Keep Reading if…
- You’re a drama teacher, searching for new ways to teach thought tracking.
- You happen to be a KS2 or middle school teacher who wants to incorporate drama into your lessons.
- You’re a workshop facilitator or practitioner, in need of some fresh ideas.
What is Thought Tracking?
Thought tracking is an effective rehearsal technique which we can demonstrate and implement in our lessons. It involves the actor speaking a character’s internal thoughts and emotions aloud, usually during dialogue or in a still image. Thought tracking encourages students to think creatively about the inner thoughts of a character, exploring subtext, matching emotions to physical and vocal choices and exercising empathy skills. However, I often wonder how to effectively teach thought tracking in drama. I often witness many misconceptions and inaccuracies when teaching this technique. Therefore, it is important to note that thought tracking is not…
- A performance technique, like an aside. The two are similar but thought tracking is for the actor’s benefit.
- When an actor speaks the character’s actions, not their thoughts or feelings aloud.
- Improvised dialogue between two or more actors.
When Can I Use Thought Tracking?
This technique has many variations, which are discussed in detail below. However, it is a good idea to use thought tracking to develop characterisation. Perhaps your students are staging a play, and you are observing a lot of two-dimensional acting or maybe your pupils’ understanding of character is lacking in a written evaluation. Thought tracking can solve both of these issues. Similarly, you may wish to highlight the subtext evident in a specific scene, or you may wish to encourage students to grasp the nuance of a character’s dilemma using an interactive strategy.
6 Activities to Teach Thought Tracking in Drama
10 Second Tableaux
Version 1: Ask for a group of four volunteers to create a still image, this could be of a maths classroom, a train station, a football game, or a visit to the dentist. Choose a scene which resonates with your pupils’ experience. Once the image is created, allocate all those sitting in the audience the name of one of the students in the still image. Give them 30 seconds to silently create a one-sentence, first-person, thought track for their allocated character. For example, ‘I am so bored, when is this lesson going to end.’ Cold call some responses to compare and contrast thought tracks.
Version 2: Put learners into groups of four or five. Give the whole class 10 seconds to create a still image of your choice. Once 10 seconds is up and everyone is in position, tap students on the shoulder, one by one to signal that you want them to unfreeze and thought track. Do an intention sample of the students, to see who has understood and correctly applied thought tracking.
Grandmother’s Footsteps
Split the class in half. Ask one half to make an audience, while the others play a game of grandmother’s footsteps. If you have not heard of this game, the rules are as follows:
Firstly, ask students to line up horizontally, and choose one student to be ‘granny’, this person must stand directly opposite the others. When Granny’s back is turned, the others are allowed to advance towards Granny, but when Granny faces them, they must freeze. If Granny detects any movement, she sends students back to the beginning. The first person to touch Granny on the shoulder wins.
Have one half of the class play the game from beginning to end, while the others watch. Ask the group to repeat the game again, but this time they must be silent. Allocate each of the audience members to a person to thought track. They must add the thought track while the game is being played. For example, they may say ‘Did granny see me?’, ‘I have a really itchy nose right now’ or ‘That was so unfair, I definitely didn’t move’.
Ask the groups to swap over so everyone has a turn of playing and thought tracking.
With or Without
Give out copies of a short scene extract, preferably a duologue. Ask students to get into pairs and stage the scene, without any prior knowledge of thought tracking. After 3 minutes is up, teach the students the thought tracking technique. Ask them to include at least two moments each of thought tracking.
Next, ask the students to perform the scene again, this time without voicing the thought tracking, but allowing it to influence their physical and vocal choices.
Open the floor for a discussion about how thought tracking improved their characterisation.
Some Questions You Could Ask…
- How might tracking your character’s thoughts improve your performance on stage?
- Do you think that understanding the character’s thought process helps you stay in character more consistently?
- Can you demonstrate the various emotions a character may be feeling in the scene?
- Are you able to link the character’s objective with your thought track?
- How similar or different would another character’s thought track be to yours?
Thought Walk
Instruct everyone to find a space in the room, standing up and either specify how you want the students to be the same or different characters, from a play or story you may be studying. Ask the students to improvise a longer thought track, voicing the internal thoughts and feelings of their character at a certain point in the play. Encourage them to walk and talk freely, knowing that the room will be very loud, and nobody will be listening.
Thought Collage
After the thought walk, you may wish to gather the pupils in a clump facing outward. Request that everyone close their eyes and explain how you are going to put everyone’s thought track ideas together in a collage. Pupils can add to the collage in any way they see fit, for example, they can repeat certain words or phrases, change the pace or volume of their thought track, and adapt the rhythm of their words. As the teacher, you may wish to conduct the arrangement of the thought collage by directing students towards a crescendo and a gradual ending. At the end of the activity, you will have a detailed thought collage for a given character.
Conscience Alley or Thought Tunnel (Variation)
This convention was first introduced to me through the work of Joe Winston and David Farmer. In its original form, it is used as a persuasion or ‘angel and devil’ activity, when a character faces a certain dilemma. This, however, is my adaptation for thought tracking. Arrange the class into two parallel lines, facing each other. Choose someone to be the main character. This person must slowly walk through the ‘tunnel’ or ‘alley’ created. When the main character passes them, students must thought track out loud, speaking in the first person, as if they were the character in question.
Want Some More?
Hopefully you are no longer left puzzled over how to teach thought tracking in drama. Some of these strategies may have generated some very detailed and rich responses. Therefore, consider the ways you may wish to transform these verbal accounts into monologues, letters, soliloquies, or diaries through a written activity.
