Mother Grin’s Village: A Creative Drama Program
Date
2008-05
Authors
Raty, Julie H.
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Abstract
This paper was written to demonstrate how creative drama programs can promote effective communication skills in children. People of today must be able to deal with multifaceted societal issues. These situations will require interaction with many persons of diverse backgrounds. By examining the usefulness of creative drama in relation to conflict resolution, the facilitator intends to demonstrate that it is an appropriate source to develop programs that address interpersonal communication. Using resources such as The Bully Proof Project (Michell) and approaches acquired from creative drama classes as catalysts, the facilitator chose to create Mother Grin’s Village: A Creative Drama Program. In this program, children utilized fairy tales and rhymes to develop alternative solutions to apply to miscommunication. The stories of The Old Woman in the Shoe, the Three Little Pigs, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears, were chosen as the conflict scenarios and a proposal was presented to a local home school cooperative. An initial storytelling component was used to begin to acquaint the elementary age children with the upcoming curriculum and the facilitator. Additional helpers were garnered to assist and training sessions were conducted to prepare for incorporating such creative drama strategies as side-coaching, group process, and evaluation into the event. The actual creative drama day consisted of vocal and physical warm-ups, large group discussion and small group playing of the scenarios. Using creative drama tactics participants explored alternative means of resolving conflict and demonstrated how programs such as this can be used to encourage valuable communication skills in children.
Description
Keywords
creative, drama, communication, conflict, resolution, group, process, facilitator, Honors College
Citation
Raty, J. H. (2008). Mother Grin’s Village: A creative drama program (Unpublished thesis). Texas State University-San Marcos, San Marcos, Texas.