8 Innovative Brainstorming Techniques for the Drama Classroom
Traditional brainstorming sessions—often a verbal discussion with students seated in a circle—are just the initial spark in drama classrooms. To truly unlock creative potential, drama educators are expanding brainstorming beyond talking in circles and into more dynamic, embodied, and collaborative modes. Recent research in constructivist learning and embodied cognition suggests that when we engage learners’ bodies, senses, and social interactions alongside their minds, we foster deeper creativity and inclusion.
In fact, drama education is increasingly recognised as a way to develop key competencies like communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. This article explores how a wide range of innovative brainstorming techniques, underpinned by solid theoretical foundations, can revolutionise drama pedagogy by engaging the whole learner—body, mind, and ensemble.
Theoretical Framework
Constructivist Learning Theory
Constructivism posits that knowledge is actively constructed by learners through experience and social interaction, rather than passively absorbed. In drama education, this is especially evident: students derive meaning through embodied experiences, collaborative creation, and reflection in and on action. Vygotsky’s social constructivism emphasises the crucial role of social interaction in learning, aligning seamlessly with ensemble-based drama work.
In an ensemble, ideas emerge from group exploration rather than lone insight. Brainstorming for a play or scene becomes a process of co-construction—students build on each other’s ideas, much like actors improvising together onstage. Research confirms that drama’s collaborative nature creates a positive atmosphere that encourages students to share ideas and supports each learner’s cognitive and linguistic growth. In essence, a constructivist drama classroom transforms brainstorming into an interactive rehearsal for understanding: students don’t just list ideas; they experience and negotiate them within the group’s zone of proximal development, scaffolding each other’s creative contributions.
Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle
David Kolb’s experiential learning cycle offers a framework to deepen brainstorming beyond idea generation into genuine learning. The four stages—Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization, and Active Experimentation—mirror the creative process in drama.
For example, when students brainstorm a character, they might first engage in a concrete experience (improvising a day in the character’s life). Next, through reflection, they discuss what they felt or observed. In abstract conceptualization, they formulate insights or theories about the character’s motivations or relationships. Finally, they actively experiment by applying these ideas in a scene or improvisation.
This cyclical process aligns with Kolb’s idea that “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience”. In practice, an effective drama brainstorming session might follow Kolb’s cycle: initial playful exploration (experience) is followed by group reflection and analysis, leading to conceptual ideas (themes, strategies) that are then tested out in further improvisations or scripting.
By consciously cycling through these stages, teachers ensure that brainstorming is not a one-off activity but part of an iterative learning process where ideas are tried, reviewed, and refined. This not only generates richer dramatic material but also helps students integrate what they learn from the creative process into deeper understanding.
Multiple Intelligences and Embodied Cognition
Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences reminds us that learners have diverse strengths—beyond verbal intelligence, they may excel in bodily-kinaesthetic, spatial, or interpersonal intelligence, among others. Drama naturally taps into these modes: it engages the body, space, emotions, and social awareness. Modern research on embodied cognition provides strong support for this multimodal approach, showing that cognitive processing is tightly linked with the body and environment. When students use their bodies or physical surroundings as part of thinking through a problem or creative task, additional cognitive resources come into play that purely verbal or sedentary brainstorming cannot activate.
Research on embodied cognition acknowledges that cognitive processing is tightly coupled with bodily activities and the environment. An important implication for education is that learning can be enhanced when the brain, body, and environment mutually influence each other, such as when making or observing human actions, especially those involving hand gestures and manipulation of objects.
Castro-Alonso, J.C., Ayres, P., Zhang, S. et al. Research Avenues Supporting Embodied Cognition in Learning and Instruction. Educ Psychol Rev 36, 10 (2024).
For drama educators, this means that effective brainstorming should engage more than just the linguistic brain—it should involve movement, visual-spatial thinking, interpersonal interaction, and even tactile or auditory modes. Engaging multiple intelligences might look like students physically sculpting a scene layout (spatial/visual), using improvised gestures or rhythms to explore a character’s emotion (bodily-kinaesthetic and musical), or collaborating in groups (interpersonal). These approaches align with the idea that the mind is not isolated in the head; rather, thinking can be distributed across our body and environment. By broadening brainstorming to include movement and multi-sensory expression, we leverage embodied cognition: students literally think with their bodies, often arriving at ideas they might never reach through words alone.
Embodied Brainstorming Techniques
Given the theoretical backing for active, bodily engagement in learning, drama teachers can employ embodied brainstorming techniques to invigorate idea generation. These methods move brainstorming off the page (or out of heads) and into physical space, harnessing the creative power of movement and gesture.
1. Movement-Based “Bodystorming”
Bodystorming adapts the concept of brainstorming to the body: instead of talking about ideas, students walk them out or physically embody them. Research on embodied creativity notes that while embodiment has been influential in cognitive science for decades, it’s rarely applied in creativity research and pedagogy —a gap drama education is poised to fill.
In practice, bodystorming might involve students literally walking in their characters’ shoes. For example, to brainstorm character ideas, learners get up and move: How does this character walk when happy vs. when angry? By experimenting with posture, gait, and movement quality, students discover insights into the character’s traits and emotional state. Rather than sitting in a circle speculating what a character might be like, they experience different possibilities through their bodies. Suppose the lesson is exploring abstract concepts (say, “freedom” or “chaos” for a devised piece). In that case, the class can bodystorm by creating physical tableaux or movement improvisations that express those concepts, then discuss what they felt and observed.
This approach aligns with design thinking practices where bodystorming is used to simulate scenarios to inspire ideas physically. It taps into kinaesthetic intelligence and often yields fresh perspectives because students are using a different modality to think. The physical action also energises the class and can break through mental blocks—sometimes an idea “unlocks” when a student moves in a certain way, sparking a thought that wouldn’t emerge from conversation alone.
When the brain, body, and environment act together, such as
Castro-Alonso, J.C., Ayres, P., Zhang, S. et al. Research Avenues Supporting Embodied Cognition in Learning and Instruction. Educ Psychol Rev 36, 10 (2024).
when making or observing human movements in an instructional setting, learning and problem solving can be boosted.
2. Gesture Mapping
We often “think with our hands” without realising it. Gesture mapping is a technique where students deliberately use hand and body gestures to externalise and develop their thinking. In drama brainstorming, a teacher might encourage students to create a gesture vocabulary for abstract ideas or characters. For example, as the class brainstorms themes for a play, each student might contribute a gesture that represents an aspect of a theme (one student shows a “breaking” motion for conflict, another a “circle” for unity, etc.). These gestures can be “mapped” together as a living mind-map on stage, with students physically arranging themselves and their repetitive motions to illustrate connections between ideas.
Another application is sculpting invisible characters or scenarios using gestures. Students pair up; one student describes a character or scene idea while the other uses their hands and body to “sculpt” that idea in the air or on an improvisational partner. The gestural feedback often helps the original brainstormer see new facets: for instance, a student describing a villain may notice their partner’s sharp, angular gestures and realise the character could be physically angular and staccato in movement.
Gesture mapping essentially allows students to see and feel their ideas in a tangible form, which can then be translated into words or dramatic action. It’s especially powerful for students who struggle to articulate ideas verbally; a simple hand motion might encapsulate an emotion or concept that they can later discuss and refine.
3. Spatial Brainstorming
Drama occurs in space, so why not brainstorm in it? Spatial brainstorming uses the classroom or studio itself as a canvas for generating ideas, turning abstract brainstorming into a concrete spatial experiment. Two effective approaches here are Environmental Storytelling and Set Design Thinking.
Environmental Storytelling
In this method, students treat the room as an environmental metaphor for their ideas. For example, if they are devising a story, they might rearrange chairs, blocks, or other props to symbolise different settings or plot points while simultaneously brainstorming story ideas. A group might cluster chairs to form a “village” on one side of the room and a lone chair far away to represent an “outcast” character’s home, thus physically mapping story elements. As they move through the space, learners discuss how the environment influences character behaviour and plot developments (“What would it feel like to have to cross this distance to reach the village? Could that be a scene?”).
This echoes practices in immersive and site-specific theatre, where the setting informs creative choices. By literally walking through the story’s landscape, students experience the narrative’s world-building in real time. They might discover, for instance, that a scene idea emerges simply from two props being placed side by side unexpectedly. Spatial brainstorming engages visual-spatial intelligence and helps those who think better with their eyes and bodies in motion. It also encourages collaboration—students must negotiate the space together, creating a shared mental model of the story’s world.
Set Design Thinking
This technique invites students to brainstorm ideas by hand—touching and arranging materials as if they were designing a set or a scene. Provide an assortment of objects (fabric pieces, paper, boxes, found objects) and ask students to prototype a stage picture or a key moment from a play while brainstorming its concept. For instance, if they are brainstorming how to stage a particular scene, one student might drape fabric over a chair to symbolise a mountain, which prompts another student to suggest a character climbing that “mountain” in a metaphorical sense in the story.
This hands-on, tactile approach often produces ideas that wouldn’t surface in discussion. The act of making engages creativity in a different way, similar to how visual artists sketch to discover ideas. By manipulating materials, learners may spontaneously combine elements (“What if this blue cloth [representing water] overlaps with that red light [passion or danger]?”), leading to novel dramatic ideas. Crucially, this also gives a voice to those who are visual or spatial thinkers; they can show their idea in 3D form instead of explaining it in words.
The process resonates with theories of extended cognition (using physical artifacts to extend our thinking). A tangible mini-set can serve as a shared reference point that the group discusses, refines, or even walks through if it’s life-size. The brainstorming session thus becomes part model-building, part improvisation—a truly multimodal creative process.
Why Embodied Techniques Work
By incorporating movement, gesture, and space, these embodied brainstorming methods recognise that drama is embodied art. When students stand up and brainstorm with their whole bodies, they often display increased energy, focus, and investment. Ideas generated through physical exploration tend to be grounded in authentic human experience (since drama ultimately is about lived experiences). Moreover, embodied techniques can be more inclusive: a student who is quiet in discussion might shine when expressing ideas through movement; a student who struggles with writing might contribute brilliant ideas through improvisation. Drama educators are at the forefront of enabling students to use the body as a thinking tool to enhance creativity.
Collaborative Brainstorming Methods
Collaboration is at the heart of both constructivist learning and theatre-making. Brainstorming in drama can be supercharged by structuring it as an ensemble effort, where each participant’s idea sparks the next. Below are methods that leverage group dynamics and the principle that the collective imagination is greater than the sum of its parts. These techniques ensure that one or two voices do not dominate brainstorming, but rather that ideas emerge through interactive play among the whole group.
4. Ensemble-Building Approaches
Yes, And….
One simple collaborative rule from improvisational theatre can transform brainstorming culture: “Yes, and…”. In traditional brainstorming, ideas can be inadvertently judged or dropped too quickly; “Yes, and…” ensures that every idea is accepted and built upon. When drama students practice “Yes, and” improvisational brainstorming, they respond to any suggestion with affirmation and add something new. For instance, if one student says, “What if the protagonist is secretly a ghost?”, the next might say, “Yes, and perhaps that’s why she can’t leave the old house,” and another adds, “Yes, and the house itself could be a character reacting to her presence.” In a few rounds, a chain of ideas forms where each link grows from the previous one.
This approach creates a non-judgmental, “unconditional acceptance” atmosphere and a positive, trusting creative space. For drama teachers, setting up a brainstorming session as an improv game (where any wild idea is met with enthusiasm and extension) can break students out of fear of being wrong. It encourages risk-taking and often leads to delightfully unexpected solutions to dramatic problems. Moreover, it teaches an invaluable theatre lesson: creativity in ensemble is about making your partners look good and feeding off each other’s imagination, not protecting your own ideas.
Collective Character Creation
Another ensemble approach is Collective Character Creation. Instead of one student brainstorming a character alone, the entire class builds a character step by step. This could start with one student walking as a character (movement) while another spontaneously narrates what they see (“I think this person is very old and carries a heavy burden…”). A third student might jump in with a line of dialogue as that character, adding a vocal quality, and a fourth could freeze the improvisation to propose a backstory detail (“What if he’s returning home after years at sea?”). Through this round-robin of contributions, a richly layered character emerges—far more complex than any single student might have devised in isolation.
This method democratises creativity and also teaches students to listen to one another. Each new contribution must make sense in light of the previous ones (supporting the “Yes, and” ethos) but can also steer the character in a new direction. The process is akin to devising theatre collectively, where everyone owns a piece of the result. Students often feel a sense of shared pride and investment in characters created this way, which bodes well for later work when acting or writing scenes for those characters.
Story Circle
Story Circle techniques also epitomise ensemble brainstorming. The class sits or stands in a circle and creates a story one piece at a time. There are variations: a One-Word Story Circle has each student add a single word in turn, forming sentences unpredictably; a One-Sentence Story gives each student a bit more to build on the narrative thread. Alternatively, a story circle could involve passing an “impulse” non-verbally (each student adding a gesture or sound to continue a physical story sequence). These exercises force students to adapt rapidly to whatever the last person contributed, which cultivates quick thinking and openness. No one can plan too far ahead, so everyone stays present and attentive.
The resulting story might be fantastical or disjointed. Still, it often contains seeds of brilliance—a surprising plot twist or a poignant image—that the group can later reflect on and deliberately incorporate into a more structured piece. Story circles originate in both theatre games and community storytelling practices (e.g. the Story Circle method from activist theatre and education, which emphasises democratic participation). By using them in the classroom, drama teachers practice inclusivity (everyone contributes equally) and model a vital principle: every voice in the circle matters to the creative whole.
5. Role-Based Brainstorming
Drama uniquely allows participants to step into roles, and this can be leveraged even at the brainstorming stage. Two techniques in particular, Hot-Seating and Perspective-Taking Exercises, turn brainstorming into an embodied interview or simulation that can yield profound insights.
Hot-Seating
Hot-Seating is a staple of drama education for character development. In a brainstorming context, hot-seating involves one student literally sitting in the “hot seat” as a character (either one they’re developing or a historical/literary figure relevant to a play). At the same time, the rest of the group asks them rapid-fire questions. The twist is that the student must improvise answers in character, on the spot.
For example, suppose the class is devising a drama about climate change. In that case, one student might hot-seat as “the last polar bear” or as “a future generation teenager,” and peers interview them about their experiences and feelings. This forces the student in the hot seat to think and create as the character, often revealing backstory and emotional details that no one had scripted. It transforms brainstorming from an abstract planning discussion into an active, dramatic exploration.
Students listening will frequently get inspired and say, “Yes, that’s great—what if we show that in scene 3?” or ask follow-up questions that deepen the scenario. The key advantage is authenticity: ideas surfaced in hot-seating tend to feel organically connected to the character, because they arise from acting impulses rather than analytical plotting. It’s a form of role-playing research, blurring the line between rehearsal and brainstorming. Moreover, it’s highly engaging—learners are effectively rehearsing while generating content. The technique reflects Dorothy Heathcote’s philosophy (in British drama pedagogy) of “stepping into the shoes” to learn through a role, not just about it.
Perspective-Taking Exercises
Perspective-Taking Exercises broaden this idea by asking students to brainstorm from a specific, often unconventional viewpoint. Instead of discussing a scene in general terms, you might assign each student the perspective of a different character or stakeholder and have them generate ideas as that person.
For instance, if brainstorming solutions to a conflict in a play, one group of students might list ideas thinking as Character A, another group as Character B, and yet another as an observer or minor character in the story. Alternatively, students could temporarily assume roles like “the set designer,” “the director,” or even “the audience” and brainstorm what each would want to see. By doing this, students practice empathy and multi-angle thinking. It often reveals conflicts or opportunities that a single perspective misses.
An example: brainstorming a scene from only the hero’s perspective might overlook how the scene could also illuminate the villain’s motivations—something a student playing the villain’s perspective would quickly bring up. Perspective-taking is rooted in theories of empathy and social understanding; educationally, it aligns with approaches that encourage students to examine situations through others’ eyes to gain a fuller picture. In drama, where understanding characters’ inner lives is crucial, this kind of brainstorming not only yields content (plot and dialogue ideas) but also deepens students’ comprehension of the material. It turns a planning session into an improvisational role-play, making the process of brainstorming as educative as the outcome.
Structured Creative Frameworks
While open-ended brainstorming has its place, sometimes using a structured framework can push students to think in new directions. Structured techniques give a scaffold or set of prompts that ensure a comprehensive exploration of possibilities. In drama pedagogy, adapting well-known creative thinking frameworks can provide variety and depth to brainstorming sessions. Below, we explore three such frameworks—SCAMPER, Six Thinking Hats, and Bloom’s Taxonomy—and how they can be applied to drama education.
6. SCAMPER Method for Drama
The SCAMPER method is a classic checklist for idea generation developed initially for business creativity, but it translates remarkably well to drama brainstorming. SCAMPER is an acronym for a set of actions: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify (or Magnify/Minify), Put to other use, Eliminate, Reverse. By asking SCAMPER questions, students can systematically break out of conventional thinking. Here’s how each element might work in a drama context:
Substitute: What if we substitute one element of our drama? For example, if the story is set in 19th-century London, what happens if we substitute the setting for 22nd-century Mars? If our protagonist is a teacher, what if we substitute in a student as the central character? This prompt encourages looking at the project’s building blocks and swapping them to see new outcomes. In character work, a student might ask: “Can I substitute this character’s dominant emotion (e.g., instead of anger, try fear) and see how it changes the scene?”
Combine: How might we combine elements in a novel way? Drama is interdisciplinary by nature, so combining genres or stories can be fruitful. Students could brainstorm combining two characters into one composite or merging two scene ideas. For instance, if they have a strong character and a strong setting but from different brainstorms, what story emerges if that character is placed in that setting? Or combine styles: “Let’s combine Shakespearean language with modern social media context.” This often yields creative contrasts or harmonies that enrich the piece.
Adapt: What can we adapt from elsewhere? Perhaps adapt a known story to our purposes (turn King Lear into a high school principal, for example). Or adapt a real historical event as the basis for the drama exercise at hand. Students might discuss how they could adapt a puppet-theatre technique they saw into their own performance. Adaptation brainstorming also includes thinking of analogies: “Our play’s conflict is hard to grasp; can we adapt a sports rivalry dynamic to make it clearer?” The adapt prompt nudges students to remember that nothing starts in a vacuum—creative work often involves tweaking existing ideas.
Modify/Magnify/Minify: How can we modify an element—perhaps magnify it (make it bigger) or minify it (make it smaller or subtler)? For example, if a scene feels dull, ask “What if we magnify the stakes? Make the problem ten times bigger?” Conversely, “What if the conflict were microscopic—two ants arguing—how would that play out comically or metaphorically?” Modification can apply to tone (make it more farcical, or more serious), pace (slow it down dramatically in one section), or characters (exaggerate a trait to see what happens). This is a great way to explore stylistic choices. Students learn that any aspect of a production (lighting, sound, movement) can be dialled up or down to transform the audience experience.
Put to Other Use: How might something be put to another use in our drama? In a literal sense, this could be a prop exercise—challenge students to find 10 new uses for a broom in a scene (weapon, dance partner, magic staff, etc.), which often sparks imaginative scene ideas. In terms of story or theme, it could mean repurposing an element: “Our theme of loneliness—can we put it in a comedy context instead of tragedy?” or “Take the ending we planned and see if we can use it as the beginning (reordering the narrative).” The idea is to break functional fixedness.
Eliminate: What happens if we eliminate something significant? This is a powerful prompt, as it forces the group to consider the core of their piece. “If we remove the main character from the story, what else could drive the plot?” Or “What if we do the scene with no dialogue at all—what new forms of expression emerge?” Eliminating can also mean stripping down: no set, no props—does the scene still work with just actors’ bodies and voices? Often, elimination leads to innovative solutions (like a silent scene told entirely through gesture, if we remove words, which might turn out more emotionally powerful). It teaches students to avoid getting too attached to any one idea.
Reverse (or Reorder): What if we reverse some aspect of our concept? This could mean flipping the sequence of events (tell the story backwards, or start at the end), reversing roles (have the antagonist and protagonist swap traits or positions), or any inversion (the mood of a scene is reversed—turn a happy reunion into a tense standoff). If brainstorming staging, they might even reverse the audience perspective (e.g. perform among the audience instead of on stage). Reversal often reveals hidden assumptions and can produce a “wow” factor. A student may suggest, “What if the power dynamic in this scene is reversed—let’s have the servant command the king for once,” leading to rich exploration of theme and character.
Using SCAMPER in a drama class might involve the teacher guiding students through each letter in turn, applying it to the current project. This structured play ensures that no stone is left unturned; the group will generate ideas that cover substitutions, combinations, etc., which guarantees variety. It can be especially helpful when students seem stuck or are iterating on the same type of idea repeatedly.
The SCAMPER prompts act like creative jostling, pushing their minds down different tracks. It’s essentially a game of “what if…?” questions that, in the context of drama, can unlock new characters, scenarios, and staging innovations. After a SCAMPER session, students often feel they have too many ideas—which is a good problem to have. They can then select the most promising or intriguing ones to develop further through improvisation or scripting.
7. Six Thinking Hats for Drama
Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats is a well-known framework to examine a problem from multiple angles by metaphorically wearing different coloured “hats,” each representing a mode of thinking. In drama brainstorming, this method can be employed to ensure that a group considers their piece from a spectrum of perspectives, which is particularly useful in refining ideas or solving creative challenges in a production. The six hats are: White (facts), Red (feelings), Black (critical/judgment), Yellow (positive/optimistic), Green (creative/alternative), and Blue (process/management).
Here’s how a drama class might use them:
White Hat (Information) – Think of this as the researcher’s hat. The group focuses on the factual and informational aspects of their project. For a devised play, White Hat thinking might involve asking: What do we know about the context or subject? What information is missing? In a Shakespeare unit, for example, students in White Hat mode might list historical facts about Elizabethan theatre or the play’s setting. During brainstorming, this ensures a solid grounding—“We know the protagonist is in 1910 Paris, what was happening there then?”—which can inspire story ideas rooted in real events or conditions.
Red Hat (Emotions) – Now the group sets aside cold facts and discusses feelings and intuitions. What emotions do the various ideas evoke? How do students feel about the characters or scenarios under consideration? In brainstorming a dramatic scene, Red Hat thinking might have each student share their gut reaction to an idea (“I feel like this ending is unsatisfying” or “I love this character; I’m emotionally invested in them”). Or if they’re creating a piece on a social issue, they discuss the emotional landscape (“This story makes me feel angry about injustice, we should keep that tone strong”). Red Hat allows for the expression of hunches or mood without needing to justify them with logic.
Black Hat (Critical) – Under the Black Hat, students play the devil’s advocate or critic. They look for potential problems, weaknesses, or risks in the ideas. Although brainstorming is often about free generation, the Black Hat stage is valuable later in the process to refine ideas. In a drama context, this might involve questions like: Is this scene feasible to stage with our resources? Are there plot holes or character inconsistencies? For example, if the story includes a complex time-travel element, a student in Black Hat mode might point out, “How will we show time travel on stage without confusing everyone? We need a clearer device.” This critical lens ensures the group doesn’t ignore practical constraints or logical issues.
Yellow Hat (Positive) – The opposite of Black Hat, Yellow Hat thinking seeks the strengths, benefits, and opportunities in ideas. Students deliberately find what works or what is promising. In drama brainstorming, Yellow Hat might have students highlight their favourite aspects (“The relationship between the siblings is really compelling—audiences will connect with that,” or “The idea of using shadow puppets for the flashback is brilliant and doable.”). Yellow Hat discussions build confidence and momentum by focusing on what’s good. It also fosters a supportive ensemble mentality, where peers learn to appreciate each other’s contributions.
The Green Hat (Creative) – This mode fosters freewheeling brainstorming and encourages the generation of new ideas, alternatives, and unconventional possibilities, signalling that no idea is too outlandish. In drama sessions, it can inspire alternative endings, new characters, or different storytelling mediums, and is particularly useful for finding creative solutions to identified challenges. This phase is characterised by a judgment-free environment that aligns with the playful and exploratory nature of drama games.
The Blue Hat (Meta) – represents the meta perspective in a brainstorming session, used by the facilitator or group to organise their thinking process. It helps recap progress, switch focus between different thinking styles (e.g., from emotions to facts), and set agendas, such as outlining steps in drama class. The Blue Hat ensures that discussions remain structured, prioritises ideas, assigns tasks, and allows for reflection on the process, ensuring the group stays aligned with their goals.
Using Six Thinking Hats in a drama brainstorming session could be done over the course of a single extended session (switching hats every few minutes or as needed), or spread out—perhaps one rehearsal is devoted to “emotional (Red) brainstorming” and the next to “critical (Black) review” and so on. The benefit of this structured approach is that it prevents groups from getting stuck in one mode of thinking. Some classes, by temperament, might be very good at wild ideas (Green) but poor at organising them (Blue) or vetting them (Black); others might be overly cautious (too much Black) and need encouragement to dream bigger (Green, Yellow). The hats remind everyone that all these modes are valuable.
8. Bloom’s Taxonomy in Creative Brainstorming
Bloom’s Taxonomy is traditionally a hierarchy of cognitive skills (Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create) often used in educational planning. While it usually applies to learning objectives, it can also inspire a structured brainstorming progression in drama, guiding students from lower-order to higher-order thinking in their idea development. By framing brainstorming tasks around Bloom’s levels, drama educators can ensure students not only generate ideas but also deepen and refine them into original creative outputs.
Higher-order thinking is a concept based on learning taxonomies, which are used by educators to describe learning behaviors and distinguish levels of cognition. The well-known Bloom’s Taxonomy was revised in 2001 to describe creativity as the most complex (highest-order) process in the knowledge hierarchy (Anderson et al., 2001). Not long after, the Partnership for 21st Century Learning identified four learning skills and competencies essential for a knowledge economy: creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking (4Cs).
Malinin, Laura, H., How Radical Is Embodied Creativity? Implications of 4E Approaches for Creativity Research and Teaching
Consider a scenario where students are developing a new short play. We can align brainstorming activities with each level of Bloom’s:
Remember (Knowledge Recall): Begin by brainstorming what is already known or can be recalled that relates to the project. For instance, if the play is about migration, students first recall stories, facts, or examples of migration they’ve learned (from history class, news, literature, personal experience). They list existing plays or films on similar themes. This ensures a foundation of knowledge and can prevent reinventing the wheel. It’s akin to a research phase done creatively: “What examples of similar dramatic work or characters can we remember?” Even a simple question like “What dramatic techniques do we know that we could use (monologue, flashback, chorus, etc.)?” falls under recall. This primes the brainstorming with relevant content and techniques at their disposal.
Understand (Comprehension): After grasping the story, students should showcase their comprehension by elaborating on and linking concepts within the narrative. This involves exploring how characters and themes shape the storyline. Activities like crafting concept maps or summarising the main idea in a concise pitch aid in expressing thoughts clearly and uncovering fresh perspectives. For instance, pinpointing crucial scenes that exemplify themes such as loss and reconciliation.
Apply (Application): Students apply their ideas in practical contexts by acting out rough versions of scenes or using recently learned techniques, such as improvisation or story structures, to generate content. They may explore theoretical concepts, like status transactions in drama, to enhance their scenes, leading to practical insights and creative solutions that emerge during the process, bridging the gap between brainstorming and rehearsal.
Analyze (Analysis): In the analysis stage, the group examines patterns, themes, and structures in their brainstormed material by breaking the story into parts like exposition and climax to assess dramatic effectiveness. They ask questions about underlying themes and imagery patterns, comparing different ideas and discussing their merits. This critical examination includes assessing the impact of various endings on characters and audience emotions, ensuring that the brainstorming process leads to a deeper understanding of the material. Additionally, the analysis may involve exploring subtext and symbolism, such as recurring images of water, to determine if those motifs should be further developed.
Evaluate (Evaluation): In the evaluation stage, students make explicit judgments about which ideas to keep, discard, or prioritise by assessing them against project goals, feasibility, originality, and emotional impact. This process may involve voting, ranking, or debating ideas, as well as performing and discussing different improvisations to determine which approach best conveys the intended message. Teacher guidance is essential to model constructive critique, encouraging students to reference their earlier analysis to justify their choices. This step fosters higher-order thinking and transitions students from brainstorming to selecting and refining their creative concepts for production.
Create (Synthesis): The pinnacle of Bloom’s Taxonomy is creating something new by synthesising ideas. In the context of brainstorming, this is where the chosen ideas are now fleshed out into a draft scene, a storyboard, a script outline, or a devised performance piece. Essentially, the group takes the evaluated ideas and constructs the drama. They might outline the entire play’s scenes on a whiteboard (synthesising all brainstorm threads into a coherent structure). Or they might do a full-group improvisation of the piece from start to finish, effectively creating a first iteration of the show. The creative brainstorming here becomes actual creation of the work, informed by all the groundwork laid by previous levels.
For example, after all the prior steps, the class may conclude: We remember archetypal hero stories, we understand our play’s about second chances, we applied an improv technique to explore scenes, we analyzed that our strongest scenes revolve around a mentor-mentee relationship, we evaluated various endings and chose the bittersweet one; now, let’s create our narrative around those pillars. The final brainstorm might involve writing dialogue or choreographing movements for key moments—essentially the execution of ideas into art. The Bloom’s cycle encourages that by the time students are in this creative stage, their ideas are grounded in comprehension, enriched by analysis, and chosen with intention, making the creative output more robust.
Using Bloom’s as a guide in brainstorming is subtle but powerful. It ensures students don’t skip straight to trying to “create something” without first understanding the content and context (a common pitfall). It also legitimises each phase: sometimes students are eager to start writing the play (Create), but taking them through analysis and evaluation first can save them from having to rewrite later by catching issues early. Conversely, some groups love discussing (analysis, evaluation) but hesitate to move into actually devising scenes—Bloom’s reminds us to push upwards to the creation phase after the groundwork is laid.
As an educational strategy, it helps teachers scaffold the brainstorming: you might literally have a six-step workshop where each step corresponds to a level of Bloom’s, or keep these cognitive processes in mind and make sure your students are engaging in all of them over the course of the project. The result is a progression from basic recall to original creation, mirroring how an artist might research, experiment, critique, and then produce. This not only yields a well-thought-out drama piece but also teaches students transferable thinking skills.
| Approach Category | Key Characteristics | Theoretical Foundations |
|---|---|---|
| Embodied Brainstorming (Movement, Gesture, Space) | Uses physical movement (bodystorming), gestures, and spatial arrangement to generate ideas. Engages students’ bodies to explore emotions, characters, and scenarios (e.g. walking in character, gesture mapping abstract concepts, rearranging the room as story landscape). | Embodied Cognition – thinking linked with bodily experience; Gardner’s Bodily-Kinaesthetic & Spatial Intelligences; Constructivism – learning through doing and experiencing. |
| Collaborative Methods (Ensemble & Role-Based) | Leverages group creativity and social interaction. Examples: “Yes, and…” improvisational brainstorming, collective story/character building, hot-seating in role, perspective-taking games. Ideas develop through acceptance, addition, and multiple viewpoints in a supportive ensemble. | Social Constructivism – knowledge co-constructed via social interaction (Vygotsky); Group Creativity Research – collective ideas can surpass individual ones; Improvisational Theatre principles (Johnstone, Spolin) promoting trust and ensemble. |
| Structured Frameworks (SCAMPER, Six Hats, Bloom’s) | Applies formal idea-generation frameworks to drama. SCAMPER prompts systematic tweaks (Substitute, Combine, etc.). Six Thinking Hats have students explore facts, feelings, critiques, etc., in parallel. Bloom’s Taxonomy guides brainstorming from recalling knowledge to creating original work. These provide clear steps or “lenses” to think through all aspects of a dramatic idea. | Creative Thinking Theories – SCAMPER (Eberle/Osborn) for divergent thinking; Lateral Thinking (de Bono) for multiple perspectives; Cognitive Development Frameworks – Bloom’s taxonomy encourages higher-order thinking integration in creation. |
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Last update on 2025-10-10 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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