Chapter 5: Mantle of the Expert

“School is about facts---mostly boring facts---drama is about making facts exciting because you add the feelings….drama takes facts and asks how they might have been different or how the facts might affect you or someone else and how all that would feel.  That’s why I like drama.”   ----Mike (p.100)

            Students are bored with school’s everyday curriculum.  Teachers across the nation, and across my district, are presenting information from a textbook with little scaffolding on comprehension and relevance.  According to Wilhelm, “The point of all reading, and of all learning activity, is to change our understandings and, as a result, our ways of thinking and being in the world.”  Imagine if all reading done in the classroom would have this purpose and relevance for students.  I believe dropout rates would be significantly lowered, and there would be less disciplinary problems within classrooms. 

            This chapter talks about having students put on a mantle of an expert.  A mantle is like a cloak.  They get to become an expert for the day.  This expert can be, but not limited to, a counselor, lawyers, author, psychologists, social activists, historians, movie producers….  The point of having students assume these roles is so that they can look at situations (texts) from a different perspective.  Students are expected to step out of their comfort zone and put a cloak of an expert on in order to understand the situation and the possible outcomes from another’s perspective.  This is a powerful tool in order to help students understand the text, and also to understand choices and cause and effect relationships. 

            In order to plan Mantle-of-the Expert work, there are twelve steps you are encouraged to follow. 

1.       Teacher sets (or students and teacher negotiate) the curricular topic or text, and frames it by articulating a thematic issue to explore.

2.      Teacher, perhaps with students, brainstorm experts who could deal with the issue, and what they know and do.

3.      Teacher asks:  Who could use the knowledge offered by the experts—and for what purposes?

4.      Teacher asks:  In what form would the expert knowledge be created, shared, and applied?

5.      Teacher introduces the situation:  The purpose, the roles, the audience/clients, and the task to be performed.

6.      Teacher explains what students are to imagine and what they are to produce.

7.      Teacher and/or students choose specific tasks.

8.      Teachers and students plot out a time line.

9.      Students plan how to manage the task

10.  Students assume a role—or multiple roles.

11.  Teacher assumes a role.

12.  Groups, in role, engage in a series of tasks.

Because of the significance of entering a different role, many mantles can lead to social-action projects.  This is when it’s important to have students reflect on what they are doing and what they are learning.  You can help guide this conversation by asking WHAT?, SO WHAT?, and NOW WHAT?.   Student, looking through different eyes are able to see things that are unjust.  These are the conversations that lead to deeper growth and understanding of the world we live in. 

Chapter 4: Sitting int he Hotseat

            Hotseating is a type of enactment technique that intensifies role playing by putting students “on the spot.”  This type of enactment requires students to think quickly and make inferences about the character, author, a real-life figure, a group or representative of a group, as an idea (democracy), a force (electrical charges), or a math concept (density, area).  Hotseats are wonderful tools, but it’s important for you to make sure the students feel comfortable and intellectually safe.  One way to do this is to model first what the expectations are. 

            While modeling you need to sit as a character and explain how you are feeling, what you want, or what your goals are.  Then you can ask students to write down questions they would like to ask you (the character).  Students are then allowed to ask you the questions.  When you are stumped, you can ask a group near you for suggestions on how to answer the question. 

            Just like all other enactments there are many different variations to the Hotseat. 

1.       The Inner Voice:  someone can stand behind the character and say what the character might really be thinking about without any inhibitions or internal editing.

2.      Voices from the past-

3.      Good Angel/Bad Angel

4.      Tunnel of Advice/Conscience Alley

5.      Response Montage

6.      Character/Self Think Aloud

7.      Inside/Outside

8.      Mantle of the Stranger

9.      Hotseat the author

10.  Personification

             One of the most important parts about Hotseats is the reflection that is required after the activity.  This is where students will be able to take this information and transfer it to their everyday lives.  During Inner Voice, you might ask students questions like:  What would relationships and communication be like if we always knew what the person was thinking?  What would change in your life if someone knew all of your thoughts? 

            The Good Angel/Bad Angel strategy is an excellent activity to help students understand choices and repercussions from those choices.  You have one person on the hotseat as a character.  Then you split the class in half.  One half is the angel while the other half is the devil.  They take turns persuading the character to make their choice.  The character can choose to be silent, or they can talk back to the devil/angel.  Reflections are the most important part of this activity.  It gives you an opportunity to discuss how in real life, different people may need different kinds of help.  It shows students the power of words to solve problems.  Reflections are a way to freeze time and consider the options and why we may be so easily swayed to the wrong decision.

            This type of enactment activity takes higher level thinking.  I can see how it can engage and stimulate students to help with their learning and understanding of texts.  In my classroom, I believe I’d have to model multiple times for the students to understand what the expectations are.  For some reason fifth-graders have a hard time staying in character.  This will be a fun activity to try.

Chapter 3: Getting in Role

     All reading involves “ imagining to learn.”  This is the goal to being a successful reader.  This chapter focused on Role Playing in order to help students with their imagination.  There are different ways of incorporating this strategy, but all the ways need these basic ideas:

1.      Frame it- make sure the students know their role and their mission so they can pay can know what to pay attention to in the text.

2.      Read aloud- You read so the students can focus on their role

3.      State the Scene- Make sure students understand where this role is taking place. 

4.      Play teacher in Role-  As you walk around you might help students or complicate the situation, but this must be done inside the enactment.  

Types of Role Play enactments during reading:

1.        Literature Circle Drama Roles

a.       Summarizing:  Telegram Writer/Cell phone Message Writer

b.      Visualizing:  Illustrator/Photographer

c.       Questioning:  Reporters/Police

d.      Inferencing:  Detective? Accountant

e.      Problem-solving:  Dear Abby/Commentator

f.        Predicting and Elaborating:  Fortune-Teller/Prophet

g.      Monitoring and analyzing: Expert Analyst

h.      Monitoring and Digging Deeper:  Drama Diva

2.        Stranger in Role

3.       Parallel Scenes

4.       Character Walks

5.       Step by Steps

6.       Character Think Aloud

Types of Role Play activities for After-Reading

1.         Who Am I?

2.        Character Surveys

3.          Character/Author Interviews

4.        Minor Character Monologues

5.        Round-Robin Monologues

6.        Drama Centers

7.         Dress-Up Book Reports

After reading this chapter, I felt somewhat overwhelmed with all the information and strategies given.  I feel like enactments are a good idea, but I wonder if they are possible with all the time restraints we as teachers face.  I realize that I do not have to do all these enactments, but the more I hear, the more I’m realizing the time that is required to complete them successfully.  After completing the outline above, it became more digestible and more focused.  I began to realize that I have used many of these strategies within my classroom already.  I often use the Inferencing: Detective/Accountant strategy during my slavery unit.  Students are asked to reconstruct the travels, life story, finances or thoughts of a major character within their books.    I have enjoyed this lesson because it forces students to walk in the shoes of the characters.  This makes books come to life and helps scaffold the reading comprehension. 

      One last bit of information that I would like to share is the way to help students evaluate one another.  This book gives three hand frames for students to use to get students to respond to each other.

1.       Praise:  What I really liked about the presentation was…

2.      Questions:  Something I had questions about was…

3.      Polish:  I wonder what would happen if…/what would have happened if…

In my classroom, I often find that students have a difficult time giving praise or advice to others.  This frame will be helpful for students to understand what is expected in their evaluations.  These evaluations are a great way to get students really listening to their peers and thinking about the content. 

Chapter 2: Making the Connection-Enactments to Use Before Reading

     This chapter, as the title suggests, focuses on enactments that can be used prior to reading a text.   In order to be successful, teachers need to know where the lesson is going, what the students will learn, where she wants the students to end up, and what problems she foresees them having. Once you have this information compiled, you are ready to plan the enactments.  Some example of enactments given are:

1.       Frontloading with trigger letters- write a letter regarding a similar situation and have students discuss the contents of the letter.  Or write a letter that you pretend you found on the floor.  They can brainstorm who wrote it, why they wrote it, what is a suggested thing they should do.

2.      Have students respond to pictures- make inferences as to what’s going on, what they can learn from them, and why this picture was taken.

3.      Precious Object- Have students bring in something that’s important to them and have them discuss the importance.  This works well with books about trips or journeys. 

4.      Presents- Students pretend they are living in a time in history (holocaust, or slavery) and come up with presents that they would want—something unconventional. 

5.      Maps- This works well with survival books.  Have students see where they are and give them a destination.  Have them plan a route and a way t survive the journey.

6.      Primary Sources, Videos, and Incident reports. 

7.      Character quotations- Hand students a quotation (each different) from a certain time period about a certain topic.  Have students make inferences about the quote, person, and time period.  Then they can walk around the room and “jigsaw” to find what the quotes have in common.

8.      Fate Cards- Have students write their goals both personal and professional.  Then hand them a card in which you put a life scenario on, such as they have severe lung cancer.  They can then write about how their life goals are affected.  This is great for a smoking unit.

9.      “What if?” Questions-Questions to stimulate imagination.  “What if your property was going to be taken by a more powerful person?”

10.  Character manifesto and Creed- This is a great frontloading for a book where characters face challenges to their beliefs.

This chapter was full of ideas that would work well in my class room.  I especially liked the character manifesto and creed.  This is an activity that I think will work well with my curriculum.  I plan to use this at the beginning of the school year so we can refer to it as we learn throughout the year.  They would have to compose a creed where they include things like: What do you believe in?  What is important to you?  What do you want to achieve?  How do you want to live each day?  What is worth working for?  What is the ultimate goal of your life?  What is your desired legacy?  They can different genres in order to complete this creed, and I believe it will create unity within the classroom while giving background information for future learning.