Using Process Drama within a Knowledge Processes Framework to Promote Aboriginal Students' Literacy Outcomes

Abstract

The issue of literacy outcomes for Aboriginal students has many facets, including, but not limited to: what literacies should be promoted through schooling; who can provide literacy instruction to Aboriginal students; and what pedagogic practices might be enacted. This paper considers these interrelated issues and then suggests how process drama can be used effectively by non-Aboriginal teachers in an attempt to respond to Nakata's (2003, p. 13) plea that teachers must resist 'the simplification and reduction of literacy goals to functional literacies'. In particular, attention is drawn to ways of knowing, delineated by Kalantzis and Cope (2004) as four knowledge processes: experiencing, conceptualising, analysing and applying. A practical application of how this framework can be applied through pedagogic practice is outlined and discussed. The focus is on the multimodal designs of meaning that can be made available through process drama, namely, visual, audio, gestural and spatial designs.