Embodied Learning: A Case Study of Tableau and Writing in Role to Represent Main Ideas About the Solar System

Abstract

The chapter presents a case study of a classroom intervention that examined the effectiveness of ‘tableau’ and ‘writing in role’ (established classroom drama conventions) as pedagogical tools to represent and track comprehension of main ideas about the solar system. The intervention, informed by theories related to embodied learning, was implemented over six sessions with a class of third grade students in a semi-urban area of the south-eastern United States. After reading informational texts about different aspects of the solar system, students worked in groups to create a still image (tableau) representation of a main idea and for two of the sessions students also wrote from the perspective of the role they had enacted in the tableau (writing in role, [WriR]). Varied data sources – audio recordings, photographs and WriR compositions – captured unfolding interpretations of the scientific texts and evidence of student comprehension of key concepts related to the solar system. Analysis of the data sets was guided by the essential research question, ‘What did the drama do for the learning of science?’ The case study concludes that the application of drama conventions with a curriculum science unit about the solar system caused the students to actively engage with scientific abstract concepts in order to embody them as tableau representations. As a result students acquired an enhanced understanding of key concepts and therefore these findings support the cognitive value of learning science through drama.