Teaching Forum Theatre!

As a secondary education student with a major in English and a minor in Drama, I jumped at the opportunity to teach a joint ELA and Arts Ed lesson tackling social issues through forum theatre. I began with the ELA portion of the lesson, where students read articles about mental health access, sexism, racism, and the camp in Regina for the unhoused. Each article was followed by a brief discussion of what was read.

In the next class, I instructed the students on what forum theatre is and how it is used. I created this presentation to go with my instruction and then put students into four groups. Each group created a forum theatre presentation to coincide with a topic from the morning’s readings. Each group did a fantastic job of creating conflict in their plays and refraining from solving it. However, the real magic began when we performed a week later.

I was nervous as class began, wondering if my lesson was going to be a big flop. I was initially supposed to have three consecutive hours, one for the ELA class, one for the Arts Ed, and another to present, but a pep rally interrupted my plans. I asked the students to lock the work they had done in their brains and hoped they would remember what they had planned a week later. I gave the students 15 minutes of rehearsal time before the performance, in which I visited each group to see what they had and offer suggestions. Some groups required reminding not to solve the problem they were presenting.

We created our stage at the front of the classroom, and those in the audience sat on the floor. The students performed their scenes in their entirety once, and then the joker began asking for spect-actors to join in. The jokers did an excellent job of bringing in spect-actors, and there was significant buy-in with all the students. We were never short a spect-actor and often had upwards of 5 students ready to join the actors and make some changes. The students were also able to solve each problem presented independently, except the scenario about the unhoused population, which required a little more guidance.

The real success of the lesson, I feel, was shown on the exit tickets I had students fill out. EVERY. SINGLE. STUDENT. was right on track with their insights on why forum theatre is valuable, all while being realistic about its limitations and downsides. Here are some quotes from their exit tickets:

“It helps to see the problems and how we can prevent them.”
“It can show problems of social issues and how to fix it.”
“It conveys it because all of this stuff is real.”
“You get to see other peoples views.”
“It can be a good way to convey messages because it’s fun to watch.”

“The person could say something bad or the spect-actors might get the wrong message.”
“When talking about racism you could be described as a white savior.”
It could go wrong if “no one puts their hand up” and “you may pass the wrong message.”

All in all, I am so proud of the work the students did, and I am so grateful for the opportunity I was given to combine my passions!

Here is a video I showed to the students that they said helped them understand what forum theatre is! I gave a language warning before showing it, and the middle year’s students were very mature about the use of language in it.