Students will explore the elements of a quality performance through acting, pantomime, singing, speaking, improvisation, critique, observation and drama games. Topics will include communication, self-awareness, community, voice and elements of speaking and singing well, blocking and movement on stage, and the little things that make a good performance. Students will participate in a scene from a musical for an audience or recording.
What makes a great show?
How do I know I have communicated well?
What do I need to know about myself to participate well in a performance?
How do these skills help me through-out life?
Why do humans still use drama as a form of expression?
Essential Questions:
What do I need to know about myself to participate well in a performance?
How do these skills help me through-out life?
Major Concepts:
Everyone has something of value to contribute to the group. As a group we need to create an environment that makes everyone feel safe to take risks (performing) and to feel respected.
Major Content:
Creating guidelines with all-class participation
Exploring different games and how they relate to performance
Being aware of ourselves in performance situations and how we deal with stress
Unit Assessments:
Classroom discussion
Class participation and effort to enhance the classroom
Essential Questions:
How do I know I have communicated well?
What do I need to know about myself to participate well in a performance?
Major Concepts:
People communicate with their bodies all the time. An actor observes and studies the life around him/her and uses that for material. A good pantomime means that the audience understands all the you are doing. Characteristics of a good pantomime include: consistency, exaggerated expression, exaggerated movement, telling a story with a beginning, middle and end. Use your imagination and be creative with your pantomime.
Major Content:
Students perform games, create group pantomimes, create duet pantomimes, and discuss/peer review what they understood or not. All students will learn the key names, notes on the staff, and the twelve-bar blues scale. Students will learn to improvise to the twelve-bar blues keeping to the beat, and making up a tune with the notes given.
Unit Assessments:
"In a Vehicle" pantomime
Duet pantomime
Class participation and effort to enhance the atmosphere
Essential Questions:
How do I know I have communicated well?
What do I need to know about myself to participate well in a performance?
How do these skills help me throughout life?
Major Concepts:
People who speak well tend to be more successful. You can improve your voice by being aware of what you are doing or are not doing. Using your voice well is a skill that needs to be practiced. Breathing correctly is a major part of using your voice.
Major Content:
Four elements that can be used to determine what your voice is doing include: diction, tempo, inflection, and pause.
Characteristics to consider include: projection, exaggeration, eye contact and poise.
Students use warm ups and games to experiment with the voice.
Unit Assessments:
Students perform skits in groups.
Essential Questions:
What makes a great show?
How do I know I have communicated well?
What do I need to know about myself to participate well in a performance?
How do these skills help me through-out life?
Why do humans still use drama as a form of expression?
Major Concepts:
All the elements we learned and practiced in our previous units get used when we are trying to tell a story.
Major Content:
The entire class chooses a scene from a musical which they will perform for the rest of the middle school. Once the story is decided, we decide who is playing which part and we work to the costumes, scenery, and props prepared.
Unit Assessments:
Students perform the scene in front of the rest of the 7th & 8th graders and teachers
Students do a written reflection about something they have learned about themselves, the world around them or the theater world