“What do great leaders look and sound like?” Teaching artist Dafna Soltes Stein asked this question of fifth graders in two Patchogue-Medford schools, during the final months of the 2016 Presidential race. The students were learning about the Presidents and leadership qualities in a cross-curricular project led by the classroom teachers and involving the speciality teachers and Ms. Soltes Stein. The teaching artist guided the students in the creation of theatrical tableaux of six US Presidents.
The arts-integrated project began with the students researching Presidents, learning about their candidacies and slogans, with their classroom teacher and librarian. At the same time, connections to unit’s themes were made by the specialty teachers. For example, the art teacher introduced Jasper Johns paintings that used American Flags as well as shared different Presidential seals, each with its unique slogan and imagery. The music teacher introduced traditional patriotic music, such as Yankee Doodle.
To begin her five-session residency, Ms. Soltes Stein used drama games to introduce theater skills, such as body language (that is, non-verbal communication, including body postures and gestures) and vocal qualities. The teaching artist and students considered different ways to speak with emotional expression (below). Ms. Soltes Stein asked students to mimic various movements, such as standing with legs open and grounded while shaking one’s fist in the air; placing one’s hands on the one’s heart; and spreading arms wide with palms upward. She then added a variety of word phrases to these posture/gestures, such as: “Together we can do it,” “You can trust me,” and “I offer you my word.” Students took turns coming up with posture, gesture, word combinations, which the other children mimicked.
Throughout the activities, Ms. Soltes-Stein made frequent references to the project’s target vocabulary—accept, cooperative, fair, responsible, trustworthy, caring, patient, respectful and patient—which she posted on the board. The words appeared in unfinished sentences, which she asked the students to complete. For example, for the word caring, the students said, “I care about my family and friends…” and “You can trust me because I care about my pets.” Next, the students were asked to create poses that dramatized their statements.
Once the students were warmed up and focused, Ms. Soltes Stein explained that the students were going to collaborate to create a series of three tableaux (beginning moment, middle moment, end moment) for each of six Presidents—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Kennedy and Obama. “A tableau,” she noted, “is like a painting or photograph of people that comes to life.”
The students were placed in small groups. Each group was given one image of a President in action. Students were asked to analyze the image. Ms. Soltes Stein asked: “What is happening in this picture? Who is the focus of the image? Where is he? What is he doing? Who else is with him? What do you imagine each person is thinking and/or saying?” The examination of the images “was a lot like a close reading in literature,” noted the teaching artist.
Afterwards, Ms. Soltes Stein led the groups through the step-by-step process of creating a tableau. To begin with, the students had to assign group members to play the different characters in the tableau. Next, each student mimicked the pose of their character in the image. Ms. Soltes Stein explained that the picture they were creating was three dimensional and the students had to determine where their own bodies were in relation to one another.
To bring the tableau to life, the students then wrote a sentence of dialog for each character and decided on actions/gestures to accompany the delivery of the sentence. “For this step, they had to ask themselves: ‘Who am I? ‘Who am speaking to? ‘What am I saying?” said the teaching artist.
During subsequent sessions, Ms. Soltes Stein encouraged the students to expand upon their tableau, creating a “before” and “after” tableau. “Once the students had the hang of creating a tableau,” she noted, “it became very easy for most of them to build on that earlier experiences.” Ms. Soltes Stein asked them, “So what do you think happened next?” and “What might have happened before these two tableaux?” The end result were three tableaux in sequence, representing before, now and after, or the beginning, middle and end.
The sequenced tableaux were presented as “short skits” during the final session of the residency. Afterwards, the students were given time to speak about what they noticed and what they understood. “This project enabled the students and me to talk about the role and responsibilities of leadership at a time when it was on everyone’s minds,” said Ms. Soltes Stein. “For some students, the election was both personal and scary. Learning through dramatic theatre tableau allowed students to feel things about the presidency, to imagine it and voice it.”
Here are the tableaux that were created from images of three US Presidents.
Abraham Lincoln's image...
The tableau created from it...
George Washington's iconic image...
The students' tableaux...
Theodore Roosevelt's image...
A tableau by fifth graders....