Democracy through Drama Eu Project

Mimesis applied to the reading 

of Italian Twentieth Century poems

lesson devised by Professor Scaramuzzo

To create oneself as a work of art, becoming poetry

A lesson for a class of thirteen-year-old students.

Objectives

1. To provide the approach to poetry and it reading poetry an ethical action.

2. To make poetry more accessible and relevant to a young readers’ life.

3. To foster an intimate comprehension of the meanings of the poem.

4. To avoid analysis that could obstruct the experience of encountering poetic language and to bring out concepts (e.g. hermetic poetry) and patterns of the poetic-rhetorical language (e.g. similitude, oxymoron) from the expressive dynamism experienced during the class.

5. To experience a participatory learning community where different interpretations facilitate shared understanding.

6. To experience the relevance of expression and understanding in a democratic coexistence inside and outside the school environment.

Expected results

Students will:

- Make the mimesis of the words of the poems using all of their body.

- Observe attentively the mimesis of classmates.

- Experience pleasure during the class.

- Identify, in the poems, concepts, meanings and figures of speech.

- Read the poem expressively, creating a congruence between meanings and pronunciation of words.

- Experience how learning is enhanced and deepened by the relationship we have with each other, in this case by witnessing and participating in the expression of another.

- Verbalize, in an original and authentic way, the experience of this cooperative learning process.

- Make reflections on the relevance of what they have experienced in class to life outside the school environment.

Materials: Poems Veglia (Wake) and Soldati (Soldiers) by Giuseppe Ungaretti.

Veglia

Un'intera nottata

buttato vicino

a un compagno

massacrato

con la sua bocca

digrignata

volta al plenilunio

con la congestione

delle sue mani

nel mio silenzio

ho scritto

lettere piene d'amore

Non sono mai stato

tanto

attaccato alla vita

Wake

A whole night

thrown near

a massacred companion

with his mouth

grinding

facing the whole moon

with the congestion

of his hands

penetrating my silence

I have written letters

full of love

I have never been

attached to life

so much

Soldati

Si sta come

d'autunno

sugli alberi

le foglie

Soldiers

Here we are

like leaves

from trees

in autum

Methodology

1) - Reading aloud

The teacher reads the poem aloud without giving any information to students.

The teacher reads the poem again, this time asking students to move a hand according to the meaning of words of the poem (i.e. making with one hand the mimesis of each word).

On a third reading aloud, the teacher asks the students to make the mimesis of words using their entire body.

NB: Throughout the activity the teacher refrains from showing any movements to the students.

2) – Observing the mimesis of the other  

The teacher divides students in two groups and reads the poem again. One group of students make the mimesis of the words with the body; the other group observes the mimesis of their classmates, and then vice versa.

3) – Verbalization

Students express in words feelings and emotions experienced whilst creating the mimesis and observing the mimesis of others.

4) - Concepts / meanings / figures of speech

The teacher draws links between the reflections of the students and the concepts, meanings and figures of speech identified by scholars and critics in the poem, giving explicit explanations (see the report at the end of these notes).

5) – Feeling the feeling of others

The teacher facilitates a reflection on the relevance of mimesis (becoming similar) for understanding intentions of the poet; and of the relevance of participating in the mimesis of others in order to deepen the research of meanings.

6) – The poem read by students

Students in turn read aloud. Mimesis is now, for the reader, an inner movement; classmates explore with their body the interpretation of the reader; whilst reading the reader pays attention to the expressions of the others, trying to harmonise the pace of reading with their movement.

7) – From class to life

The teacher facilitates a final discussion on how expression and understanding are related; and on how we can apply the knowledge we are gaining from class to life in order to improve the quality of relationship in the coexistence.

Analysis

In this approach, to foster civic skills and to teach a scholastic topic are not separate actions. The educational practices we use are paths to follow in order to build a democratic coexistence. Mastering mimesis can make possible the translation into life of any school subject.

In studying poetry, by making the mimesis of each word with all the body, students can enjoy the experience of becoming what they are saying and of saying what they are with all their being. In this approach poetry is a fundamental path in which to participate in the mysterious harmony of both a democratic society and life itself.

The Migrating Humanity

Lesson devised by Dr Flavia Gallo

To create democratic spaces for different cultures and languages

aimed at teachers and at young people

Summary

Starting from the word ‘memory’ in participants’ mother tongue, and from other words connected with ’memory’, we will propose a ‘mimetic exploration’ aimed to trace a common history of migration. We will build a shared drama through Mimesis in Education methodology. A score for bodies and voices that will take its cue from oral stories of an exodus told by students in their own mother tongue; the exodus they, or someone else, have lived or just an imaginary one.

Objectives

1.      Lowering linguistic and cultural barriers by meeting other languages and cultures;

2.      Widening intercultural competences starting from the enhancement of each person's mother tongue;

3.      Reducing the tendency to stereotyping foreign students as people with a deficit; and making the best use of their expressive, linguistic and biographical resources for the purposes of a multicultural democratic political co-existence.

Rationale

This workshop is important as we can see evidence of listening capabilities disappearing from civic life? What if we enhance the capabilities to perceive and to appreciate similarities and distances amongst idioms?

 Starting from linguistic and cultural differences, participants create a poetic score: this workshop is important as it provides an experience for young people to meet other cultures by working within a bodily frame.

The participants live the concept of the ‘other’ in order to come to an understanding of themselves through the listening.

Methodology

1.         Each participant writes down the word ‘memory’ in his/her mother tongue and makes the mimesis of it.

2.         Each participant makes the mimesis of the words of the others: firstly, coping the mimesis that the other has done, then proposing a new mimesis.

3.         Each person writes, in his/her mother tongue, a list of three other words that, in his/her opinion, could be associated with the word ‘memory’.

4.         Each one chooses two words from other participants’ list, and explores those through mimesis (working in pair);

5.         Participants, working individually, creates a small physical score using the mimesis of ‘memory’ and the mimesis of the other two words explored;

6.         Each physical score is shown to the class;

7.         Pairs are formed: in turn each one observes the score of the other and on the basis of this observation he/she writes in his/her native language a little monologue about a migration story;

8.         Participants read aloud all the stories created;

9.         Dynamic direction of the group to juxtapose voices and bodies carrying stories in sequence, placing them temporally and spatially;

10.      Following small written track, short feedbacks of the experience in English.

Materials: Marker pens, colours, big paper.