A Tableaux is a visual presentation in enactment that can be done in a various of ways using the body. A Tableaux can help students visualize and explore both the text and the subtext of a narrative, including setting, scenes, situations, characters, relationships, and meanings.
To help plan a Tableaux, students need to be taught about the journalist’s five W’s and H (Who, What, Why, Where, When, and How). Then you need to follow specific steps:
1. Chose the story, text or part of a text that you wish to depict visually and share with each other as an audience.
2. Identify central concepts (informational texts) or events (narrative texts) that are crucial to understanding the whole.
3. Review the important ideas, events, and/or details that an audience will need to know regarding each concept or scene.
4. Work with your group to consider how to present these scenes visually in a way that will communicate the important details to the audience.
5. When you are done with your Tableaux, be sure the audience has help in “seeing” and understanding the whole story or the importance of the concepts explored.
Last summer I took a class where we were all expected to read the same text. When we had completed the book, we got into small groups and were first asked to discuss the book, but then we were expected to brainstorm major themes the book portrayed. Once we had listed about five themes, we were told that we had to use all our bodies to make a statue symbolizing this theme. The other groups job was to guess what our theme was based on our representation and their background knowledge of the book. This was a great exercise that helped us to understand the book more clearly.
Wilhem offers many Tableaux techniques that can be used in the classroom.
1. Gestos- The ideas is to get the students to summarize the relationship between characters quickly, with simple gestures and expressions.
2. Snapshot- When students are reading, ask them to stop and imagine a snapshot of the action.
3. Slide Show- Students put together several Tableau to tell the coherent story of how several events relate to each other.
4. Talking Statue/Talking Portrait- Students can become statues or portraits that come to life and give their views.
These Tableaux are a great alternative for students who are very shy and do not like to have many talking parts in drama. They can be positioned and not expected to talk, while students who enjoy the attention can choose another type of Tableaux where there is more dialog. This strategy can work with every student and is a good alternative to discussion and summarizing the text.
I remember that activity last summer. It was fun and very creative to see how each group represented the theme in a statue form. I think once a group of students understood the task, the creativity would surface in many ways. I also liked the idea of snapshots. This is a nice supplement to a read aloud of a chapter book. It also contributes to the idea that we all interpret the reading differently.
ReplyDeleteWow! What an activity to do with students. I think this would be fun for a group to do, but I'm not sure how a shy student would feel about doing this. If it were me, I would die. But I also think it's good for students to try new things and this would be something different. I think it would be fun to watch students and people participate in this activity.
ReplyDeleteThis technique sounds great to warm up the class. The teacher has to be careful in applying it because some student are very shy and don't want to be laughed at when they don't do very well. Plus, it takes time. It all depends upon the content of the text, the purpose of teaching and students' need.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for blogging this. I am excited to try it with my students.
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