Grade 10 - Drama Skills (Role)

PRESCRIBED LEARNING OUTCOMES

It is expected that students will:

• demonstrate an ability to internalize the experiences of another while maintaining their own identity
• concentrate on role while sustaining and developing situations
• apply vocal and physical techniques to create role and character
• consistently use precise language to reflect on experiences both in and out of role

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

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• Use a scripted or created character with distinct needs or a specific motivation. Discuss how the needs of the character are related to students' own needs.
• Study the elements of stage combat. Have students rehearse and present a scene using combat, sustaining their character while maintaining their objectivity and the safety of themselves and others.
• Improvise a scene that maintains thematic unity and manipulates time, place, and action. Define role by using status as an element in dramatic work.
• Experiment with role by accepting and responding to changing conditions. Set up circumstances such as the following:
  • In pairs or groups, improvise scenes while the teacher calls differing status relationships to the performers, or scenes in which one student has been secretly endowed with high or low status.
  • Discuss names that describe a character (e.g., Captain Shotover, Mistress Sneerwell, Mistress Malaprop) and then create scenes in which character names give a character trait.
  • Working in pairs, perform scenes during which status relationships reverse (e.g., a change in occupational status, an inheritance).
  • Collaborate to show a character going through three differing status endowments. For example, depict a transition from a student in class, to at home and "grounded," to a lead in a play.
• Explore and experiment with different forms, using either the techniques described in Role Drama or commedia dell'arte characters. Focus on structure and development and include believable characters with specific qualities such as walk, centre, habit, accent, animal image, metaphor, ability, or disability.

SUGGESTED ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES

• Develop a list of behaviours that characterize effective work in role. Use these as the basis for peer and teacher observation as well as for self-assessment. Provide a copy of the criteria or attributes to each student, so that they can use them to support self-assessment, reflection, and goal setting. The list might include the extent to which students:
  • stay in role for an extended activity
  • participate equally in the dramatic activity
  • approach being in role in a serious manner
  • apply voice and movement to create more realistic characters
  • create roles that are distinct from others in their groups
  • recapture a role after an interruption
  • demand more commitment from self and others
• Work with small groups of students to develop guidelines for such activities as rehearsals, presentations, performances. Prompt students to consider aspects such as co-operation, safety, sensitivity, creativity, risk taking, and support for others. Provide students with copies of the guidelines to use for self-assessment and reflection at the end of a class.
• After an activity in which students have worked in role, have them develop letter or journal entries in role that reflect and comment on the action or drama. Review and respond to their writing in terms of the consistency with which they sustain and extend their role, reflecting the perspective of the characters and the characters¹ relationships.

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

Ministry of Education Home Page