Drama provides language-rich contexts, content and opportunities for writing in and/or out of role, within or after the drama. It generates reasons for writing in a range of styles, purposefully, for responsive ‘audiences’.

Compelling reasons for writing often arise or can be planted by the drama teacher. The teacher might be in role too, contributing to and guiding the writing process as a co-participant. The teacher in role may require the students to write for her/him, for example as a newspaper editor requiring ‘copy’ from reporters or as an injured soldier needing a letter home to be scribed.

Drama strategies can be used for generating and sharing relevant vocabulary, phrases, sentences, dialogue, questions, descriptions, and so on, before the students start writing, within or outside the drama, individually or together, in or out of role.

Drama strategies can be considered as visual, auditory, kinaesthetic writing frames that can also be used in lessons other than drama, such as English. However, in drama lessons, students are emotionally involved in the drama and their writing is relevant to it, so they may be more motivated to write. Their writing is contributing to their collective drama and can influence its content and direction.

From drama strategies into writing

Passing thoughts (for character studies or diaries)

A character stands in the centre of a standing circle. People can pass by the character individually and voice one thing they know (or think they know) about that character, justifying what they say.

Alternatively, this activity can require those passing to speak a sentence (an inner thought or utterance), as the character.

These activities will help students to write about the character (for a character study) or to write as the character (a diary entry or letter).

Talking objects (for personification)

Within a drama, inanimate objects can become empowered to speak and write. They can speak monologues, talk with other objects and answer questions about their histories, their owners and events they have witnessed. What objects say can then be written down as eyewitness accounts or recounts (what is the mirror saying it has seen?), or as a character study (what information has the mirror given us about its owner?)

Small group play-making (for stories, playscripts and narrative poems)

Scenes devised by groups can be chronologically sequenced and then written up episodically, as a series of paragraphs. They can be re-played silently, with an improvised ‘voice over’ narrative, which can then be refined when written.

Scenes can be recounted by characters and then written as first person narratives, from different characters’ viewpoints.

Groups can devise additional scenes based on existing texts, such as playscripts, novels and narrative poems. The new scenes can be enacted and then written up in the same style and form as the original text, such as an additional verse for a classic narrative poem, a new scene for a play, and so on.

Still images (for character studies, comic strips, eyewitness accounts, diaries, news reports)

A still image can have lines of dialogue added by the characters or suggested by the audience. Characters in the image can be asked to reveal their thoughts or be asked questions which can inform written character studies. If the scene is newsworthy, then those watching it might write it up as an eye-witness account, diary entry or newspaper report.

A series of still images can be chronologically sequenced and written up as separate paragraphs in stories, or storyboarded in comic strip form, (with speech and thought bubbles and captions).

Thought-walks (for monologues, letters, diaries, speeches)

Students can walk around and talk to themselves in role, before drafting and refining their speech, as a written monologue.

Thought walks can also be used to provide content and refine thinking before going on to write letters, diary entries and speeches in-role.

Conscience alley (for opinion piece or a balanced argument)

Opposing viewpoints about a course of action are voiced to the character as he/she passes along a corridor of voices. Utterances can be jotted down in two columns before writing a persuasive opinion piece or a balanced argument.

Hot-seating (for character study or report)

Hot-seating enables questions to be asked (in or out of role), of a character. This can inform a written character study, or, if the questioners do their asking in role as newspaper reporters or police, then report-writing might follow.