Children's ideas for dramatization
Date
1983
Authors
Loganhume, Karel Lois
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Abstract
This study, which was the first step towards a preparation for a drama curriculum, set out to discover what children could contribute toward the material for dramatization. It appeared that no formal research had been focused on this problem and a review of the literature revealed that writers on children's drama held a variety of opinions. One group advocated that selection and creation of some of the stories for acting out should be the responsibility of children. This study, based on that recommendation, was concerned with the following: the ability of children to produce ideas for stories , which, when dramatized, offered the responsibility of a main role to every child in a class of twelve; the sources and the content of these ideas; the story elements within the ideas; and the topics the children wished to avoid.
The subjects were 54 children of eight, nine, and ten years of age who attended recreational drama classes. There were 16 boys and 38 girls. The sample was representative of the diversity and disparate numbers of the ages and sexes of the children who attend these drama classes. Because of this disparity the sample was treated as a whole.
The subjects were each requested to contribute six sets of ideas for stories and to state material they did not wish to dramatize. These contributions were tapeĀ recorded and simultaneously transcribed for later examination. The data revealed that the great majority of the sample produced stories suitable for dramatization by a class of twelve. Numerous internal and external sources were used as stimuli for story creation which covered a wide range of topics in both real and fantasy worlds. There were a great variety of environments, an emerging awareness of past and future time periods, and an active involvement with the present time of their own lives. The children demonstrated capability in using combinations of age groups but showed a preference for casts of characters that were either all adult or all children. The subjects in the sample demonstrated capability in generating many diverse problems but not solutions. Topics that the children wished to avoid were negative in nature and appeared to be related to their own personal experiences and television. The data revealed that an incredibly rich diversity of stories was created by the sample, and therefore, supported the findings of the writers who concluded from their experiences that children are capable of assuming the responsibility of creating stories for dramatization.