'Uncle Albert' Drama Education

One of the most difficult, yet rewarding roles is that of a parent. The relationship between and parent and child is so complex and important that a parents relationship with her/his child can affect the relationship that the child has with his/her friends and lovers. A child will watch their parents and use them as role models and in turn project what the child has learned into all of the relationship that he child will have. The way a parent interacts with his/her child has a huge impact on the child’s social and emotional development. Such cases of parent and child relationships are presented in Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” and Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”. While Roethke and Plath both write about a dynamic between a child-father relationship that seems unhealthy and abusive, Plath writes about a complex and tense child-father relationship in which the child hates her father, whereas Roethke writes about a complex and more relaxed child-father relationship in which the son loves his father. Through the use of tone, rhyme, meter, and imagery, both poems illustrate different child-father relationships in which each child has a different set of feelings toward their father.

The tone of the poem changes as the poem progresses. The poem begins with energetic language like “full of heroic tales” and “by a mere swing to his shoulder”. The composer also uses hyperboles like “My father began as a god” and “lifted me to heaven”. The use of this positive language indicates to the responder that the composer is longing for those days – he is nostalgic. It also highlights the perspective of a typical child. The language used in the middle of the poem is highly critical of his father: “A foolish small old man”. This highlights the perspective of a typical teenager and signifies that they have generally conflicting views. The language used in the last section of the poem is more loving and emotional than the rest: “...revealing virtues such as honesty, generosity, integrity”. This draws attention to a mature adult’s perspective.

The essay goes into great detail of his relationship with his father. He describes his father as cruel (65), bitter (65), and beautiful (64). He does mention the bad in length. On the flip side, he tells us some of the good as well. Throughout his storytelling, the reader gets a glimpse into his life and the way he feels. His feelings evolve during the extent of the essay.

In this poem, symbolism is used to help reader’s find deeper meaning in the little things included and show that everything comes back to the father’s fear of the child he adores growing older and more independent. “In a room full of books in a world of stories, he can recall not one, and soon he thinks the boy will give up on his father.” This sentence makes a reader assume that the story the five year old so

“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke sparks differing opinions within the minds of many. Roethke was influenced greatly by his experiences as a young boy. For instance, his uncle and father both died when he was the age of fourteen. “My Papa’s Waltz” is written in remembrance of his father after this dreadful occurrence. The author’s use of imagery brings light to the his adoration for his father. Notably, his way of stringing together ideas reinforces the fond memories they shared. Roethke’s captivating choice of words supports his purpose to make known the love he has for this man. While the subject of “My Papa’s Waltz” has spurred passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike, the imagery, syntax, and diction of the poem clearly support the interpretation that Theodore Roethke writes “My Papa’s Waltz” to bring attention to the loving relationship he had with his father.

As well as the quality of spoken language that children hear on a day to day basis will have a vast impact on the grammar and language they use. Therefore teachers and all teaching staff should ensure they continue to develop children’s confidence when it comes to communication by developing the skills needed to explain their understanding this is also vital when it comes to understanding and explaining of books or other recourses. All children should have access to and be encouraged to develop their role in drama. Pupils should be able to adopt, create and sustain a range of roles, responding appropriately to others in role. They should have opportunities to improvise, devise and script drama for one another and a range of audiences, as well as to rehearse, refine, share and respond thoughtfully to drama and theatre

In the poem the speaker tells us about how his father woke up early on Sundays and warmed the house so his family can wake up comfortably. We are also told that as he would dress up and head down stairs he feared ¨the chronic angers of that house¨, which can be some sort of quarrel between his father and his mother in the house. This can also lead the reader to believe that the father may have had been a hard dad to deal with. However the father would polish his son's shoes with his cracked hands that ached. This shows the love that the father had for his son and now that the son has grown he realizes what his father did for him. The sons morals and feelings have changed him because as he has grown to become a man he has learned the true meaning of love is being there for one's family and not expecting it to be more than what it is. Consequently this teaches him a lesson on how much his father loved him and how much he regrets not telling him thank

In the poem, the father’s point of view shows how he is taken aback by his son’s request for a story. A simple task, yet the father seems horror-struck by his son’s request for “Not the same story, Baba. A new one.” His son’s want for a new story strikes a nerve in the man, his hidden fears. The father believes the son is slowly growing tired of him, and

Two distinct points of views can be seen in this poem, one is that of the father and then the son. The father's point of view is more common and used more than that of the son but both displays and add to the complexity of their relationship. From the father’s point of view, he shows his concern for disappointing his son by not coming up with great stories and losing his son as five years old matures which increases his anxiety as he sees the future approaching. The father fears of a fallout in the relationship with his son “...he thinks the boy will give up on his father”(9). The sons point of view

The timeline of the drama program is it would start in October and end in May. The program will include teachers and community members as volunteers. Ideally, the people who volunteer would be interested in the arts such as: music, art, dance and acting. But, experience in those fields is not required. The students will have the opportunity to learn reading comprehension skills such as: sequence of events, vocabulary and summarization. The students will choose one book to read and study per month, and the activities will coordinate with those books. The books the children will choose from will vary in topic and difficulty, but will be on the 2nd grade reading level. The drama techniques that will be used are: hotseating, role-play and tableaux.

In the analysis of Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” and Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays,” both modernistic and highly respected poets similarly write with a sense of reminiscence of childhood experiences. Similarly, both poems are about a memory as a boy looking back at a specific time in their lives and the love they have for their respected fathers. A similar implication is expressed in the way of their lives not being perfect, but still remaining a humble family. This is shown within the first stanza of “My Papa’s Waltz” with an intoxicated father, as well as the first stanza of “Those Winter Sundays” with a hard-working, yet poor and achy father. Both poets’ usage of figurative language is present in ways of metaphorically speaking and alliteration. For example, in Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays,” the speaker compares the cold to an object that can splinter and break, by insinuating “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.” (Hayden, line 5) More so, in Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” the term “But I hung on like death” (Roethke, line 3) is presented as a metaphor as well. They have some common poetic themes shared between such as love, family, and admiration, however, they are presented in different ways in accordance their tones, making them unique. In analyzing the two, although quite similar, the structure, mechanics, tones, settings, and the interpreted mood of the poem, brings justification on their differences.

A child’s future is usually determined by how their parent’s raise them. Their characteristics reflect how life at home was like, if it had an impeccable effect or destroyed the child’s entire outlook on life. Usually, authors of any type of literature use their experiences in life to help inspire their writing and develop emotion to their works. Poetry is a type of literary work in which there is an intensity given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinct styles and rhythm. These distinct styles include different types of poems such as sonnets, villanelles, free verse, imagist poems, and many more. And these distinct styles are accentuated with the use of literary devices such as metaphors, similes, imagery, personification, rhyme, meter, and more. As a whole, a poem depicts emotions the author and reader’s can relate to. In the poem’s “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, and “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, we read about two different parent and child relationships. These two poems help portray the flaws and strength’s parents exhibit and how their children follow their actions and use it as a take away in their grown up lives.

The relationship between a parent and child is potentially one of the most influential in a child’s life. A positive interaction often yields admiration, love or a sense of support. A negative relationship may yield distrust, animosity or a sense of solitude. Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” describes the admiration of his hardworking father. The speaker, a young boy, depicts roughhousing with his father in the form of a waltz; expressing his desire to stay up and spend more time together though their relationship is detached. Seamus Heaney’s “Digging,” instills a sense of respect, pride, and a slight affliction for the speaker’s choice of the pen over the spade. The speaker has chosen a different path in life than that of his father and grandfather. Although written at different stages in life, both Roethke and Heaney write a poem about their families utilizing vivid imagery to demonstrate the love and pride they felt for these men.

The children are the ‘we’ of the first half of the poem. They “loved it” (5) when the mother kicked out their father and were “glad” (1) at the result of divorce. When their father lost his job they “grinned” (4) and were “tickled” (line 7) with pleasure as they watched their father’s world crash down around him. The sympathy conveyed through the narrative sits with the mother and children during the first half of the poem. As the daughter begins to speak in present terms, and the “you” (1,3) suddenly is now “father” (17), the poem undertakes a dramatic shift. Sympathy begins to surface, from the reader, for the “bums in doorways” (18) who begin to take on a victimized persona with their hands depicted as useless “flippers” (21) attached to their “slug” (19) bodies. It is not to say that the speaker has forgotten the cruel insensitive man that she recalls in the first part of the poem, but the father is now not the only villain and the mother and children are not the only sufferers.

Despite the claim that Drama in Education ( DIE) as a pedagogy dimmed its popularity in the Western world since 1990 until 2016 (Gallagher, et al. , 2017), in the year of 2011, Morrow, et al. included it as one of the best practices in literacy instruction. Some of the teachers who had the experience of trying process drama in their classrooms found that the pedagogy improved students’ participations, pushed students to use their imaginations, performed deeper understanding of the topics being learned and made the students learn to have empathy ( Long, 1998). Do the voices from the classroom resemble to what researchers and theories have to say on process drama?