Teach Primary Issue 18.7

Now, ask for volunteers to hot seat their character. The person in the hot seat should improvise, stay in character, and make up the answers if needs be. Once everyone who volunteered has had their turn, ask the pairs and groups to find a space in the room and to have a few read-throughs of their scripts together while in character. After about ten minutes, gather everyone back into an audience and ask a few of the groups to show their scenes. Help direct these in front of the class so that everyone can learn from the direction. Explain that you’ll do this each week, so that every group goes up at least once in front of the class with their scene. You might like to keep a note of who has had a go. Assessment Can pupils talk about what their character is like? WEEK 3 Learning objective l What makes a good performance, and how to apply this to a written text Once again, begin the lesson with a drama game from the downloadable worksheet to help get the class into the right frame of mind. Explain to pupils that they are going to do a presentation of their short scenes to another class, in a school assembly, or to parents, in three weeks. This can be an exciting moment to work towards. In some ways, this type of presentation can be better than a full-blown school production, because every pupil has a character to play and an opportunity to shine. Next, spilt the class off into the pairs or groups they’ve been working in and explain that they are going to ‘block’ their scene. This means figuring out who is doing what and when, what movements there will be, and the location of the actors on stage. For example, they’ll need to know when someone sits, stands, walks, throws a book (perhaps!), and so on. You can also encourage pupils to think about what props they might like to use. Now is a good time to talk about facing towards the audience. Give everyone about 15 minutes to block their scene and walk around offering direction to as many groups as possible. Gather everyone into a circle and have a conversation about what makes a good performance. Ask pupils if they’ve ever seen a good a show at a theatre before and what they thought made it good. You might like to add in some performance pointers here, which include knowing your lines, knowing your character, fully committing to the performance, showing emotion, being in the moment, reacting to the other characters on stage, and vocal projection. Finally, ask a few groups (different from those chosen in the previous session) to show their scene to the class and give them some direction. Assessment Can pupils list three things that make a good performance? Do pupils know what blocking is? WEEK 4 Learning objective l How to physicalise a character Ask pupils to find a space in the room. Explain that everyone is going to walk around the room at different speeds, depending on what number you call out. Ten is the fastest speed, one is the slowest. Call out different numbers, so that pupils can experiment with moving at different tempos. Next, ask them to think about what speed their character moves at and to walk around the room at that speed. Now ask them to think about where their character might hold tension; maybe it’s in the neck, jaw, fingers, shoulders, or lips. Ask the F EATURE S P L ANN I NG www.teachwire.net | 23