At the time of undertaking this project I was a part-time instructor in the Women’s Education program at Adelaide Institute of TAFE and a temporary half-time contract lecturer in English as a Second Language at Croydon Campus of Douglas Mawson Institute of TAFE. Over the past few years I have taught in the language and literacy areas of vocational preparation programs at those two institutes.

I am also a playwright. As a playwright I am particularly interested in exploiting the use of imagination for obvious reasons. In terms 3 and 4 (2000), thanks to support from the University of South Australia, the Spencer Foundation (United States of America) and the Women’s Education Program of Adelaide Institute of TAFE, I embarked upon a teacher research project which looked at the following question:

"Can teaching women to write monologues help them with literacy?"

In looking at this question I worked with a group of very talented women who had written monologues for me in term 2 but I wanted to extend and deepen our work together. I was particularly interested in exploring and adapting the methods of internationally known playwright and filmmaker, Mike Leigh in using life experiences to enhance characterisation.

I wished to test the theory that the work of the women would gain in quality if they could be persuaded to draw upon their own life experiences as a basis for their creative, imaginative work. Consequently I introduced students to the following principles:

• Drama involves action and conflict.
• Action and conflict proceed from motivation.
• Motivation proceeds from character.

As a first and vital step, the women were encouraged to get to know their characters.

I suggested that the women chose someone they knew to base their final character on, in the hope that the real people who were being researched would provide the women with concrete detail upon which to base their final monologue characters.

Thereafter, each woman compiled an outline of her true-to-life character, using over forty headings, such as favourite colour, the thing their character feared most, whether or not their character found it easy to get up in the morning etc. The aim of this exercise was to encourage the women to make their character as vivid as possible.

I then asked each woman to write an account - a day in the life - of her character in the third person to distance the writers from their real life characters. At this stage I wanted to introduce an element of objectivity since the real life characters were not intended to be biographical or autobiographical but rather to form the bases of them. I wanted to give the women room to allow their imaginations to play their part.

Equally important was the deepening of characterisation through having to write an account of a day in the life of their characters. The discussions which arose from these accounts were very lively and gave the women practice in critical listening, oracy and editing their material.

This collaborative work led to suggestions among the group about situations which would form the basis of each character’s monologue.

All six women completed their monologues; but they weren’t finished because I wanted to demonstrate to them as forcefully as possible the unique quality of the dramatic writing genre. To do this, during the last three weeks of the course, I employed a professional director, Margaret Haselgrove and a professional actor, Anna Linarello, to work with the women on their monologues. And the result? The women performed their monologues or had them performed publicly at the Women’s Education Graduation Ceremony in December, 2000.

How important was the performance factor in this creative writing process?

If you want to find out more click here.