LESSON 1

Lesson 1: Developing Character and Context Year Level: 5/6 Lesson Duration: 60 minutes
Unit: Drama and History explored through Mime

Lesson Focus:
The main focus of this lesson is to provide students opportunity to explore the contextual background of the text The
Arrival and develop an understanding of character. Students will use the text as a starting point for interpretation of
character and begin unpacking perspectives of people who migrates to another country and the reasons behind
migration.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the lesson students will be able to:
Demonstrate sound knowledge and understanding of character and context
Identify and justify different perspectives and viewpoints about migration
Manipulate fictional and emotional spaces to create characters and situations and imagined feelings
(VCADRE029)
Discover factors that contribute to the development of character and context.

Prior Learning and Experiences: Resources:

Students would have been introduced to the The Arrival Part I
different mime techniques in previous lessons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nJKse-UCFM
The students would have explored illusionary A3 piece of paper
techniques in mime, which will prepare them for Textas
the upcoming sequence of drama lessons. Chair
INTRODUCTION
Learning Activities:

Tell students that in lesson, they will be introduced to the book The Arrival and unpack and begin to learn ways to develop
character and context.

Introduction of text The Arrival (15 minutes)

The teacher will introduce students to the text The Arrival that will be used as a prompt for the drama unit. As a whole
class, students will analyse the front cover. The teacher will then read the blurb to provide students a synopsis of the text.

Next the teacher will open up to the front page of the text. Teacher will ask questions to generate students ideas:
Who do you think are all these people?
What do their facial expressions suggest?

Then the teacher will show students first chapter of the text in video format. Before showing students the video, note to
students that they should focus on the series of images and think about what they think is happening. The teacher will
proceed to show students pages from chapter one.

Role on Paper (10 minutes)

Following on from the introduction of the text, the class will be sitting in a circle on the floor. The teacher will then place a
large piece of paper in the middle of the circle, along with a few textas. Explain to students that as a class they will record
information about the protagonist of the text The Arrival. Teacher will advise students that the information about the
character can be categorised into:
What we know
What we think we know
What we want to know
BODY
Learning Activities:

Hot Seating (10 minutes)

Students create groups of 6 for the activity. Each member will have a turn in sitting on the panel of characters. The
teacher explains to the students that 3 members will go first and choose a character from chapter one to sit on the panel.
The remaining 3 students of the group will interview the characters. Teacher to provide students with examples of
questions to be asked:
What made you leave?
How do you feel?
After 5 minutes, tell students to swap so the interviewers become the characters and vice versa.

Circle Stories (10 minutes)

The whole class including the teacher sits in a circle on the floor. Teacher explains to the students that they will now
create a story about the character/s from the text. Explain to students that theyre only allowed to use one word at a time
to build the story. The teacher can start or choose a student to start.

Once everyone has had a turn, the teacher will modify the activity and explain to students that they can now use a
sentence at a time to create the story. Teacher asks students whether they would like to continue on from where the
previous story ended or create a new scenario.

CONCLUSION
Learning Activities:

Whole class gathers together on the floor and reflect on the class. Teacher will ask:
What have you learnt from this lesson?
How is character interpreted and represented differently?
In what ways can situations influence and shape our feelings and emotions?

ASSESSMENT

Students social and emotional learning will be assessed in this lesson through observation. The activities from
this lesson will immerse students with the drama process; as they develop and assume a character observations
will be taken through their learning process as they engage with their peers.
Reflection: a whole group reflection will be used at the end of the lesson to provide students with opportunity to
reflect on their own learning and experience.
LESSON 2
Lesson 2: Exploring Music and Sound in Mime Year Level: 5/6 Lesson Duration: 60 minutes
Unit: Drama and History explored through Mime

Lesson Focus:
The main focus of the lesson is for students to explore the impacts music and sounds have on mime. Students use music
and sound to create drama elements of rhythm, contrast and dramatic tension.

Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the lesson students will be able to:
Use music and sound to add rhythm, contrast and dramatic tension to a situation
Choreograph a short mime improvisation
Communicate mood and emotion through use of music, sound, movement and gesture
music can be used to express aspects of a character and convey different moods

Resources:
ICT
Sad music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUZeSYsU0Uk
Cheerful music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7fohPA9fk0
Tense music - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pRRFJyqpQ8
Instruments tambourine, cymbals, triangles, chimes, glockenspiel, bells, castanets, claves, tapping sticks,
shakers
Copies of relevant pages from The Arrival

INTRODUCTION
Learning Activities:

Explain to students that this lesson will incorporate music and sound with mime.

Using music to influence movement (5 minutes)

The teacher will prepare a series of different music that convey following moods:
Tense
Cheerful
Sad
Students will need to find a space within the room. Teacher will then explain to students that when she plays a particular
music, their movements need to express or reflect the mood or emotions that the music evokes.

BODY
Learning Activities:

Creating a Soundscape and Mime Improvisation (40 minutes)

For this activity students need to be in groups of 10-12 and use instruments to create a soundscape for an image from the
text. The teacher will emphasise that students are to use their body movements and gestures to act out the scenario, and
the soundscape is used to create rhythm, contract and dramatic tension (Bell 2004, p. 110).

The teacher will then provide students with a number of images from the text that they can choose from. Each group will
then discuss and decide on which one they want to work on. Students also need to allocate roles, and decide on how
many people theyll have to make the soundscape and how many to mime.

Students will be given 30 minutes to rehearse. Each groups performance should not exceed 5 minutes.
CONCLUSION
Learning Activities:

After both groups have performed they will provide feedback to each other, reflecting on what went well and what didnt
go so well. Ways they could improve next time and what they would have changed.

ASSESSMENT

Rubric: students will be given a simple rubric where they have to work as a group to come up with an appropriate
level of achievement for the other group.
Peer and self-feedback will be used as a form of assessment for this lesson. Students are able to review their own
and others work and reflect on the processes that they took. This assessment strategy provides students with
advice on ways to improve their piece of work.

ATTACHMENTS
LESSON 3
Lesson 3: Exploring Movement and Gesture Year Level: 5/6 Lesson Duration: 60 minutes
Unit: Drama and History explored through Mime

Lesson Focus:
The main focus of this lesson is to provide students opportunity to explore the drama elements of movement, gesture and
emotion in relation to mime. Students are exposed to a range of different ways that they could control their body to
communicate ideas and emotions to the audience.

Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the lesson students will be able to:
Choreograph a rehearsed mime improvisation using drama elements
Develop different ways of expressing emotion and feelings through movement and gestures
Appreciate function of mime as a drama technique
Communicate emotion with their bodies
Manipulate fictional and emotional spaces to create characters and situations and imagined feelings
(VCADRE029)

Prior Learning and Experiences: Resources:

The previous drama lessons of the unit introduced Masking tape
students to understanding and developing character Scissors
and how to create a soundscape that conveys Copies of relevant pages from The Arrival
dramatic tension. In this lesson students will be
planning a rehearsed mime improvisation
incorporating all elements that they have learned from
previous two lessons.
INTRODUCTION
Learning Activities:

Form Groups Of (2 minutes)

This short activity, the teacher will explain to the teachers that they need to walk around the space to the music, and
when the teacher calls out a number they need to quickly form a group with that number of people.

Teacher will play music and students will walk around the room, the teacher stops the music and quickly call out:
Groups of 5

Mime Relay (10 minutes)

(H Sandercoe, Deakin University, seminar, 14th March 2017)

Once students are in groups of 5, the teacher will ask each group to line up in a single line next to each other leaving space
in between each group. The teacher will then explain that they will be doing a mime relay. Need to emphasise that
students cannot talk, and can only use movement, gestures and expression to provide hints.

The person at the front of the line will come up to the teacher and the teacher will tell them an action, movement or
gesture to do. The students will then return to their line and mime the action given to them to the next person, and they
keep doing that till it reaches the last person. The last person will then come up to the teacher and give their guess.
Repeat until all 5 members have a turn at miming.
BODY
Learning Activities:

Group Photo Album (35 minutes)

For this activity, the teacher will need to use masking tape to create square spaces on the floor. Each of these square
spaces represents a photo from the album. The class is divided into two groups (roughly 10-12 people).

The teacher will explain to the students that they have to create a photo album through the use of tableau. The tableau
will be adapted from the photos from the text. The teacher will have copies of certain sequences of images from the text
for the students. Each group will need to discuss and decide on which 4 images they will recreate. Students will also need
to justify why they have chosen the 4 images. Once each group has decided on a sequence of 4 images, the teacher will go
ahead and explain the activity in detail.

For the activity students need to work together and create a photo album. The images from The Arrival can provide initial
ideas for students; they can extend from it and add details that they believe will be relevant. The teacher will explain that
the tableau will need to come to life, and students within each frame will need to mime what is happening at that
moment in time. Encourage students to use the instruments to add sound and music to add different effects to their piece
of work.

Give students 30 minutes to plan and rehearse the performance. Once the time is up, get the two groups to come to the
floor and have each group present.

CONCLUSION
Learning Activities:

Whole class gathers together on the floor and reflect on the class. Teacher will ask:
How do you think you went as a group performing your piece of work? What worked well, what didnt work so
well?
Encourage students to reflect on their work and the other groups.

Each group will be given 5 minutes to complete the rubric for their OWN group.
ASSESSMENT

Self-assessment will be used in conjunction with a rubric. In this final lesson, the choice of a self-assessment for
each group was used for students to become more conscious of team work and working collaboratively. For
students to be able to reflect on how they went as a group, compromising and negotiating to reach an
agreement.
ATTACHMENTS