Drama: Monologues

One of the ways I was really able to explore drama was through monologues. Particularly at the intermediate age group as it was a way to incorporate several subjects.

Monologues have a student think, write and speak as a specific character or person. This can be accompanied by costumes, props, gestures and mannerisms. The idea is for students to think like someone else and be able to act it out. Monologues are unique because they can provide insight to the thoughts of a character. A monologue could be a character speaking to another person or group but it can also be a character talking to themselves almost like thinking out loud. Monologues can be serious, informative or comical. 

Immediately, you can tie oral language into a monologue presentation. Things like point of view and voice can easily be evaluated in the writing of the monologue. In my grade 7 class students wrote monologues as a picture book character. They could talk about something that happened in the book for develop their own story based on the character. For example, one student was the evil stepmother from Cinderella but wrote a monologue about how her reputation was all a misunderstanding. Another student wrote a monologue through the eyes of character we didn’t hear much about like the prince in The Paper Bag Princess. This student had the freedom to develop his monologue based on the character traits he knew about the prince. Using picture books was a way of keeping characters simple for students and providing the freedom to develop their monologues in any way they wanted. 

In my grade 8 class, students wrote and presented monologues as a Father of Confederation. They had to introduce themselves to the class, talk about their background and explain their contribution to Confederation. Many students dressed up and aged themselves in order to get into character. Some students presented with French Canadian accents and other brought props to share with the class. We were able to evaluate drama, language and history (based on the accuracy of their information) all in one assignment. 

I found the use of monologues to be very effective. We had to provide exemplars, work through the writing process, and give time for practice but in the end, students were allowed to explore their creative side while learning about several subject areas. In particular, monologues brought history to life for my grade 8’s and it is something I would use again. 

Examples for the classroom: