This paper explores an example of applied theatre and praxis learning in an Australian classroom with drama students aged 16-17 years which took the form of "real fiction" or social theatre monologue writing. It presents monologue responses from nine participants, altered by the researcher to protect identities and to tease out issues encountered by the student authors. This practice provided vital data about how participants view and behave in the social world of secondary school. Student participants explored the various ways that they are labelled in their social world, and agreed that the labels that matter to them are the ones used in the schoolyard and outside school as opposed to in the classroom. The use of a specific, practice-led methodology, based on the writing of theatre monologues in a drama classroom, represents an original contribution to the field of practice-based and/or practice-led drama research in education. The monologue form, with its focus on a single voice, is a medium for the exploration of subjectivity that provides insight into how young people view the social and relational spaces they exist inside.