m kind of embarrassed to write as myself in case I start flattering myself and none of it’s true and when you’re writing as a character you can be glad as it’s a lot easier to like understand how they feel in certain situations. Errrm whereas if it’s yourself you don’t really fit in, if you’re writing like in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and you’re a character in A Midsummer Night’s Dream it’s not exactly like you’re going to fit into the situation like with a love triangle I wouldn’t know. But if you’re writing as a character from within the story you can get to know the plot and your storyline and what might happen next. LW: hmm and maybe makes it a bit less like a bit less personal than if you’re writing as yourself sometimes it’s a bit hard because well you don’t want to go over the top or say something that’s not true. Delilah: Yeah. LW: Ok. Any other ideas? Ashanti: I think it’s easier to write as a character because all of the different characters have different personalities depending on what kind of a story they are in. So that might not necessarily match with your personality if you’re trying to write as yourself in that situation and then you might be thinking to yourself well I wouldn’t really do this so why am I putting myself in this situation. LW: umm hmm Ashanti: It’s easier to kind of go into depth with that character if they’re from the actual story. LW: Great excellent ok, so tell me a little bit about the work you’ve produced recently, so the diary entries that you’ve written. Tell me how you felt about them, are you happy with what you wrote, did you enjoy the task or is there anything you’d change? Just sort of how you feel about things. Isamu: I think I did quite well and I really enjoyed the task because I got to write in first person but if I was able to change anything I would make it longer because one page for two diary entries was a bit short. LW: so you felt a bit restricted?
64 Isamu: Yeah I could have gone on but I thought I can’t cause I need to end the thing now. LW: and did you find the descriptive writing easier, harder, ok? Isamu: yeah I think it was easier and I mean you could use work from other tasks like the insults / name one and that helped cause I could include that in my diary entry. LW: Brilliant, excellent. Mary? Mary: I really liked this task because you can be really original with the images and take your own twist on what you thought they were thinking. And I liked that. LW: I agree. Delilah: I would have said exactly the same thing. I was happy with what I did and erm I really liked the activity because I thought again it was a good way to get into the story and the characters and I liked it. I was excited when you told us that we were going to do that. LW: Good so how about, well for this end of unit we did something like this whereas normally we do PEE essays so how did you feel doing this task in-‐role compared to something like an essay on Romantic poetry or work we’ve done before? Isamu you’ve got something to say about this because you’ve told me before that you like PEE and that’s fine so what do you think? Isamu: yeah even though I like PEE I still think diary entries in-‐role as creative writing is still really fun to do because it is interesting and fun to do something else as well. And yeah I think it’s equally as fun. LW: do you think it’s equally as useful? Does it help you to learn? Ashanti: I really think it is because when you do PEE you can get like overcomplicated with following that structure and everything and you don’t actually take a moment to think about the character so doing this is much more free and creative and you can kind of just get into the character and try and understand them and just be free of that structure. LW: so are you saying you feel a bit more liberated and have a bit more freedom than following that particular structure? Ok, Isamu you look like you’re thinking. Isamu: yes cause for this you can write whatever you want but when you’re doing PEE you have to write about something else that the other person has written and like comment on that. But with this you can write anything, whatever you want. Mary: I prefer writing creatively in role but I think writing essays is probably more useful when you think about it like they’ve done this because of this. And it sort of helps you to understand it a bit more. But I don’t always find it fun. LW: yeah and do you think as you get older and move up the school, probably more of the writing you will do, particularly at GCSE and A Level, a lot of it is essay based and PEE so do you think things like this would get a bit boring and less fun and maybe not as serious the older you get or do you think you can still make a writing in role thing fun and useful whether you’re at A Level or GCSE or is it just because you’re in Year 8 do you think? That’s a hard question! Ashanti: I think like you should probably do it before you do an essay like as a preparation. LW: that’s a good idea. Ashanti: and I think it helps you to understand the characters so first do something like that and then afterwards you can write an essay about them or something. LW: good idea I like that. Isamu: you can write an essay about what you wrote. Like in Year 7 we did some in-‐role writing and then we had to write about our thing. LW: ah like a commentary? Mary: yeah to go with the letter Isamu: yeah like ‘I wrote a simile because I wanted this effect’ blah LW: wow well actually you do stuff like that in A Level Language so cool. Ok tell me what you think the benefits of this kind of writing has, how does it help you to learn? You said some things about seeing from the characters’ point of view, anything else, any other ideas? Isamu: you can use lots of devices so like you have a chance to use similes and metaphors but like sometimes you can’t in other pieces of work LW: so maybe the writing you write is a bit richer?
65 Isamu: Yeah and more descriptive LW: good anything else. [Long pause] What about in other subjects, any other subjects where you do anything where you’re writing in role in other subjects? Isamu: Latin LW: give me an example of the erm the type of thing you might do in Latin. Isamu: well for the end of year exam you had to do one section where you had to write either as a slave or as a gladiator or somebody going to the theatre and it was first person so you had to like use your knowledge but you had to write it in first person as a diary entry. LW: so to show off your details about what you know about that time period or something, ok. Any others? What about History maybe? Ashanti: Yeah we do loads in History especially when we were doing the Slave Trade and stuff like that. We were doing diary entries about what it’s like to be a slave and what it’s like to be segregated. LW: hmm anything else, Geography? Delilah: ummm once we did like a role-‐play that was already written out in the text book of people that were living by the coast and had to build some different coastal defences but apart from that not really anything LW: ok. Mary: once we had to be a cloud. LW: a cloud? Isamu: Yeah like a water particle! LW: wow! What about RS as well? I know I get my class to do stuff like imagine you are Moses parting the Red Sea. Mary: we did more in Year 7. LW: oh the revelations and the burning bush? Isamu: yeah and we did one this year about going on the Hajj. Delilah: oh yeah explain to your boss why you need time off to go on Hajj. LW: so do you think you do more in English? All: yes. LW: and is that good, is that not good, would you like to do more in other subjects as well or…be honest. Ashanti: I think I’d like to do more in other subjects cause it’s better than just answering questions from the textbook cause it makes you think more about what you’re doing and it’s more creative. LW: yes ok so you get to kind of show off your language skills a bit more. Delilah: well it depends how you learn and what subject it is cause if you’re doing Maths and then you’re like imagine you are a trapezium so we can work out the area and we will pretend to be lots of numbers that might not work! Isamu: I’d love that. We did one in Science where you had to pretend you were a particle. LW: oh right ok and did that work? Isamu: Yeah cos if you were a solid you had to like move really slow and when you were a gas you were like running around the room. LW: so if it’s a bit more active drama and you’re moving then do you think then that helps you to remember it more afterwards because you can think back to that activity rather than just oh I can’t remember what I wrote on that day. Isamu: yeah LW: ok so how do you feel when we’ve done short things in class like the Puck job application or other diary entries for ‘Roll of Thunder’ or stuff like that, how do you feel when I don’t give you very long and you’ve only got like ten minutes to write a paragraph or something, how do you feel when you read over your work normally? When you’re proof reading and about to read it out? Mary: I normally sit there and think argh cause it might not be good if you’ve only had ten minutes.
66 LW: ok Isamu: then you hear other people’s and you think what mine is so bad compared to theirs. Delilah: I’m always surprised how people write so well under pressure LW: well I think that about you four though. When I give you ten minutes and you write beautiful things. Isamu: I think when you write it yourself you think it’s really good and then you listen to other people and then you’re a bit more critical. LW: is it different tell me, when you hear people reading out their diary entries rather than reading out their PEE paragraphs? Ashanti: yeah it’s way more interesting LW: why is it more interesting? Ashanti: because the paragraphs are all more or less the same. They have the same structure and lots of them have the same opening and everything but with in-‐role writing you can see how everyone has done the task differently and everyone’s different takes on whoever it is and different devices used and stuff like that. That’s more interesting and you can kind of take the stuff they’ve done and kind of use it as your own. LW: yeah excellent as a starting point. I think honestly for me it’s a bit more interesting reading things like diary entries rather than reading as you say, 30 examples of the same thing. So do you feel a bit more proud perhaps of a piece of work like that as opposed to an essay you might do in timed conditions. Delilah: they are harder to write so I’d probably feel prouder of myself if I wrote a really, really good essay under timed conditions than a diary entry because with a diary entry you can pretty much make it all up and it will be fine as long as it has some relevance to the story you’re basing it on. So like in A Midsummer Night’s Dream you can talk about the twinkly trees and things flying around. LW: So you think it is easier then? Delilah: yes LW: do you think it’s less academic? Delilah: no LW: why? Delilah: It takes skill but its different skills. Easier skills to develop. Creative skills. Ashanti: but it’s hard to teach yourself to be creative. Mary: I suppose with books and stuff you can. Delilah: I feel like I’m saying everything wrong. LW: No no no not at all, I want your opinions. Yeah that’s very interesting can you teach yourself to be creative or are you just naturally born creative? Mary: you could read Isamu: yeah read Mary: read a load of different books that you wouldn’t normally read and learn more new words and think yeah I could use that that’s quite cool Isamu: and also travelling if you travel you get more experiences you can draw on. LW: yeah explore different cultures and different sights and stuff like that. [School bell rings] Great excellent I think that’s enough, thanks so much ladies.
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APPENDIX 9 – INTERVIEW WITH STUDENTS (2): Natasha, Alexandra, Anna and Cara
Key to colour coding of transcriptions References to positive comments about in-‐role work e.g. enjoyment, engagement, enthusiasm, confidence References to assessing understanding or gauging empathy References to creativity, imagination and freedom References to developing writing skills and vocabulary References to assessment or examinations References to the limitations or unbeneficial nature of in-‐role work
LW: Hello ladies, welcome. Right ok so talk to me about writing in role and when I set tasks like write a diary entry as Helena or Hermia, how do you feel when I set that type of stuff? Initially what are your first kinds of reactions? Natasha: well I prefer writing in role because you like get to grips with the character’s characteristics and personality rather than writing an essay about them. LW: what do you mean by ‘get to grips with it’? Natasha: like you can decide what to write because you’re the character. Alexandra: it gives you an understanding of their emotions and how they feel at that particular point in the story. LW: ok Alexandra: so like if they’re angry at someone else or whether they’re like ‘oh no Demetrius, please come back!’ You can control it. LW: So you can put yourself in their shoes? Alexandra: Yeah you can control it and see their point of view. LW: so why’s that easier or better than writing an essay? Anna: it’s just easier because then you can like see it’s like you putting in the emotions based on how you think the character would be feeling so then it’s like saying oh she’s obviously angry at this bit so this is how I would write it instead of writing about how another person would write it. LW: ok Cara: also if you’re writing an essay it can be quite repetitive whereas if you’re writing in role you can kind of change it to how you want it to be. LW: hmm so you can be more varied. Is it easier do you think to imagine you’re someone else rather than imagining you’re yourself? So say I was like write a diary entry about you or imagine you are Helena. All: yes LW: ok so you’ve all said yes automatically, why? Natasha: Because there’s no right or wrong. Because it’s you writing about them. LW: Umm. But what if it’s you writing about you? Like writing in first person as Alexandra? Alexandra: it’s just harder because you don’t know how to respond to that you go ‘oh I really want to write this but I’m not feeling like that’, so it’s harder for you to write what you want to, you have to write what you’re feeling. LW: ok Alexandra: and you might be feeling angry that day when the character in the story is supposed to be happy. Your emotions can change really quickly. Natasha: yeah it changes LW: ok I like that. Erm ok what do you feel about some of the in-‐role work that we’ve done, so things like your diary entries, things like the Puck job interview, Helena when she needed a boyfriend and the placing of the advert and so on. Are you proud of some of this work you’ve written, do you think it’s alright, are you happy with it, not so happy with it?
68 Anna: I really liked the one about writing for Helena and Hermia’s boyfriends because it was fun and it was different so it was a different challenge to writing an essay because if we were writing an essay we would just be analysing the quotes. This puts a fun spin on it. LW: good Cara: I enjoyed the Puck thing because you could kind of think about where Puck came from and his back-‐story. LW: yes you had some fun with that and played around with that, yeah good stuff. Alexandra: I quite enjoyed the diary entry because with the diary entry in class we did those insults where we made up the Shakespearian insults so if you’re Helena you can just throw the insults in and make it fun and creative. Natasha: yeah and it makes it funnier as well. LW: Yeah. How do you feel in class if I say ‘oh you’ve got ten minutes to write a diary entry or something in role’ and then you read it back and then before you read it to the class how do you feel when you’re proof-‐reading your work? How do you feel about what you’ve written and then maybe compared to if we’d have done a PEE paragraph and I say ‘right, proof-‐read that and then we are going to hear some examples’. Do you feel the same? Natasha: I feel like urrrgh I don’t like writing PEE Alexandra: I hate writing PEE paragraphs LW: why? Alexandra: because you have to have that structure and if you don’t you get marked down Natasha: yeah you get it wrong Alexandra: but if you’re writing a diary entry it doesn’t have to have any structure you can start it how you want, you can finish it how you want, you can put in what you like as long as it’s relevant to the topic. LW: yeah Alexandra: it’s free writing. Anna: and it can be a bit scary reading out your own work about your diary entry even though it’s fun to do you could be like you’re exposing how you write. LW: so it feels more personal maybe? Anna: and then if you’re analysing something it’s like there’s only one idea. LW: Ok so that’s interesting so would you be more reluctant to read out a PEE paragraph or a piece of in-‐role writing? Cara: PEE definitely. Natasha: I would prefer to read my diary entry. Alexandra: yeah same. Natasha: yeah like with reviews you either like it or you don’t but with a diary entry you can play around with it. LW: put in what you want? Natasha: Yeah Anna: I preferred doing a diary entry as well. Cara: Yeah because you can kind of change it to how you want it to be whereas with a PEE paragraph it’s kind of if you listen to all of them then it can be a bit dull because they all sound the same. Alexandra: yeah because they all have the same sort of points. You know that if you’ve found a point or a quote then someone else has probably seen it and written it down as well whereas a diary entry is in your imagination. LW: so it gets boring hearing all of them ok. What about what do you think you learn from doing this kind of in-‐role writing? So you said it lets you be a bit more creative and think from the character’s shoes, do you think you learn anything else? [Long pause] It’s a hard question. Alexandra: well sometimes I learn more vocabulary because when I want to use a word I go to the thesaurus and find another word so I learn more vocabulary writing creatively whereas with essays you have to use all of the terminology. And if you’re reading your work out to the class you want to sound more sophisticated and everything so you might use long words and
69 descriptive words so that you go and learn more words and use them later on in life or when you’re doing an exam. So yeah in-‐role writing helps me learn more vocabulary which is what I need to learn. LW: good stuff, anything else? Natasha: I think that erm when writing a PEE paragraph I sometimes learn more from that. LW: why’s that? Natasha: I think it’s because. Oh I’m not sure actually. I can’t remember. LW: have a think, we’ll come back to you. Anyone else? Anna: like Alexandra says you learn more vocabulary and also I think writing as someone helps me to learn spelling better because I write it out and I’m not on the computer. LW: so no spell-‐check Cara: yeah it corrects anything that’s wrong so you don’t really learn from it you just click. LW: yes that’s the downside. Natasha have you remembered what you were going to say? Natasha: it’s because I find, I don’t know why I just find PEE paragraphs more difficult so I like to challenge myself. LW: ok yeah. So maybe if you write a perfect PEE paragraph you feel more proud as you think wow that’s really hard but I’ve done it really well. Ok do you think erm we should do more of this type in-‐role writing in English or are you happy with the way it is or do you think we should do less? Alexandra you’re saying yes. Alexandra: I think we should do like one more in a unit because with A Midsummer Night’s Dream we just left it and I’d like to get to the end of it doing more in role rather than just analysing the book. LW: ok and usually your end of unit assessments are essays so do you think we should have a mixture? Natasha: yeah more in-‐role as assessment not just essays. Cara: I think we do the right amount. LW: so as you get higher up the years and move towards GCSEs and things do you think this type of in-‐role writing isn’t then going to be much use for exams? Alexandra: yeah but I think it would still be better that while we can do it we should do and make it so that if we ever have to write a creative in-‐role piece we can think ‘yeah I can do that because we did it in Year 8’. Natasha: yeah otherwise you would just get so bored of writing essays. Anna: I’d prefer to do in-‐role pieces in exams. LW: yeah and sometimes that can be really hard, trying to write something in the same way an author has done it and trying to write from a character’s point of view in the same way that an author has, that’s really difficult to try and mimic that writer sometimes. What about in any other subjects do you do stuff like this? I was asking the other girls last week and they said that sometimes in things like Latin you have to write as a gladiator in Roman times for example. Anna: in History we did stuff. Natasha: Yeah pretending to be someone who was racist like with slavery. LW: so you’ve done a lot? Anna: yeah like slaves on a ship and then them going into a white household and we did mini-‐plays to the class too. LW: so why do you think your teacher is making you do that, making you do it in role? Cara: probably to relate to the people who were actually in it. Because it can be quite difficult to empathise otherwise. Natasha: yeah a lot of the sources we read were diary entries as well. LW: ok so yes you might read them and sympathise with their situation. Any other subjects? Cara: maybe a bit in RS like some role-‐plays about different religions. LW: like imagine you have to ask your boss for time off for the Hajj? All: oh yes! Alexandra: oh yes we did that too.
70 LW: right ok we are running out of time, are there any other comments? Alexandra: I wouldn’t want to do diary entries or just in role all the time because like with everything if you did just that all the time in all subjects it would get boring. LW: oh exactly, oh no you need to mix it up. Natasha: would it be possible to write a persuasive diary entry in role? LW: ermm yes I suppose you could do like combine persuasive language techniques and skills in a different format and write from someone else’s perspective. Two different things in one. Natasha: yeah you could try that. LW: yes maybe I will! Ok thank you ladies.
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APPENDIX 10 – SAMPLES OF A STUDENT’S WRITTEN WORK: ESTHER Here Esther writes in role as Helena at contrasting stages of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 1 Scene 1 and Act 3 Scene 2). 21st June 1585 Dear Diary, I cannot explain the fury inside of me when I see lovers together, holding hands, embarrassing one another and exchanging their love. If only Demetrius could see how my heart urges for his love, his attention. I will throw my love upon him. How much I would cherish his love but the more I love, the more he hateth me!
Right now my stomach is churning. The thought of Hermia and Demetrius being together sickens me. Hermia, Oh Hermia! Never as fair as I. How she sticks her nose in the sky when Demetrius is nearby. She doesn’t appreciate his love towards her, instead she curses him blind. I spoke to her today. How does she not know the luck that has come to her? DEMETRIUS young, dark, dashing Demetrius. Oh why does the course of true love never run smooth! Demetrius clearly can’t see that the way he feels for Hermia is how I wish to express my love for him. I would be a dog, I would change my whole personality just to receive one kind look from him. I LOVE everything about him. The way he strides like a King or a lion, the leader of the pack. But he hates me, puts me down and frowns upon my affections for him but my love is everlasting. The more he announces his hate towards me, the stronger my love gets! How can’t he see how much he really means to me? Obviously he thinks little of me, despises me in fact. Yet I am the bad one? Helena xxx
25th June 1585 Dear Diary, ‘Juggler! Cankerblossom!’ Do you hear those hurtful words? They came from the mouth of that acorn! Yes, HERMIA! My so-‐called friend (we’ve had a falling out). She mocked me just to rub my loneliness in my face. I am just infuriated! She may be short but she is feisty and her words just highlight how unlovable I am. ‘Oh Helena, the one no man will ever love! Oh Helena, that desperate dog begging at the heels of Demetrius!’ That’s what people think about me. Even my own friend! I feel antagonised, completely caught up in my anger, rage and feelings like a storm that won’t stop battering those it falls on. What actually happened was that I was worried sick about those two love birds Hermia and Lysander so I went into the dark, dangerous forest. I was about to give up when I happened upon Lysander. I could not be more relieved because I had feared them both dead but, guess what? He awoke confessing his love for me! Then…Demetrius came along and did the same! But before I could enjoy that luxury along came Hermia hurling abuse as fowl as hell. It was clearly a set-‐up. Both men pretending they loved me just to mock me and point out how much I cannot be loved. She calls me a juggler yet how can I juggle what I do not have? Why does nobody see that it is I who is the victim, why me… why am I so desperate. Am I not worthy of love? Helena xxx
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APPENDIX 11 – LETTER OF CONSENT TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS
29th January 2014
Dear Parents, I am writing to inform you about a research project that I am carrying out this year as part of my part-‐time Masters Degree in Teaching at The Institute of Education, London. I would like to request your permission to allow your daughter to be involved in my investigation, which is exploring how in-‐role drama activities, particularly writing in role, can develop students’ writing in English. My research project will not affect your daughters’ English lessons in any way. We will still follow the same scheme of work as other Year 8 classes and students’ class and homework activities will be the same. I am interested in exploring what sort of learning develops out of writing in role. I will be collecting evidence of students’ written work and making observations in a journal, using this as my data. All data will be stored securely and confidentially in line with the school’s policies. The information collected as part of this research project will be made completely anonymous and pseudonyms will be adopted. My findings will be available in a summary once the research is complete. This research is purely for my own professional development. Please note that your daughter's participation in this research project is completely voluntary and your consent may be withdrawn at any stage. If you do not want your daughter to be included in this research, please complete and return the consent form below and her data will not be used in my investigation. If you do not return this form, then I will assume that your child can be involved in the research project. If you have any questions about my research or would like any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Yours faithfully, Miss L. Wheeler Teacher of English _______________________________________________________________________ Please complete and return to Miss Wheeler by Monday 10th February if you do NOT want your child to participate in this research project. Name of student: _______________________________ Form group: I do NOT want my child to be involved in this research project about working in-‐role. Signature: ________________________________________ Date: Please note: If this form is not returned I will assume that your child does have permission to participate in this research project.
