Lower School Update: The Art of Expression

Fay’s drama curriculum supports Fay’s Vox Inventum program by empowering students to find their authentic voice and discover the power of their own story. Students learn to harness their dramatic tools of expression: voice, imagination, body, ensemble, and story through games and activities that stretch their self-confidence, expressive skills, communication skills, and emotional intelligence. “Drama can be fun, but it also involves a lot of higher-order thinking,” says Margaret. “It challenges students to come up with something original and then embody it, portray it with their voice, and make meaning of it.”

 

Lower School students started the year by working on ensemble building. Unlike most classes where students focus on individual performance and progress, drama requires students to work together for success. They started exploring the concept of an ensemble with a drawing exercise where each student took an over- sized paper puzzle piece and used the space to share their name, something important about them, and decorative elements. Once the puzzle pieces were complete, the students fitted them into a giant puzzle.

 

Gameplay is an integral part of practicing dramatic skills. A favorite game among students is Top Hat, where every student walks through the space with a piece of paper on their head. If the paper falls, the player is out until another player puts it back on their head. The game can only be won as an ensemble if everyone’s “hats” are on. For collaboration, students play a game called Machine, where each student creates a movement and a sound and adds it to a classmate’s until the entire class operates as one big group machine where every piece plays an essential role. “The games are entertaining for the students,” says Margaret, “but they are also developing skills like communication, eye contact, and volume, and they’re practicing the productive habits of an artist as they observe, express, and develop their craft.”

 

Once a foundational understanding of ensemble was established, third and fourth graders started working on the 4 Ps of voice: pace, power, pattern, and passion. Students practiced tongue twisters to understand the importance of pace and participated in an exercise called vowel tree, where they observed the difference between dialogue delivered in a high or low pitch, quiet, or loud. For pattern, they took a phrase like, “I never said that,” and experimented with emphasizing different words to see how that changed the meaning. Each student chose a different emotion for passion and practiced saying a phrase in a way that conveyed that emotion. The unit culminated with students practicing the 4 Ps by speaking in gibberish and attempting to make meaning without the assistance of actual words. Third and fourth graders created gibberish monster puppet characters and had their monsters communicate with each other using the 4 Ps.

 

After the ensemble unit, fifth graders started a unit on pantomime. Given a generic script, students worked in small ensembles to construct a scene that made sense with the text by choosing unique settings, characters, and conflict. Students played a pantomime game focused on setting, working in groups to pantomime a given setting that the rest of the class had to guess. Students created their pantomime scenes with the generic prompt of picking up food at a drive-through window, and students added conflict to the scene, like a car that breaks down or a forgotten wallet, to make the scene more interesting.

 

Sixth graders have been working on a process drama unit focused on two islands. Greenall is lush and rural, and Graynall is developed and industrial. The students have been stretching their imaginations by creating characters, jobs, maps, and transportation systems for each island and then points of conflict between them. In an interdisciplinary connection with their English class, Margaret asked students to write the same “I Am” poems they had written with Ms. Gleason but from the perspective of an island character. Students also learned about vignettes and created short scenes about a typical workday on their island. “The process drama is a little bit of everything,” says Margaret. “Within it, we do improv, vignettes, writing, character development, ensemble, and movement work.”

 

As the curriculum builds through the grades, students will have the opportunity to explore art forms like puppetry and pantomime, learn how the elements of theatrical design like props and costumes enhance storytelling, practice playwriting and directing, and empathize with diverse characters. Students will also experience projects and performances like the sixth grade play, which will be a focus of the winter term, culminating with a performance for the families on March 6.