Corridor of Voices

The Corridor of Voices or Voice Alley strategy focuses on the exploration of characters’ inner thoughts and feelings. This strategy involves a student/character walking through a pathway between two lines made up of other students. While this student/character is walking through the pathway, the other students verbally express their own thoughts, advice, emotions, and moral concerns about a particular topic, issue, or experience that the character is going through or involved in. This strategy is used to focus on the character who is facing a difficult decision, dilemma, or situation. The voices on the outside may first present the negative side of a situation and how the character might feel, and then with the same issue, present the positive side. Teachers may or may not wish to have the student/character make a final decision after passing through the corridor of voices and explain why they selected this decision (e.g. what influenced them). 

This strategy can be integrated across various subjects such as language arts, social studies, history, and science. For example, the teacher may read a book with the class, show a video, etc. (related to any academic subject) where a character is presented with a dilemma or difficult situation. Students will then have to put themselves in the position of this character and think about what they would do and voice their thoughts to the student selected to walk through the corridor. This really enables students to think about their emotions and thoughts and builds on their ability to take on the perspective of others. Furthermore, it allows them to bring in knowledge about this particular area of study and use it to help guide them in making an informed decision, for example. Teachers may also use this strategy to help students build on their previous knowledge of social justice issues such as bullying, homelessness, and disability. Students would then have to demonstrate how society might treat these individuals in different situations or even in different parts of the world (e.g. how a bully might treat a victim à how the victim might feel). As a class, the teacher might have them do additional activities where students are required to analyze opposing views surrounding different topics and apply their knowledge through various other drama techniques such as hot seating or news reporting.