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Using Drama as a Multicultural Tool 
to Visualize and Interpret Cultural Struggles and Issues

Cynthia J. Tuleja
Eastern College

Introduction
Unit Overview
Unit Objectives
Daily Learning Activities
Sample Lessons
References

INTRODUCTION

This sample instructional unit uses drama as a multicultural tool to engage students as whole persons in the visualization and experience of cultural struggles and issues. The goal is to challenge students to reject surface judgments and look to the factors that are affecting an individual’s choices and situation; in effect, to challenge students to place themselves in another person’s shoes, just as an actor places herself in her character’s shoes for a dramatic performance. The dramatic approach taps and expands students’ ability to develop empathic responses to diverse views: while a student may not always be able to agree with another person’s choices, perhaps she/he can learn to empathize with an understanding that comes from having shared her/his perspective. This unit strives to catalyze that empathy through role-playing activities. [paragraph 1]

This drama classroom serves as a vehicle through which students can grow not only in their skill as actors, script writers, and directors, but in their awareness of themselves as individuals and in relation to society as a whole. Toward that end, in this unit students use dramatic visualization to increase their understanding of their cultural roots. Therefore the goal is to select historic events to which many of the students can relate. For example, in the specific classroom for which this unit is intended there may be students of African-American, English, and Irish descent. Therefore, the Irish potato famine, the Irish conflict with the English, and the subsequent immigration of the Irish to America (where they are forced to compete economically with African Americans) serve as appropriate historical events for the framework of the culminating lessons in this unit (days ten through thirteen). [paragraph 2]

Naturally the intent and strategy of the culminating activities in this unit can be adapted to time periods and cultural events with which your particular group of students can identify. One of the goals in the culminating lesson as written is to highlight how the historic events between the given cultures facilitated prejudice between these groups and to enable students to reflect upon how they might develop an enlightened approach to the issues resulting from an "uneven playing field." This is appropriate for the specific audience in this classroom, for whom this issue is relevant even today; however, your particular student demographics may suggest other issues that you want to address. Therefore the choice of cultures for the skits in this unit, the historic context for those cultures, and the salient points of relevance can be substituted as appropriate for your audience while still using the general format as a guide. [paragraph 3]

This unit could potentially work in conjunction with the students' History class; any collaboration with the students' History teacher to achieve synergy in this regard would be well worth the effort. Cross-curriculum planning is a valid multicultural approach since it provides authenticity to the material and thereby makes it more meaningful to the student while integrating a diversity of skills and perspectives in the required activities. For the purposes of this project, however, I have created this unit as one which could stand on its own; students can use their history teacher as a resource but would not be dependent on the history curriculum to complete the activities. [paragraph 4]

Cooperative learning forms the basis for much of what happens in this drama classroom during this instructional unit. This is a valid multicultural approach on several levels. When students work in groups, I will ensure that a fair representation of heterogeneity is found within each group (Miller-Lachmann and Taylor, 1995). The activities in this unit also promote positive interdependence (Miller-Lachmann and Taylor, 1995), since the outcome of the dramas and subordinate skits is dependent on the successful participation of each cast member. In addition, much of the activity in this unit is original/creative and student-directed. In line with multicultural thinking (Sleeter and Grant, 1999), giving students "power" and ownership in the classroom confers upon them respect as individuals and makes the activities more meaningful and authentic. My hope is that such an environment will facilitate an atmosphere for genuine learning and thinking.

We learn through experience and experiencing...  If the environment permits it, anyone can learn whatever he chooses to learn; and if the individual permits it, the environment will teach him everything it has to teach. (Spolin, 1963, p. 3) [paragraph 5]

Raising awareness of the historic struggles of students’ cultures through dramatic visualization; interpreting individual attitudes toward other cultures as a distillate of these struggles 

Drama 

Middle School and Up

The lesson activities for each "day" are assumed to cover one class period of approximately forty-five minutes in length. [paragraph 6]

Through their work in this unit, students will:

Introduction/Unit pre-work

General discussion of the concept of prejudice; small-group creation of original scenes depicting the concept of prejudice as students understand it; student performances of their short skits; student critiques of their skits; and large group debriefing.

Assignment: Independent reading. Students may select their own reading from a collection of materials provided by the teacher designed to broaden their thinking on the subject of prejudice. Students will be asked to discuss this reading in their final writing assignment at the conclusion of this unit. Students may also refer to what they are learning from their independent reading in class discussions during this unit. [paragraph 8]

View Video: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner [paragraph 9]

Small group discussion/debriefing of student responses to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner; cross-group discussion in whole class setting

During discussion, students will be prompted to examine the roles of each of the main characters in the video and to examine what the interplay of these characters reveals to them about the concept of prejudice. In addition, students will be prompted to examine themselves in terms of how they would behave/feel if they were in the shoes of the main characters. [paragraph 10]

In small groups, students choose two characters who have an unequal balance of power in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner; students discuss the power imbalance, its causes, and the characters’ responses to it. [paragraph 11]

Students develop a skit based on the characters that they chose on day five. In this skit, students will place their characters in a situation that reverses the power imbalance from that in which they found themselves in the video. For example, students might choose Tillie (the opinionated black maid) and Mr. Drayton (the authority figure/white father of the white woman who wants to marry a black man). In the video, Tillie is powerless and Mr. Drayton has power. In the students’ skit, their chosen characters would retain their essential characteristics, yet Tillie would have power and Mr. Drayton would not. Students must demonstrate how that would affect the interactions of these characters in a scenario of their choice. [paragraph 12]

Students will perform the skits that they developed on day six. Students will critique each other’s skits based on a set of questions that I will provide regarding power imbalance and its effect on prejudice. [paragraph 13]

Students will break themselves into two groups (I will adjust for heterogeneity and ability to work together only if necessary). One group of students will study the experience of the Irish as both an oppressed and an oppressing group under the following circumstances:

The group that is studying the Irish in these circumstances will be playing the Irish in the culminating skit on day thirteen. I will tell students this before they begin their research, which should raise their motivation.

The other group of students will study the experience of the people who interacted with the Irish at both ends of the power spectrum, as follows:

The group that is studying the British and the African Americans in these circumstances will be representing these groups in the culminating skit on day thirteen. I will tell students this before they begin their research, which should raise their motivation.

In each of the above groups, students will be responsible for assigning roles to each member of their group relative to who researches what; when students have performed their research, they will share their findings with their group members. [paragraph 14]

Continued student research and discussion of topics given on day eight [paragraph 15]

In days ten through twelve, students will develop and rehearse two skits based on the following scenarios:

Each skit should be approximately fifteen minutes in length. [paragraph 16]

Continued development and rehearsal of skits. [paragraph 17]

Culminating activity: students will perform the skits that they developed in days ten through twelve. [paragraph 18]

Debriefing and evaluation: students will critique their skits from the actor’s perspective. They will discuss how being in each power position (with power/without) made them feel toward the other group in the skit. I will give the students evaluative feedback on their dramatic performances and how well I felt they worked together. Finally, I will assign students homework in their drama journal, which I will grade for content only. This assignment will require three to four pages in which students analyze what they learned about the subject of prejudice from this lesson unit and how that integrates with the independent reading that they chose on day one of this unit. [paragraph 19]

Following are lesson plans for the culminating activities in the unit (days ten through thirteen) and the last day of the unit (day fourteen). To get an overview of the flow of activities throughout the entire unit, see the Unit Structure/Daily Learning Activities section of this instructional plan. [paragraph 20]

This block of time covers the culminating activities for this unit; therefore, I will discuss it as one sample lesson plan comprising two parts: rehearsal and performance. Days ten, eleven, and twelve will be devoted to rehearsal. Day thirteen is the final performance. [paragraph 21]

Objectives

Through their lesson activities on this day, students will:

Skit Assignments for Historical Dramas/Improvisations

"You will have the opportunity to play someone in both a power position and a powerless position as you develop the following two skits. If you are playing the oppressed Irish in skit one, you will play the Irish again in skit two, in their role as oppressors. If you are playing the oppressing British in skit one, you will play the African Americans in skit two in their role as the oppressed. You are responsible for assigning parts within your own group for each skit."

Skit 1. The group playing the Irish in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland are at an outdoor public meeting with the group playing their British oppressors. At this meeting, the Irish are given a chance to voice their complaints about their treatment in Ireland under the British, and the British are given a chance to respond. This is a public meeting with only loose rules of order, so the action may legitimately get intense, as dictated by the circumstances and each group’s agenda.

Skit 2. The group previously playing the Irish under British oppression will now play the Irish in late-nineteenth-century America after they have gained political and economic advantages. They are in the back room of a local newspaper office in Boston, where they are meeting with an Irish politician who has come to them on the sly to give them the inside track on an upcoming government contract. The group previously playing the British will play the African Americans in this skit, who inadvertently come upon this scene and discover the scheming that is taking place at their expense. [paragraph 23]

Days ten, eleven, and twelve of this unit are built upon the research that students have performed on days eight and nine (see day eight of the Unit Outline), as well as own their growing understanding of the concept of prejudice.

Through their lesson activities on this day, students will:

Debriefing Questions for Small-Group Discussion 

1. What was the power struggle in the skit?
2. Who had power in the skit? Why did they have power?
3. Who didn’t have power in the skit? Why didn’t they have power?
4. In each skit, was the power imbalance perceived or real? Why?
5. What changed when the characters found themselves in a new position of power or vulnerability? What caused this change?
6. Analyze the relationship between power and prejudice. How does one affect the other? What mitigating circumstances might contribute to the escalation of prejudice in a situation where there is a power imbalance?
7. As an actor, how did being in a position of power make you feel toward those who were powerless (or perceived to be powerless) in the skit?
8. As an actor, how did being in a position with a lack of power (or a perceived lack of power) make you feel toward those who were powerful in the skit?
9. As an actor, describe how it felt to be playing a powerful position in one skit and a powerless position in another. How did the one affect your performance in the other? What kind of emotions, if any, did you find yourself feeling when your power position was reversed?

The final class in this unit will be devoted to critiquing and debriefing.

Kramer, S (Producer and Director). (1967). Guess who's coming to dinner [Film]. (Available from Columbia/Tristar Studios).

Miller-Lachmann, L. and Taylor, L. (1995). Schools for all. Albany, NY: Delmar Publishers.

Sleeter, C. and Grant, C. (1999). Making choices for multicultural education: Five approaches to race, class, and gender (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

Spolin, V. (1963). Improvisation for the Theater. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Cynthia J. Tuleja, a graduate of Smith College and a former high school English teacher, completed an M. Ed. in Multicultural Education from Eastern College and worked as Review Editor and Assistant Editor for EMME. She is currently teaching Multicultural Education at Eastern College, Theater at Burlington County College, and Interpersonal Communications at Community College of Philadelphia.

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