Grade 10 - Drama Skills (Drama as Metaphor)

PRESCRIBED LEARNING OUTCOMES

It is expected that students will:

• suspend disbelief to create drama
• use objects as symbols of abstract concepts in a drama
• select appropriate dramatic forms for representing particular ideas and experiences
• use a dramatic work as a metaphor

To view the prescribed learning outcomes for Drama Skills (Drama as Metaphor) in other grades click on an icon below.

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• Move through spaces filled with different substances (e.g., Jello, water, glue).
• Read a scene from a play (e.g., The Glass Menagerie), discuss the symbolic elements present (e.g., the unicorn), then create a scene that concludes with a symbol.
• Create a response in choral speech, Story Theatre, dance, or movement to music or poetry.
• Create a scary or mysterious sound story using vocal or other selected sounds.
• Respond to a given object, endowing it with a variety of different values (e.g., a book from someone who has recently died or one that has been stolen from a friend).
• Create a scene from a given storyline in which the school bully group has previously stolen a personal belonging from a new student at school. The scene starts with a member of this bully group having a change of heart and returning the stolen object to the new student.
• Perform the scene from Miss Julie, endowing the props used with the significance described (see Appendix G).
• Sustain the realities of a common environment while fulfilling disparate motivations (e.g., Person A makes pancakes, Person B seeks advice on relationships).

SUGGESTED ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES

• Observe students¹ involvement with symbols and note the extent to which they:
  • use objects as symbols in an effective manner
  • suspend disbelief to support the metaphor
• After students create and present a dramatic work about a particular environment as a place of refuge from terrorists, videotape the performance. Have them watch their performances and comment on the extent to which they:
  • sustain a character
  • accept the characterizations of the other actors
  • capture or realize the mood and tension of the environment
  • use the dramatic situation as a metaphor for the human condition

RECOMMENDED LEARNING RESOURCES

• Acting Games
• Acting Natural
• Christmas On Stage
• Comedy Improvisation
• The Complete Book of Speech Communication
• Contours: Plays From Across Canada
• Creating with Shakespeare
• Creative Drama in Groupwork
• Drama 14 - 16: A Book of Projects and Resources
• Drama Guidelines
• The Dramatic Body
• Elegantly Frugal Costumes
• Mime Time
• Now Playing
• NTC¹s Dictionary of Theatre and Drama Terms
• Readers Theatre Anthology
• Someday: A Play
• The Stage and the School (5/e)
• Storymaking and Drama: An Approach to Teaching Language and Literature
• The Theatre and You: A Beginning
• Wings to Fly

• Movement For The Actor
• Perspectives on Illusion
• Pierre Lefevre: On Acting

Table of Contents

Province of British Columbia
Ministry of Education
Standards Department © 1996 Copyright

Maintained by: Fine Arts Coordinator - Drama

Revised: March 13, 1996

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