CREATIVITY


SEMESTER 2 2013 CREATIVITY 

SPEECH AND DRAMA 

      Planning Form:

     


Evidence (Supervisor Statement):

This is a signed supervisor statement from my first speech and drama teacher:





































This is a signed supervisor statement from my second speech and drama teacher:




































Evidence (Email Correspondence): 

This is a screenshot of an email from my speech and drama teacher, showing my Trinity Guildhall exam date and time :



I attend speech and drama lessons once a week and I communicate with my teacher through email correspondence. Below are a few of the emails I have received from my teacher regarding when I have my speech and drama lessons: 


(Email 1 )





                        
                                                                        (Email 2 )



(Email 3)

Evidence (Exam Pieces) 

As part of my Trinity Guildhall Exam, I have to learn 3 pieces: a monologue, a poem and a prose extract. I have attached a screenshot of each of the pieces below: 

Monologue: Daylight Saving by Nick Enright 



I have found this to be quite an easy piece to memorise and learn, due to the colloquial language and the structure of the monologue. However, I have had alot of difficulty learning how to act as "Stephanie" (the character I am portraying) because her personality is very different to mine and she is in a predicament which I find very difficult to relate to. Therefore, the main goal which I have had in regards to this piece is developing my characterisation skills. 

Prose Extract: An Extract from "The Stranger" by Albert Camus






























Initially, I started off learning an extract from "Pride and Prejudice" for my prose extract but the extract was too long and complicated to understand. Therefore, at the beginning of term 4 I changed my prose extract piece to an excerpt from "The Stranger". The main difficulties which I have faced in regards to this piece is learning the extract perfectly in such a short time but also making sure that when I am performing this piece I perform it in a way that the audience understands the content of the play, not just hears it. Therefore, the main goal which I have had in regards to this piece is learning how to perform the extract with "meaning".

Narrative Poem: How the Great Guest Came by Edwin Markham 





In my opinion learning how to perform this piece has been one of the largest challenges I have faced during my Trinity Guildhall exam preparation. The main difficulties I have faced include learning how to control the pace, pitch and tone of the poem and also learning how to tell the poem in an engaging way e.g. like a story rather than treating it like a recital. Therefore, the main goal which I have had in regards to this piece is learning how to control my voice (through pitch,tone and pace) in order to deliver the poem in a more effective and exciting way.

Evidence (Teacher Evaluation): 

Twice a term my teacher filled out an evaluation form (based on my performance during our weekly lessons). I have attached these forms below:



(Term 3 Week 4)




(Term 3 Week 8)



(Term 4 Week 4)



(Term 4 Week 8)



Evidence (Exam Results):







































                       (Individual component break down of results) 







































                                            (Credit Award) 

Reflection: 


May 2013

I have decided to undertake drama to meet the CAS requirement for creativity. I chose drama because I believe that it I will allow me to develop many new skills. Drama will assist in developing my public speaking skills, improve my self-esteem and enhance my drama skills (such as characterization and modulation). I believe that drama will further assist me in improving my time management skills, as I will have to manage my time between schoolwork and practicing my drama pieces. However, despite all these new skills I will learn I will face many challenges due to my fear of public speaking.

My first lesson was on the 16th May 2013 and I was really nervous before it, as I did not know what to expect. I thoroughly enjoyed the lesson and was happy with my decision to participate in drama (as part of CAS). In this lesson I decided to partake in the “Trinity Guildhall Exams” in November 2013. This will be tremendously challenging as I am only new to drama, meaning I will have to learn new drama skills in a relatively short time frame to be able to perform well in these exams.

June/July 2013

Every Thursday, I have a half hour speech and drama lesson. My regular weekly attendance highlights my perseverance and commitment to drama. In the last couple of months my teacher and I have been focusing on choosing drama pieces for my November exam and also developing new drama skills. These include me learning how to control my voice (using pitch, projection and pause) and how to sight read prose. Learning modulation (the varying of voice) has allowed me to improve my confidence in public speaking. For example, I am more confident in delivering English orals.

The greatest challenge I faced during this period was developing my “characterization” of various characters in texts. Despite all the different methods I have learnt for characterization I find it extremely difficult to connect with the character I am portraying. However, I believe that this difficulty can be overcome with more practice.

August 2013

During this month I had to present my English IOP, prepare for my yearly year 11 exams and continue learning my drama pieces for my trinity exams. I found doing all three tasks simultaneously quite challenging, as I had to divide my time effectively and efficiently between these task. The time management skill, which I developed, is very useful and is a skill, which will be required for success in later life.

Additionally, speech and drama also aided me with the presentation of my IOP for English. The modulation skills I have learnt in speech and drama have enabled me to deliver my speech with greater force and confidence. This is an excellent demonstration of how my speech and drama skills have improved.

September/October 2013 

During the past few months (in my weekly speech and drama lessons), I have been working on the following tasks: memorising all my speech and drama lines, practicing/learning how to perform the pieces and planning my performance e.g. any props/costumes I will need. The largest challenge which I have faced has been learning how to perform my pieces. This is because I have had to learn new skills e.g. breathing and further develop other skills e.g. characterisation and voice control in order to perform my pieces effectively.

Additionally, I have found that by practicing my pieces more frequently and receiving feedback from my teacher I have been able to determine an increased awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth. I believe that my areas of strength include performing memorised prose extracts and prose sight reading tasks. This is because I find that it is easy to work out which words to emphasise within the text and when to pause and take breathes. My main areas of weaknesses include performing memorised poetry extracts and poetry sight reading tasks. This is because I have trouble determining the pace of poem and which words to emphasise. Therefore my goal for next month is to improve my poetry reading skills.

November 2013

During the last month I have spent time learning and perfecting my speech and drama pieces for the Trinity Exam. I am quite proud of myself, as I successfully my goal for this month, which was to improve my poetry reading skills. This was achieved by continuously reading previously unseen poems aloud as this helped me to learn how determine the pace of a poem and which words to emphasise.

Additionally, I have never done a public drama performance before, so the thought of performing in front of an audience makes me extremely anxious. Therefore, in my opinion, overcoming my performance anxiety has been my greatest challenge this month. To overcome this problem, I decided to discuss it with my speech and drama teacher. She assisted me in devising strategies, which can be used to calm me down before giving my exam performance. These strategies include breathing and relaxation exercises e.g. taking 10 deep breaths. I found these strategies to be very effective as I was always in a much calmer and more relaxed state after I had practiced them.

25th November 2013



Tomorrow I have my speech and drama exam and I am currently feeling extremely nervous. My biggest fears are that I will trip on stage, forget my lines or not be able to answer one of the examiners questions. I hope the breathing and relaxation exercises I practiced with my speech and drama teacher this month will help me relax myself tomorrow so I can perform at my best!


27th November 2013
                                                                                                                              
Yesterday I had my Trinity Guildhall exam; I am so relieved that it’s finally over! Even though, I practised my breathing and relaxation exercises before my exam I found that at times during my performance, my nerves got the better of me. In my opinion my best piece was my narrative prose extract from “The Stranger”. This is because during my performance, I found it really easy to get absorbed in the character of “Meursault”, meaning that the performance probably looked more natural and realistic. On the other hand, I am not as confident with my performance of the narrative poem “How the Great Guest Came” and my monologue from “Daylight Savings” because during these performances I forgot a couple of words. Hopefully, these errors were minute and I still got a good result.

I have found Speech and Drama this year a thoroughly enjoyable, quite challenging and overall, extremely rewarding experience. I have developed a variety of new skills including modulation, characterization and public speaking skills. I have also experienced a number of challenges including memorisation, voice projection and nerves. Moreover, Speech and Drama has assisted me in developing an increased awareness of my own strengths and areas of growth in relation to drama. My main strengths include performing prose extracts and humorous pieces. My main weaknesses include performing poetry (however, I do think this has improved over the year) and speeches. Therefore, next semester I am planning on concentrating on developing my public speaking skills.


SEMESTER 1 2014 CREATIVITY 

SPEECH AND DRAMA 

Planning Form: 




Evidence: 

Supervisor Statement:

This is a signed supervisor statement from my speech and drama teacher:






































(Email Correspondence): 







































                                                                      (Email 1)


                                                                 (Email 2 )



                                                                 (Email 3)



                                                                     (Email 4)

Evidence (Teacher Evaluation):

Twice a term my teacher filled out an evaluation form (based on my performance during our weekly lessons). I have attached these forms below:


(Term 1 Week 5) 




                                                               
                                                             (Term 1 Week 10) 


   
                                                              (Term 2 Week 4) 





                                                                     (Term 2 Week 9) 

Reflection:


February 2014

This year I decided to continue with Speech and Drama, but instead of focusing on learning dramatic pieces my focus is on developing my public speaking skills. During this month my teacher Ms Brian, decided to develop my public speaking skills through a series of different tasks such as games and scenarios. For example, in one lesson Ms Brian made me pretend I was school captain, giving a speech to Year 12 about leaving high school.

I have found these new tasks particularly challenging because I am not used to these sorts of activities and this style of speaking. Last year, my lessons were focused on enhancing my dramatic skills e.g. how to sight read a text and learn a monologue as opposed to public speaking skills. My limited exposure to public speaking makes it very difficult to adapt to situations where public speaking skills are required and learn these new skills. Additionally, I have also found these new tasks quite challenging because I am quite a shy person and find it extremely difficult to speak without a prepared speech (improvise). In the past, I would get quite anxious before delivering a speech and I still feel this way during my speech and drama lessons. I hope that by participating in public speaking lessons I will be able to overcome this fear and become a confident public speaker.

March/April 2014


Given that I found public speaking very difficult, there were times during the past 2 months when I even wanted to quit. However, I realised that it was normal to find new tasks difficult and if I continued I would be able to develop public skills, which will be very useful in the future. I also realised that in signing up for Speech and Drama I had made a commitment and it is very important (at school and in the future) to fulfil all your commitments irrespective of how difficult they are. As such, I persevered with my weekly Speech and Drama lessons and upheld my commitment.


During March and April, Ms Brian continued with activities (such as games and scenarios) to further develop my public speaking skills. I slowly found that towards the end of March that my public speaking skills and self-confidence were improving. I was now able to deliver speeches in my lessons without shaking and sweating excessively. I also felt that my voice was a lot clearer and less shaky. Ms Brian even commented on how she was starting to see a clear improvement in my public speaking skills. These new skills were particularly helpful during my IOC (English task) in April because I was able to speak confidently and clearly in improvising a speech and answering questions for 20 minutes.

May/June 2014

During these past couple of months Ms Brian and I worked hard at developing my public speaking skills and improving my confidence. This was very important to me as I realised I am finishing school soon and will need these skills to prevail in later life. During this period, we continued focusing on improving my public speaking skills by playing speaking games and re-enacting various scenarios. In the last 2 months, we also focused on learning a variety of breathing techniques in order to calm my nerves. I found this to be a particularly useful skill to learn because I know that it will become very handy in the future, when placed in stressful public speaking situations.


I feel that in the past 5 months, which I have participated in Speech and Drama that my public speaking skills have improved immensely. By consistently attended weekly 30 minute classes, I have been able to develop as a person and I am now able to improvise when required and speak confidently and I believe that I have conquered my fear of public speaking. Moreover, participating in two different strands Speech and Drama over the last 18 months has allowed me to gain an increased awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth in Drama. Even though, I feel that my public speaking skills have dramatically improved, I still feel that I am better at performing dramatic pieces e.g. acting out a scene from a play. I am hoping that when I attend university, I will have the opportunity to continue to improve my public speaking skills by joining drama clubs.

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