For my fourth blog post I wanted to talk about two of my all time favourite activities. These are the ones that I look back on and know for sure I want to use in my own classroom someday. Besides both of them being extremely awesome, the only thing they really have in common is the fact that they involve CHAIRS.

Instead of trying to explain their differences I'll just get right to it.

The first activity is called Hot Seating.

Hot Seating is an extremely popular drama activity that anyone who's taken a drama course has likely tried before. The idea of the activity is to have one student be in the "hot seat" and the other students ask them questions. The student in the seat does their best to answer all of the questions in their assigned character.
This activity is so awesome because it can be so easily changed up to work for whatever you are doing. You can have the hot seat be a character from a book you are currently studying, or you can use it to further develop characters for an upcoming play.  You can also choose to work in small groups so those in the hot seat aren't as nervous. A fun twist could be to not tell the questioners who the hot seat person is and through their questions they must figure it out.
In our drama course we did hot seating a couple of different times and each one was a unique experience. The activity really allows for students to develop their sense of character and role and to practice remaining in role. It also helps students to learn to "just roll with it". Students may be asked question they weren't really prepared for but by staying in role and coming up with an answer on the spot, they are rolling with it and developing their improvisation skills.

The next game is completely different. Where Hot Seating involves talking using questions and answers, The Great Game of Power involves no talking at all.

The Great Game of Power is a drama game that explores the various representations of power through visual images created using plain everyday objects. It allows for students to reflect, analyze, and discuss their thoughts as well as explore the relationship between observations and interpretations.
The game is played by placing 5 chairs in the centre of the room haphazardly and explaining to students that they need to rearrange the chairs in order to make one chair have more power than all of the others. After one student goes into the room rearranging them without saying anything, the class will look and observe, before another student can go in and create a new image with only one chair in power. There are no rules, students may stand on or sit on any of the chairs for their representation as long as they are being safe.



After everyone has run out of ideas, we stop and discuss the different representations. That is when students begin to make connections about what they saw and how they interpreted it. Students can recall different examples and say what they liked or what they didn't like and even ask questions to those who made certain choices.
This activity definitely stuck with me and it is one that I would definitely do with an intermediate class and that I may consider doing with juniors, depending on the class dynamic. For younger students I might try the same activity but with plastic cups instead to avoid any injury or issue.

Again as somebody who is not as confident in drama, these two activites were easily accessible to me and would be to other students who might not enjoy memorizing lines or creating skits for the class. They can either answer questions in the Hot Seat, or work with the drama materials around them in The Great Game of Power.