Creative Arts
Year 9 Drama Unit: Playbuilding Theatre in Education
Dramatic Contexts: Improvisation and Playbuilding (Compulsory Context)
Unit length: 10 weeks (2 x 80 minute lessons per week )
Unit description
In this unit students are introduced to the compulsory context of playbuilding through integrating making, performing and appreciating drama. They
should explore a variety of ways to approach playbuilding with a particular emphasis on the dramatic form of theatre in education; theatre with an
educational message focusing on social and personal issues. Depending on their interests and abilities, students could undertake one large
collaborative playbuilding project driven by character and a single issue, or the playbuilding might be split into a number of small group projects
exploring a number of issues. Students explore how to link their playbuilding scenes and how to manipulate research materials to form narrative/non
linear structures. Students also learn how an audience can be targeted through effective promotion. In this aspect of the unit students to use
technologies such as word processing, webquests, digital still photography and Microsoft Publisher. At the end of the unit groups should perform their
playbuilding to a chosen audience and submit a promotional flyer.
Context
This unit is intended to be taught in the second semester of the 100 hours essential content of Stage 5 Drama. By this stage of the course students
would have developed basic understandings of the practices of making, performing and appreciating drama and the elements of drama. They would
have had some experience of improvisation and playbuilding. Thus unit encourages them to build on their previous understandings and develop their
skills further. This unit allows students to consider the form of theatre in education and focuses on dramatic techniques and structures that both
engage and educate their audiences.
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Syllabus outcomes and content
Making drama
5.1.1 manipulates the elements of drama to create belief, clarity and tension in character, role, situation and action
5.1.4 explores, structures and refines ideas using dramatic forms, performance styles, dramatic techniques, theatrical conventions and technologies
Performing drama
5.2.2 selects and uses performance spaces, theatre conventions and production elements appropriate to purpose and audience
5.2.3 employs a variety of dramatic forms, performance styles, dramatic techniques, theatrical conventions and technologies to create dramatic meaning
Appreciating drama
5.3.1 responds to, reflects on and evaluates elements of drama, dramatic forms, performance styles, dramatic techniques and theatrical conventions
5.3.2 analyses the contemporary and historical contexts of drama
Students learn to:
 appreciate that performance spaces and production elements must take into
account their potential audience
 develop terminology appropriate to dramatic contexts and technologies
 value and use information and communication technologies in drama and
theatre to help reflect on aspects of human experience
 investigate and analyse dramatic ideas through the drama workbook,
discussion and debate
 adapt features of established dramatic forms to create their own groupdevised works
Students learn about:
 a range of theatre conventions and production elements from differing
dramatic forms and contexts eg. The power of theatre to teach using
presentational acting styles
 terminology associated with different dramatic forms, performance styles,
technologies and conventions
 the use of a range of computer-based technologies, such as databases,
multimedia, graphics programs and electronic communication, to enhance
dramatic meaning in their playbuilding, scripts, texts and performances
 the flexibility of approaches available to create works by drawing on
established dramatic forms and their conventions

Student’s prior knowledge and skills
Students should already have :
 experimented with improvisation and structuring drama through playbuilding
 knowledge of the elements of drama and how these work to create particular effects on stage
 an understanding that drama can be created in different ways to suit different purposes, audiences and performance spaces
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Teacher use of ICT
In this unit teachers will:
 Develop skills in the use of the software Microsoft Publisher
 Develop skills in the use of the software OneNote
Student use of ICT
In this unit students will:
 Learn to create, collate and manage reflective notes on OneNote
 Use the internet to research Theatre in Education and existing theatre
companies
 Engage in web quest investigations and record these in OneNote
Hardware
 Student laptop
Software
 Microsoft Word
 OneNote
 Microsoft Publisher
Quality teaching
This NSW Quality Teaching Framework has informed the design of this teaching unit. As a practical and experiential unit student engagement and
self direction is critical in the way students approach collaborative and devising drama. Students problem solve as they construct scenes and explore
narratives in order to generate meanings as actors for their target audience. They also integrate their knowledge of the form and creative process as
they create their promotional flyers. Students work with the elements of drama and acting techniques to convey character information, text ideas and
symbols in performance. Students engage in reflective activities to analyse how meanings are created in live dramatic performance and how they can
shape audience response to their own work.
Learning experiences
Lesson 1 - Investigating the form
Introduce the theatre form of Theatre in Education. Areas to cover would be:




features
histories
techniques
contexts of performance
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Initiate student webquest investigation. Students create a OneNote notebook with the folder title: Drama Form: TIE
Teachers access YouTube and the class watches the following piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71QhTMtjUn0&feature=related
Students then write in OneNote their initial responses to this piece.
Direct students to this website: http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/teachingandlearning/library/theatreineducation/
Using the website students answer the following questions in their drama journals or using OneNote on their laptops.
1. How does TIE differ from a production in a theatre?
2. How is TIE different from Children’s Theatre and Community Theatre?
3. Extension question: Suggest how teachers could prepare for a TIE visit at their school to make the performance effective as a learning experience
for students.
Lesson 2 – Investigating the form
Students are given the following websites to explore:
http://www.tieshows.com/
and
http://www.actionwork.com/
They then answer the following questions:
a. Name three different shows offered on the sites.
b. Imagine you are a teacher and that you would like to book one of these shows for your school. Write a brief account of the show offered and
express why you think this show would be important for students at your school to see.
The class shares their responses and discusses the issues raised in this investigation.
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Lesson 3 – Introducing the Performance Assessment Task
Students are given the Performance Assessment Task (20%). The class discusses the task and brainstorms initial ideas for their work. Groups are
organised in this lesson and students select their topic for their piece.
Lesson 4 – Researching your topic
Students investigate resources to support their playbuilding on the internet.
Lesson 5 – Creating scenes and dialogue
Activity 1: Developing scenes and scriptwriting
In pairs students improvise a short scene inspired from research. Then, using Microsoft Word they write up a 1-2 minute duologue (about 12 – 16
lines) on the chosen issue and the research material found. For example: write an argument between two characters, a parent and teenager about
going to a party.
Students are to share the duologue with group and develop a second short duologue on another scene inspired by research
Activity 2: Monologues
Students to imagine they have been affected by the issue they have chosen– e.g. a victim of bullying or underage drinking or a family problem and
write a monologue. (This should be about a paragraph to half a page in length.)
Lesson 6 and 7 – Incorporating internet research into scene work
Students share their monologues with their groups. They then use selected net sites discovered in researching the issues to develop 5-10 important
facts about the issue that could/should be communicated to the audience. Students are to devise interesting ways to present facts, e.g. through
improvisation, a short advertisement, a news flash, freeze frames with chorus. These are presented and discussed in terms of impact and ideas
conveyed.
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Lesson 8 and 9 - Structuring the drama
In this lesson, students put scripts together using the material generated in the previous lessons (the duologues, monologues and facts). This gives
each group the basis of a rough script ready to begin rehearsals.
Lesson 10 - Capturing promotional photographs
Rehearse scripted material. By the end of the rehearsal lessons students need to have selected two freeze frames from their performance piece to be
photographed for developing the publicity/flyer for their show. At the conclusion of Lesson 10 photographs are taken to create a publicity folder on a
shared class site. (Teacher downloads photographs into a folder for sharing).
Lesson 11-13 - Individual Task – Creating a flyer using Publisher
Students view the following web site:
http://www.classact.com.au/ and create their own flyer for their Theatre in Education Show.
Lesson 14-18 – Rehearsal process
Students rehearse their performance
Lessons 19-20 – Assessment of learning task submission
Performance is presented and the flyer is submitted for assessment.
This unit was created by Frances Curtis from Wollongong Performing Arts High School.
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