The first entry in your Drama Journal is the hardest one, because the page is blank and you do not yet trust what belongs on it. So for week one only, the entry is guided: answer the three prompts below, a few sentences each, and you are done. Ten minutes, written the same day as class.
The three prompts
- What we did — the facts, briefly. Which warm-up, which convention, what your group was asked to make.
- What surprised me — one specific moment you did not expect. In you, in a classmate, in the room.
- What I am nervous or curious about — name it plainly. This course asks people to do unusual things in front of each other; noticing how that sits with you is the work.
What honest looks like
These fragments are the register to aim for — plain, specific, true:
“When we froze for the first tableau I laughed and wrecked it. Not because it was funny. I think I laugh when everyone can see me.”
“Maya just decided to be the mother in our group without asking and it worked. I would never volunteer like that. I kind of want to be able to.”
“The room went actually silent during the last group’s freeze and it felt different than silence usually feels. I do not have a word for it yet.”
None of these is polished, and none is performing for a reader. Each one names a real moment and stays with it — which already beats a page of “drama was fun today, I learned a lot.”
Nobody reads this but me
As Drama Journal promises: entries are private. I read them; other students never do, and nothing you admit here is ever quoted, projected, or used as an example without your explicit okay. The nervousness you name in week one becomes your best evidence of growth by the end of the course — but only you will decide if anyone else ever hears about it. This is Why Trust Comes First, applied to the page instead of the stage.
Curriculum connection
B1.1
use the critical analysis process before and during drama projects to identify and assess individual roles and responsibilities in producing drama works (e.g., use journal writing, teacher-guided reflection, cooperative problem solving, writing in role, and discussion to identify team members’ skills and knowledge and assess their use in project tasks)
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