Drama 1 Movement Unit

Unit Objective: 

Students will explore and practice the different ways that your body can express emotions and character through the creation and rehearsal of various movement projects, participation in games, and through note taking.

Grade Level: 

Drama 1 (7-8 Intermediate Theatre)

Grade Level Description: 

7th and 8th graders are full of energy and very excitable. They want to talk to their friends and they want to have some choice over the things that they participate in. They have a limited attention span and need to be guided to stay on track. They are very willing to participate and they want to be funny. They want to be successful and have their peers think highly of them.

Prior Experience Needed: 

No prior theatre experience is needed. It would be very helpful, but not mandatory, for students to have some prior experience collaborating with other students.

Big Ideas:

Collaboration, power of movement, body language, physicality, staging

Standards:

Standard 7-8.T.P. 4: Communicate meaning using the body through space, shape, energy, and gesture.

Essential Understandings:

Students will understand that their movement can be read and understood and interpreted like any other language.

Students will understand that the way that they choose to move their bodies builds the story of their character.

Students will understand that they should think about and be intentional about how they move their bodies.

Essential Questions: 

How does my body language affect how I am being understood by my audience?

How can I use my movement to tell a clearer story?

Key Knowledge and Skills:

1. Students will know that movement tells a story.
2. Students will know what the elements of staging are and how to use them. 
3. Students will know what the elements of physicality are and how to use them.
4. Students will be able to put what they have learned about staging and physicality into their theatre performance work. 

Authentic Performance Tasks:

1. The 100 walks challenge: students will watch a video of a man doing 100 walks on a treadmill and then they will create a 5 walk version to show to the class while we guess what the walks are. 
2. No words nursery rhyme: students will perform a 1-2 minute nursery rhyme with no words for their peers. 
3. We will play various games, but the one I am most interested in is “Relationship Mingle”: students will mill around the room and then when a relationship is called out they will pair off with the nearest person and adjust their proximity to each other to match the relationship given.