Grade 9 - Drama Skills (Technique)

PRESCRIBED LEARNING OUTCOMES

It is expected that students will:

• demonstrate familiarity with stage vocabulary and apply theatrical conventions to dramatic forms
• select and use design elements to achieve a desired effect
• demonstrate responsibility to the group and self in rehearsal and performance
• demonstrate respect for the nature of their audience
• enhance dramatic work with available technical elements
• select and adapt material appropriate to a concept
• collaborate in the direction of a dramatic activity

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

SUGGESTED INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES

• Create a dramatic work based on a theme, using design and technical elements such as a back cloth or drape, blocks and risers, lighting, sound effects, and music.
• Create a scene with a distinct beginning, middle, and end.
• Role-play in a group as a team of firefighters moving a net to teacher-directed instructions (e.g., upper stage right, centre) to rescue an imaginary victim.
• Play-build a show for children with a specific theme or lesson. Sources could be existing stories, poems, or concerns. Students can then adapt their work for differing audiences and explore techniques for reaching multi-ethnic audiences.
• Create a radio play using fabricated sound effects. Students can also introduce music, either instrumental or technical, into a scene to help create a specific mood.

SUGGESTED ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES

• Work with students to develop a short list of criteria or key features that distinguish effective design or technical elements in a production. Assessment might focus on the extent to which technical elements and decisions:
  • support characterization
  • enhance dramatic effects
  • contribute to the purpose or central image of the drama
  • are executed effectively
• As students participate in activities, focus observations on a few students each day, recording the extent to which they:
  • use feedback from the teacher and classmates
  • show commitment to polishing their work
  • treat their peers (as audience members, as fellow performers) with respect
  • explore material acceptable to both the teacher and peers
  • use stage vocabulary appropriately
• After students have participated in a production, have them reflect on and assess the technical and design elements they used. For example, you may wish to provide conference or journal prompts such as the following:
  • Which technical or design elements were most important to the overall effect of your production? Why?
  • Which elements did not work out as well as you planned? How could they have been improved?
  • Which technical or design elements were the most interesting or challenging to develop? How did you decide what to do?
  • What did you learn from the design or technical elements of this production that you could use in another production?

RECOMMENDED LEARNING RESOURCES

• 200+ Ideas for Drama
• 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