ABSTRACT
Pretending to be someone or something other than themselves comes very naturally to most children. A child may, for instance, decide quite spontaneously that she is going to be a dog: she scampers around on all fours, barks and whines when she wants something, asks to be taken for a walk, and even expects her food to be given to her on the floor. Quite understandably, parents and other adults place limits on how far they are prepared to join in the game, but lucky children encounter those who understand just how important such behaviour is. Whether he is being a dog or a builder or a dad or a mum, the child engaged in this kind of play creates a world, enters into it, and actively explores the consequences of being there. It demands a sustained effort of imagination: the kind of imagination that is fundamental to becoming a writer.
Some adults tend to associate these playful behaviours solely with early childhood and consequently think of them as something that we ‘grow out of’: some may even actively discourage it as children grow older. Yet it is that very capacity to suspend the normal rules of time, place and identity and believe together in the worlds we have created that is the basis of theatre, of film, and of the television soap. We all know that the characters that populate East Enders or Coronation Street are not real, but we still enjoy putting that knowledge on hold for half an hour while we watch them interact with each other and absorb ourselves in the unfolding stories. And story is a vital word; for whether it is a child or group of children playing in the role-play area, or a company of actors on the stage of a theatre, their words and their actions usually combine to tell a story. The children in their role-play area are active agents in the making and living of those stories, combining thoughts and feelings, words and actions. Though we don’t wish to underestimate its importance and value in the lives of many children, watching film and television is passive in comparison. Those capacities to create worlds and to live in them together, which children often exhibit so spontaneously in the early years, need to be kept alive throughout primary education – and well beyond it – if the imagination that gives rise to them is to be nurtured and developed in young writers. Drama and imaginative play are vital elements of the primary curriculum in their own right, but they can also make a powerful contribution to the development of writers in a number of important ways.
