Children’s dialogic aesthetics in the chronotopes of drama, drawing, and telling

This paper aims to draw on Bakhtin’s theory of dialogic aesthetics and chronotope to address the thorny issue of data interpretation regarding using draw-and-tell as a research method in studying children’s lived and arts experiences. We argue that drawing and telling enframe children in different but successive chronotopes in which they are charged with opportunities for engagement in complex dialogues with their previous experiences and others. Two children from the groups of actors and spectators were sampled from a drama lesson to illustrate their becoming aesthetic across a succession of drama and post-performance activities due to the chronotopic factors. A microanalysis of their drawing and telling reveals the possibility of outsideness and complexity of dialogues varied with their participation as spectator or actor in the drama lesson. With all this understanding, I argue for a holistic and integral application of field observation, and drawing and telling to trace the trajectory of children’s becoming dialogic aesthetic. The study could also provide valuable insights into the research methodology of draw-and-tell, its pedagogical implications for children’s theatre participation, as well as drama teaching and learning. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s).