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IMPROVING LITERACY PEDAGOGY AND OUTCOMES THROUGH THE CREATIVE ARTS

Karen Crawford, Jackie Ireland,

Doug Neale, Jenny Pickering,
Carla Rathmell, Janelle Warhurst & Gretel Watson

Abstract

This presentation reports on an action learning research project at Curl Curl North Primary School in
suburban Sydney. Funded by ALEA over 2008, the project aims to improve students’ literacy outcomes
through the use of authentic literary texts, a ‘repertoire of pedagogical practices’ Louden, et al, 2006) and
immersion in the Creative Arts.

Creators of literature as an art form (Gleeson 2007 in PEN p4) acknowledge “The whole point is to open
the mind, to enlarge the experience, to broaden the horizon of the reader.” The purpose of this research is
to demonstrate that an integrated program of Creative Arts with authentic literary texts has the potential to
improve student learning outcomes in each stage of primary school.

Creative Arts and Critical Literacy both require students to “develop knowledge of and learn to ‘read’ the
conventions of the symbol systems used in the art forms to communicate and exchange ideas about the
world “(Creative Arts Syllabus, NSW BOS 2001). Each literacy activity has been planned with the view to
using elements from the NSW model of pedagogy (2003) particularly deep understanding, substantive
communication and social support. Benchmarking and assessment for and of learning has been undertaken
through the use of a range of authentic talking and listening, reading and writing tasks. In addition in each
of the case study classrooms a small group of students has been profiled at various stages over the year.

Four of the teachers engaged in the project will share their professional learning stories and those of
colleagues who have been involved. The presenters will share their questions and dilemmas as well as their
successes during their endeavour to raise student literacy standards and counter the ongoing unproductive
political rhetoric about poor literacy pedagogy.

“We do not know who we are until we know what we can do. That should be the job of education” Dr
Ken Robinson 2008

Critical Literacy and Creative Arts

Dr Ken Robinson, a leading UK advocate of the Arts in education, emphasises that “creativity is as
important as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.” It could be argued that if we foster
creativity we are empowering our students to interpret and truly appreciate what it means to be literate.

Recently Margaret Throsby interviewed Shaun Tan the artist and author on Radio National. Their
discussion highlighted art as the transformation of an idea, subject or concept by an artist. A concept is
connected with the world and its meaning. In this way we as educators can view the Creative Arts not as
separate subjects but tools for learning about other curriculum areas because young children draw and
imagine intuitively.

All forms of Art which Tan believes “work on the heel of other artists” need time for exploration,
experimentation and play. A person copying an artwork at an exhibition explains Tan is observing the
details through the marks he or she is making on the page. He likens himself to a sculptor who is
continually removing clay to create a masterpiece.

Tan also believes that when he is given a creative assignment such as story to write or a drawing to do
some guidelines or boundaries about the task help him to solve the puzzle or problem. As teachers we can
reflect on this in terms of scaffolding creative activities for students.

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Using the Arts we can delve more deeply into the meaning of the creator, ourselves and our society. We are
giving students the tools in this way to ‘see’ and understand what they experience in literacy lessons.
‘Critical literacy approaches are based on the belief that effective use of language requires people to
explore the assumptions and perspectives, both stated and unstated, on which texts are constructed…These
approaches reject passive acceptance of texts at face value. Instead they require students to view a text
from a variety of perspectives and to interpret various levels of meaning.’ Queensland Department of
Education1994:2

In essence this research proposal was crystallized after hearing a paper by Libby Gleeson “Places to play:
story as an adventure playground” (2006) which was first given at Sydney University Future Directions
Conference Gleeson’s ideas are based on the notion of students playing, questioning and imagining in the
world of the Creative Arts of which literature is a part. Gleeson’s ideas compliment the work of Ewing and
Simons (2004), Tan (2006) demonstrating how important it is to facilitate students’ narrative writing.

Why use narrative?

In her recent book “Writing Like a Writer” (2007), Libby Gleeson not only inspires us to “..learn,
construct, criticize, believe, dream, hope, despair and love in narrative” (Hardy 1977in The Cool Web13)
but reminds us that the masters of description, for example Dickens (1853) assist the reader in the process
of imagining. The creative teacher, Gleeson writes, uses many stories to develop curiosity and celebrates
original responses in students.

Margaret Meek in “How Texts Teach What Readers Learn” (1988p40) has a great deal of wisdom to offer
about why to use narrative in student learning and concludes with “it is hard for anyone whose life has
been enriched by books to exclude the young from this source of pleasure and serious reflection. What we
have to realize is that the young have powerful allies in a host of gifted artists and writers to help them
subvert the world of their elders.”

Literature as an art form has the potential to change our lives. It can be an influence or stimulus which
moves us and to which we react with feeling. How does this happen? How do we help students to respond
to what they read? Why is it important that we as teachers of primary children listen to and process the
responses of our students to what they are reading? How do teachers know which books are authentic and
worthwhile texts for study in the classroom?

These are some of the questions our ALEA team began with as we set out to find innovative ways for our
students to truly learn about literacy. We wanted to make a difference and so we spent time deciding what
we think is important when teaching students to be critically literate. Teachers chose various aspects of
narrative as a starting point for their programs with the emphasis on less is more. Our academic partner,
Dr Robyn Ewing presented us with the challenge: What responses other than students’ writing could we
track, measure and observe on our journey. The results, anecdotes and practice based evidence are
narrated by each teacher and although our journey of innovation is continuing for each of us our process
has been satisfying and worthwhile.

Background

The foundation for our research was laid when Curl Curl North Primary School began its academic
partnership with Dr Robyn Ewing in 1995. (Framing a Professional Learning Culture: An Australian Case
Study 1999) Several classroom teachers expressed an interest in being mentored in the practices of
developing Critical Literacy and Drama using authentic literary texts. Each year the mentoring was
extended to other interested teachers and broadened by professional development sessions with academics
in the field of teaching the Creative Arts in primary school. Creative Arts lessons given by University of
Sydney pre-service primary teachers were also part of the professional learning exchange.

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Further professional learning for staff of a research nature occurred when we were involved in quality
teaching projects (N.S.W DET 2003) in 2006 and 2007. Writing outcomes for students were enhanced
through a rich Literacy program based on authentic texts which incorporated the Creative Arts. Student
writing was benchmarked and primary Writing Assessment outcomes were also tracked.

Although there have been staff changes and political debate about student literacy learning, the
commitment of staff at Curl Curl North to facilitate quality teaching using authentic literary texts and
creative teaching continues to develop. Our current ALEA project builds on these earlier projects.

“When we are in drama, it is like walking in the pages of a book. The words do not just lie there; they
come alive and walk with us. That makes me want to stay in the drama because I don’t want to leave the
words behind.”

Beatrice cited in Warner, 1997 (in“Into the Story” Miller and Saxton 2004 p1)

What we set out to do:

“I believe we set out to challenge ourselves, try something new and think about our practice. I believe we
also set out to motivate, inspire and support each other.” Gretel Watson

Our project is true to the nature of action learning (Revans 1983) and quality teaching because if the
teachers are learning with and from each other and are improving and changing their practice then
learning outcomes for students will improve.

One of the main aims of the group of teachers collectively has been to encourage and foster a love of
reading and narrative. We also set out to give students opportunities to respond to literary texts in a variety
of ways using Creative arts and through written responses. All teachers used authentic texts with their
classes and planned programs so that individual and group needs could be addressed.

Teachers attended professional learning in areas of relevance for the project, for example K-6 Drama
activities at NIDA. Two teachers involved staff in activities from “Into the Story”(Saxton and Miller 2004
p31-42)

We wanted to show how art and drama can bring texts to life because the process of responding in this
way allows students “to develop empathy, challenging them to consider how others think, feel and respond
to the world.” (Ewing and Simons 2004 p ). We set out to improve literacy in our classes. We benchmarked
students’ talking and listening and writing before we began by giving them a piece of work to do with
absolutely no stimulation. Then we compared it to work that they could do at various points during the
project. The difference was impressive. The students were able to expand their language and develop their
imaginations. We looked at response in the English K-6 Modules (NSW BOS 1998) and tried to develop
activities to aid children’s ability to respond to text and to help them articulate these responses.

We used questions from Aidan Chambers (1985p170-173)” to assist teachers in providing a scaffold for
student responses. The drama, art, movement and writing were problem solving, interpretative aspects of
the reading of the book but also became a record of students’ achievements and improvements as we went
along. Examples of activities teachers used are described below in teacher reflections.

Teacher Reflections

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Karen Crawford

My passion for Speech and Drama tended to infiltrate my classroom teaching. However,
previously it wasn’t necessarily associated with the Literacy content of my teaching program, but rather
had its own separate identity and really didn’t cross paths with the children’s writing. Blending the two
together through the project has made for a more rounded approach as each feeds off the other.

After reading 'Lucy's Cat and the Rainbow Birds' (Hill 2007) the children mimed the story using percussion
instruments to assist with the verbs in the story eg. pouncing, crouching, gliding, slinking etc. we looked at
all the 's' words in the story - slinking, softly, stealthily, silently . We looked at exclamation marks and hot
seated the cat and the rainbow birds and talked about how differently they would feel. I read "A Monster
Wrote me a Letter' (Bland 2005) to the class. We hot seated being the monster and being the boy. We also
filmed a lot of these responses as well. We painted monsters and dictated descriptions of our monsters,
which I typed up onto the computer. These descriptions were attached to the bottom of their pictures.

The initial descriptions basically consisted of the colour of their monster and what their monster liked to
eat. 'My monster is purple and she likes to eat blueberries and strawberries. She likes to play Cluedo with
me.' Jessica 5 years.'My monster is green and she has a red bow. She likes to eat mangoes. She is a
friendly monster.' Clementine 5 years.'My monster is blue. He likes to eat blueberries. He is a very scary
monster.' Isaac 5 years.'My monster likes to eat strawberries and he is a little bit mean. He is nice to good
people and horrible to bad people.' Lucas 5years.
We then wrote letters to the monster as though we were the boy in the story to tell the monster what he
would do if he came to their house to play. 'Dear Monster, l will teach you how to catch a ball. You will be
my friend. Your friend, Amelia' 'Dear Monster, Are you going to have a bath? What do you like to eat?’
Your friend, Mitchell S.' 'Dear Monster, Thank you for writing me a letter.What do you like to eat?’ Your
friend Tully

Doug Neale

The use of picture books for meaningful critical literacy learning has an impact on all students. From
shared and modelled reading through discussion, imagination and sustained communication students
develop a broader understanding of books. Using creative arts tasks can further enhance their learning
with a level of engagement that involves high quality tasks and high quality responses.

Three Shaun Tan picture books were used in my class to develop the relationship between the picture book
and critical literacy learning: The Red Tree, The Lost Thing and The Arrival. As a benchmark the students
were asked to write a response to The Red Tree after a shared reading experience.

Through discussion the students described the relationship between words and pictures and made varied
interpretations. A ‘hot seating’ session challenged the students to see the story from the girl’s point of view.
Some questions were: “Why did you feel sad?” and “Why was the red leaf always beside you?”

Another interpretation activity was to take a line from the book and draw a picture that the students
thought represented that line.

An incidental response occurred when the lines of the song “Fragile” by Sting could be played for each
page of the book giving a musical creative response. One child said “the song gave me more ideas about
understanding the book” and another “the other words gave a different sense to the pictures.”

So we shared The Arrival spending time discussing the frontispiece and making predictions: “prisoners”,
“people from different countries”, “refugees.”

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A ‘Readers Theatre’ activity allowed each group of students to develop a script from the wordless picture
book - thinking and interpreting feelings and analysing events: “The storm clouds indicate a scary trip”
and “the doves show there will be peace.” The Readers Theatre showed an interesting interpretation of
some characters and their role in the migrant’s journey.

Jenny Pickering

My aim was to get the children to look into the story, whether it be a picture book or a novel, and see the
deeper meaning as well as understand the structure of the text and the way language is used. In doing this I
aimed to improve the student’s ability to write a written response to a text through the use of the arts.

The first text was Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine, a true story about Hana Brady that “takes place on
three continents over a period of almost seventy years. It brings together the experiences of a girl and her
family in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and ‘40s, a young woman and a group of children in Tokyo, Japan
and a man in Toronto, Canada in modern times.

We built the context of the story by brainstorming words which reflected the themes in the book. The words
included: identity, survival, war. After brainstorming each group formed a tableau to help convey their
understanding of the themes in the story they were about to read.

This process was repeated at the end of the story to record how their understanding had changed or
developed as a result of their reading of the text. At the end of the story the students also dramatized the
part of the story that they felt had the biggest impact on them.

The structure of the story was confusing as it jumps one setting and time to another so that two stories are
told simultaneously. “Hot seating” allowed the students to clarify what was happening the narratives and
to the characters as we went along. “Writing in role” encouraged the students to reflect on what they read.
They did this by writing a letter as Hana. They then replied to Hana’s letters. The students were then asked
to pick the sentence which best reflected their thinking and the strategy of “tapping in” was used to allow
them to share their thoughts about Hana and the events in the story. Together these sentences formed a
meaningful “voice collage” To finish the book the students used collage to make a visual image of the
story. A very short description was added.

The students saw a WW2 film clip showing Hitler and a parade with young children waving swastika flags.
After reading Hana’s Suitcase they were outraged that children would do this so the next book studied was
Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti. It is a picture book full of symbolism both in the text and in the
storybook like illustrations. The descriptive language and the way that winter is used a metaphor for war
and the coming of spring as a metaphor for the end of the war make this a story of many layers and themes.

After reading the story, discussing it and looking closely at the pictures a number of drama techniques
were used to aid understanding particularly of the symbolism in the story. Firstly using “teacher in role”
as the fat Mayor the children were able to question me so as to form a deeper understanding of my role in
the story and beyond as a Nazi collaborator and develop the appropriate vocabulary to describe the
character. Students took turns to be in role as Rose Blanche and answer questions in a similar way. Words
and phrases were recorded on the Interactive White Board under headings which would eventually provide
the structure for a written review of the book.

Sculpting or molding was also used to build an image of Rose as she slowly loses her innocence as the war
progresses and she finds the Jewish children in the concentration camp. Sculpting also showed the
changing role of the mayor.

A video of Carole Miller using Rose Blanche as part Holocaust education program was lent to me by
Robyn Ewing. Carole centers her drama strategies around the key words “collaboration”, “resistance”
and “turning a blind eye” so I took her strategies and these key words to further enhance the students
understanding of the symbolism in the text and illustrations. The students brainstormed their understanding
of these words in the context of the story and made a short re-enactment of the part of the story that

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illustrated their understanding. This also enabled the students to look beyond this story and see how it can
also fit into the context of bullying. The students wrote responses to Rose Blanche using the structure and
vocabulary that we recorded as we went.

Gretel Watson

The Drama activities often revealed the need children have to develop their language. This prompted art
activities where the children were the creators of characters, setting and scenes. This gave the children
ownership and allowed the children to feel connected. By creating these things the children were able to
build up banks of words to give their characters personalities and opinions. In effect the children were
being authors and illustrators. Looking closely at character in stories and modeling gave the children
insight into developing their own ideas. Building up word banks to use and seeing children take risks by
using the new word was pleasing. I have noted that the children respond well to new words and try to use
them in their talking and writing. We now have many characters who are manly with beady eyes and
coarse fur. Through drama the children were able to show us the behaviors of characters which led to
some interesting responses and writing. We always talked about how interesting it was to hear about the
things characters do. Now we have some characters who barge, interrupt and have atrocious manners!

My last experience with a picture book has been very interesting and different. The children appeared to
be so committed to the drama and activities during the several sessions of the reading that they didn’t even
ask for the book to be finished. They actually asked to do more drama. They have become accustomed to
being filmed and sharing their experiences with others as well as looking at themselves participating in the
drama activities via video footage. The culture of the class is to share ideas to help us build on our own.
Drama provides that platform for sharing in an interesting and meaningful way. It is also entertaining and
fun to participate. Recently we performed at assembly snippets from our drama activities and the picture
book.

Jackie Ireland

I saw a need, to develop the children’s descriptive language and writing. The children were introduced to
the idea of imaginary creatures. After looking at a number of images and stories on imaginary creatures,
the children were then given the opportunity to create their own.

We discussed the physical features our creatures might have. We studied images of imaginary creatures.
We practiced drawing different types of eyes, noses, ears and mouths and shared our ideas with each other.
We moulded each other into our imaginary creatures. We modeled our creatures with plasticine and talked
about their features, building up a bank of descriptive words as we progressed. Finally, we drew and wrote
about our creatures, focusing initially on just a physical description.

The next goal for my students will be to build up the character of their imaginary creature. This will be
done by asking the children to think about their creature’s habits, their habitat, how they move and breathe
and how they feel in different circumstances (eg. When threatened by another creature, when amongst its
own kind etc…) Children will have the opportunity to dramatize their responses and to really think about
every aspect of their creature’s personality.

Where the Wild Things Are’ (Sendak 1963) is and will continue to be studied in relation to imaginary
creatures as we discuss ‘The Wild Things’ reactions and their relationship to Max. We have already
produced frozen moments depicting pages from the text, discussed the body language throughout the text,
hot-seated Max, Max’s mother and The Wild Things, and I hope to have the children actively involved in
writing a script for the book and choosing music that would fit different parts of the story (For example
‘The Wild Rumpus’ or Max sailing to meet The Wild Things.)

Carla Rathmell

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I’ve always loved drama, but now I’ve been able to use drama strategies to enhance children’ literacy. The
difference appears in their engagement and higher order thinking The students are interested because
books are chosen carefully, they touch upon students interests, fire their imagination or move them in some
way.

Drama strategies allow students to enact situations and to empathise with the characters. Drama taps into
the thoughts of individuals acting out different characters. I became involved in the ALEA project because I
have seen how the Creative and Performing Arts can be a powerful stimulus to draw students into
Narrative Texts.By stepping into role students are totally engaged. Students senses are stimulated. They
design and build things, act out dramas and write.

t
Years 3 and 4 students creating frozen moments about critical moments in “Blueback” by Tim Winton

Janelle Warhurst

At the beginning of the year in terms of teaching and learning there were some readers amongst the class
who were avid and proficient readers, others not so enthusiastic or proficient but all students unreservedly
and wholeheartedly participated in the class and group reading of “Blueback” (Winton 1997). Comments
such as “I couldn’t put the book down”were common as students and parents borrowed the book from
local libraries to read and re-read it. Grandparents helped with literature circles every Monday and from
their own initiative and engagement with the book designed questions and points of interest to bring each
week.

During our reading of the narrative groups participated in drama activities such as choosing a significant
event in Abel’s life and writing a script for it. Groups then acted these for the rest of the class. At the
beginning of this activity some groups were not fully in role and this is evident on video footage. Later
videos show total engagement in the drama of the same activity. One group wrote an outstanding script
from a section of the book which has no dialogue. They negotiated this over an hour or so and this day also
marked an improvement in group dynamics and collaboration.

We spent many lessons, reading together ,discussing Winton’s use of descriptive verbs and similes as well
as the broader issues such as “There is nothing in nature as cruel and savage as a greedy human being”,
One student wrote in her journal: “Costello is an example of a greedy human being. He took much more
abalone than he should have and by putting food on the hook of the buoy caught a tiger shark just for the
fun of it. ‘The deck of Costello’s boat was awash with blood. Abel had speared fish nearly every day but he
had never seen such a slaughter as this.’”

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The students’ deeper understanding of the literature happened through brainstorming, and building
collaborative meanings about key words which relate to the text and tapping into other groups who had
constructed their own tableaux with themes. (Activity from “Into the Story” Miller and Saxton 2004 p32)
Themes were responsibility, beauty, family and conservation. Video of the groups captures the intensity of
responses to these activities and the students are beginning to ‘live’ the story. One group enacts Dora
receiving the certificate to say that Longboat Bay is now a wildlife sanctuary while another the day when
Abel receives his university degree in marine biology.

The most powerful activity in terms of student engagement with the book and an indication of their love of
drama was when students improvised their own marine animals which they had extensively researched and
told stories about them through drama and movement. The students kept asking if they could do these over
and over again and we set them to the music of ‘Deep Sea Dreaming’ by Elena-Katz Chernin. Students then
wrote narratives which included descriptions of where the creatures of the sea were located such as in a
cave or on a rock shelf. At about the same time the Year Three students were participating in the Naplan
Testing.Instead of giving them an unrelated narrative to write in preparation as is often done, the students
had enacted their stories and these were published in a folder for the whole class to read.

Our class Blueback mural grew out of student fascination of images and themes in the story. Drawings by
groups of two, three or four students reflected students’ own interpretations of the story and these were
translated into a paneled mural using batik, tie dye and appliqué techniques. The text stimulus, mural
stories and responses to various aspects of the mural making have been recorded.

Findings:

Teachers initially benchmarked Response writing of the students they were tracking. Later in the year
this assessment will be repeated to gather quantitative data about improved writing outcomes. The

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following table is based on teacher observation and comparisons with work samples and behaviours
before the project and at the time of publication.

Kindergarten – The children came to me at the beginning of term one with some able to write their
Karen first name. Finn initially found it difficult to stay in the classroom. When we are
brainstorming as a class about what we are writing Finn is now offering valuable
suggestions and has his own ideas about what he is going to write when he goes
back to his seat. I have recorded numerous responses over the two terms of Finn
and many of the other students in regard to artworks and quality teaching texts. I
have noticed increased vocabulary, imagination, the use of more complex sentences
and increased exuberance when speaking about the topic proposed to them. The
majority of students are now using adjectives and adverbs and writing two or more
sentences at a time. If they can’t spell a word they find it around the room or use
their dictionary. They also enjoy reading their stories back to me and pick up and
edit mistakes they have made along the way.
It has been quite a while since Kindergarten dictated their Monster descriptions to
me. So it was very interesting to see the vast improvement in their writing after
reading Maurice Sendak's 'Where the Wild Things Are.' The children painted
pictures once again of wild things and then wrote descriptions. Finn was probably
my biggest success story as my battle with him at the beginning was to keep him
from running out of the classroom. He still has fine motor problems and so his
writing is quite poor but his response was fantastic! He wrote 'My wild thing is
horrible. He has a black, fat tummy. He also has four arms and sharp claws for
hands. He has black spiky hair. My Wild thing likes scratching trees.' Lucas wrote
most of his himself - ' My wild thing is tricky. He tickles people. He is horrible. He
gets stuck in booby traps. He has a fat, gold tummy. he has three fingers on each
hand. He also has four blue and purple horns. Clementine wrote - ' My wild thing is
cranky. he likes to hurt people. She has beautiful hair. She has three horns. She has
beautiful big eyes. Clementine has made few mistakes in her description. Jessica -
'My wild thing is nice. My wild thing is colourful and he likes to bite his knee. He
has long horns and sharp teeth . He is very hairy.' Jessica need help with spelling in
the second half of hers. There's many more I can use as well.
In the interviews the parents kept remarking on how amazed they were at what the
children were writing. And I must admit, for Kindergarten, I am too!

Year One - Carla I Joseph initially found it difficult to write but with dragons he used his wild
am totally convinced imagination and an artistic flair. He used wonderful metaphors to describe his
that using good dragon and was able to write and draw an impressive poem. Every day Joseph
quality texts engages would come in to school with new drawings he had done or sculptures he had made
students coupled with plasticene.
with drama, music Another student with a pronounced stutter uses language such as “the Wizard’s
and art. beard was like steam coming from a dragon’s nostrils. He was able to make
connections from our work with dragons.
Year Four – Doug .The substantive communication when reading “The Lost Thing” was evident as the
students were now seeing the author’s style through their reading of ‘the Red Tree’
Some early and “The Arrival”.
responses were: Through discussions the students described the relationship between words and
“this is weird”, “it pictures and made varied interpretations. The questioning and questions asked
is strange - I don’t reflected upon a growing awareness of the relationship between imagery and
understand it.” meaning: “Why do they look so sad?”, Why did the man have to travel?” and
“Where did the people come from?”
Through further questioning and discussion one child said, “a book isn’t just words,
you can also use your imagination.”
The purpose and structure of a written response was discussed and attempted. The
written responses showed an interpretation of imagination and symbolism resulting

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in an insightful understanding by many students. A powerful learning activity is

open-ended discussion, questioning, metalanguage and vocabulary development.
The more the structure of interpretation and the scaffolding a response for deeper
understanding is developed the better the responses by the students. The more
picture books are used the more the students are able to compare the relationships
between imagination and reality and life in general

Year One – Gretel During initial drama sessions one six year old boy, Daniel, demonstrated a lack of
The children’s initial confidence. His written ideas were always exceptional but he had difficulty during
responses in the oral sessions. This changed this week. Daniel demonstrated good eye contact and a
drama activities confident approach to the drama. His ideas were original, a little humors and well
were often confusing presented. At the beginning I thought Daniel did not need to be a participant in the
and lacking in drama to improve his understanding. Yet Daniel’s smile of body language as he
genuine watched others often intimated that he valued and enjoyed these sessions.
commitment. Their As a whole, the class has demonstrates improved confidence to share their ideas
lack of rich thoughts and opinions. I also believe that the children have listened more carefully
language also as their opinion has been valued and the interested in what other have to say and
limited their share.
responses. I felt The confidence of one student was particularly impressive. This student is an E.S.L
they were looking student who was always eager to volunteer an answer or comment. These
for the signal from comments were often off task. This week she demonstrated great confidence and
me to acknowledge commitment to the performance. I believe the drama has aided her improvement in
their response as listening, understanding and contributing interesting opinions and ideas.
being correct.

Year 6 - Jenny While it has been a challenge for many reasons, I believe that the students have
shown a deep understanding of both texts. Evidence of this includes: comparison of
brainstorming sheets and frozen moments done at the beginning and end of reading
Hana’s Suitcase. Other evidence of students deeper understanding of the themes are
art works – visual responses to Hana’s Suitcase (also short written responses) film
clips of students’ dramatisation of a significant event in the story, diary entries to
and from Hana and hot seating. Student writing samples demonstrated a deep
understanding of the themes in each of the books after drama and visual literacy
activities

Year 1 - Jackie Observations to date are how well the children’s descriptive language is developing
in response to work on imaginary creatures, how well the children are working
together and cooperating to create frozen moments and scenes from stories, how
their creativity is spilling over to other KLA’s. The other day we were doing a
handwriting lesson and were focusing on the formation of an “a”. One child said to
me, “Miss Ireland the ‘a’ is like it’s stuck in a whirlpool and then it swims out”. I
thought that was a very creative way to look at a letter formation!! Whilst studying
a science theme on water, we combined factual information on raindrops and
rainbows with some creative writing. The children’s creativity in describing
rainbows and raindrops was astounding and certainly much more ‘tuned in’ than
responses I would have heard earlier in the year. Two examples from the class are,
“A rainbow is a gateway to the future” and “A raindrop is like a precious pearl
falling from the sky.”

Year 4/3 Janelle In the narrative about a marine animal drama Ben has used descriptive verbs and
his engagement with the task of writing obviously is satisfying for him: At a sandy
During the first rocky seashore at Ningaloo Reef there were two jolly old sea turtles soaring and
weeks of term some gliding like birds in the shallow light blue water swimming in and out through the
students found it multi-coloured coral.
difficult to take on
roles and would be Ben has had a major breakthrough in his writing as it was evident in his basic skills

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silly or giggle. Now writing last year that writing skills were not as developed as reading and numeracy.
they behave as There were more than ten points difference between his reading and writing tests.
actors do taking the Areas of weakness were identified as: sentence structure and use of imagery.
stage.
Sam who is an exceptional writer was able to articulate the following about her
A book of narratives mural panel:
is an indication of
the use of similes We used the batik for Blueback’s scales, the tie dye for the ocean because it looked
and other imagery like jelly blubbers and we used some sequins for Blueback so he looked like the
used by the students. main perspective with a glittery blue effect. We used ribbons for the seaweed and
Development of patterned material that we made into fish looked fabulous. The sheer fabric gave
descriptive verbs the impression that the scene was under water. I helped make the mural and the
were a result of image of the sea became clearer to me. The mural panel which I find meaningful is
moving in different the one with the person harpooning a whale because it tells the story of what some
ways. Varied people are doing which is quite sad.
settings occurred
when the habitat of David engages with drama improvisation and writing much more now than earlier
each marine animal in the year. His responses were initially brief. He writes : We did fluid and unusual
was described, for movements (In Art)The mural helped because when I stepped back, it showed the
examples caves or significance of how the leopard seal was being attacked. (David)
rock shelves.
David’s Manta Ray story also showed more complex sentence structure than
earlier pieces of writing: Once upon a time there were two manta rays swimming
peacefully around caves. Suddenly a spear fisherman dived into the water and
started spearing the poor mantas. The older one survived and struck the spear
fisherman magnificently with its whip-like tail.

After two long dreaded years the old pale manta ray got over the death of his son
and the wound had healed on his flabby underside………

All groups created an original and imaginative drama improvisation.

This imaginative work translated into creative responses in the written form of their
stories “Dorson the manta ray was awoken by an exhilarating crash. He sped
through the cavern and the vast depths of the ocean peering through a gap and
seeing a defenceless manta ray lying on the sandy bank at the bottom of the
sea…..”

The mural making activity demonstrated students increasing abilities to articulate

what imagery they found strongest in the book and increased motivation. Georgina,
for example, drew a colourful blue groper with oil pastels with the message: Do not
litter in preparation for her panel. She is able to assist others with art work while
often struggling with writing tasks.

A further observation of all collaborative work as it was frequent is that it

enhanced learning outcomes for many individual students as they were motivated
and engaged in the collective tasks. The importance of rich tasks was relevant.

Evaluation

The changes in learning outcomes for students in the classes of the teachers involved in this project have
included increased motivation and engagement, vocabulary, use of metaphors and awareness of the

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relationship between imagery and meaning. An underlying theme of teacher reflections is a more confident
approach to learning by students and the ability to listen to and value the contribution of others.
Substantive communication is evident in all classrooms as is deeper understanding of narrative including
characters, themes and structure. Teachers of classes K-6 mentioned the development of creativity and
imagination throughout the project. Improvement of descriptive, narrative and response writing in classes
has been documented and substantiated.
Teachers’ comments recently about their professional learning with Robyn have included:

Robyn taught me how to make diary writing come alive,….

Robyn’s expertise in the areas of the Creative Arts are second to none and I feel she has been an extremely
supportive influence,..
I was pleased to be involved with Robyn in professional learning and professional discussion, …..
I found this experience uplifting and enlightening – the drama strategies and techniques have become an
integral part of my teaching and learning…
Drama in the classroom now has an entirely new meaning for me… .I have gone from using simple
comprehension worksheets with disconnected texts of varying quality, to using carefully selected, quality
texts and stimulating understanding through drama, art, writing, basic movie making, questioning and a
multitude of other strategies….
I began to realize that Drama and other Creative Arts could improve writing outcomes measurably …
An overwhelmingly positive outcome for all seven teachers is the willingness to share with other teachers
because of the results for students.

Conclusion

The seven teachers and academic partner in our research project which has been funded by the Australian
Literacy Educator’s Association are excited about their findings. Anecdotal, qualitative and quantitative
evidence has been gathered which demonstrates that literacy is not just a technical global skill (Ewing
2007). We have witnessed student engagement, increased motivation and creativity in learning through our
lessons. Our findings show that the Creative Arts takes literacy beyond talking, listening, reading and
writing and into critical literacy including observation, analysis, interpretation and “making sense of their
(students) world”.(Lee and Fradd 1998 in Miller and Saxton 2004 p2))

Certainly as individuals our pedagogy is now embedded and is what we as teachers love to do with our
students because we know what the Creative Arts in literacy programs can achieve. We could compare our
process as a group to theatre practice (Miller and Saxton 2004p3). There have been elements of
community, empathy and shared meaning. The challenge is now to share our meanings with other
educators in our immediate and wider community for the benefit of all students.

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Child, L (2003), That Pesky Rat Orchard Books, Sydney

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