Grade 4 Drama Unit
Unit 1: Learning to Create
Time: 6-8 weeks
This unit develops students' understanding of drama strategies and processes that may be used
during contextual dramas.
Mini-unit: Our Environment
Sample Topic: "School Life"
Suggested Resources:
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Students' stories of school experiences
Parents' and grandparents' stories of school experiences
Stories and poems about school life such as:
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by J. Blume
The Trailer Park Princesses by P. Marlowe
Ramona's World by B. Cleary
Miss Nelson is Back by H. Allard
“The New Kid on the Block” poem in The New Kid on the Block by J. Prelutsky
Figuring out Frances by G. Willner-Pardo
Starter List of Activities
Teacher Note:
The following Starter List of Activities is intended to aid the teacher in
planning units. The activities are described very briefly and are just a
sample of the many activities that can be developed to explore the theme or
topic. The activities are presented as introductory, main, and concluding
activities to facilitate planning. Refer to planning contextual dramas for
help.
1. Introductory Activities
Brainstorming
A. Create a list of things that students do in school.
B. Brainstorm a list of feelings or emotions.
List A would include items such as:
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play with friends
study
learn about current or past events
create displays
work in the library
laugh
hang out in the lunch room
solve problems
do experiments
play games
dance, sing, paint, or play instruments
read and write.
List B might include:
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joy
fear
jealousy
surprise
boredom
anger
excitement
embarrassment
disappointment
pride
happiness.
Discussion
Imagine how the various school activities in List A might result in students feeling some of the
emotions in List B. For example, select “play games” from List A and “joy”, “fear”, and
“jealousy” from List B.
Prompt students to think creatively by asking questions. What might happen to create joy when
playing a game? What might happen to create fear when playing a game? What might happen to
create jealousy when playing a game?
Improvisation
Invite small groups to select an activity from List A, and two emotions from List B. Ask the
groups to assume roles and improvise situations that match the selected activity with two
different emotions.
Tableau
Following the improvisations, ask the groups of students to create tableaux to demonstrate what
was happening within the improvisations.
Introduce the concept of symbolism by encouraging some of the students to represent through
their body positions the emotion itself, rather than simply showing a facial expression. For
example, how could the students represent the concept of anger without using an actual person
with an angry expression? Could the students position their whole bodies or just their arms, legs,
or torsos in a way that conveys the feeling of anger to an audience?
Invite the students who are viewing the tableaux to guess which school activities and emotions
are being represented. Discuss what works well in each tableau and suggest other ways that the
same situation might have been presented.
2. Main Activities
Structure a contextual drama that explores events and stories related to school life. These events
may be drawn from the students' personal experiences or from events depicted in books and
poems. The students might also interview parents, grandparents, or others in the community
about school experiences from generations past.
Role
Drama episodes related to school life might include:
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the first day at a new school for immigrant children
issues related to popularity
competition among friends about report cards
tryouts for a sports team
the arrival of a mysterious student who seems to have superhuman powers
a surprise that takes place in the school
reversal of teacher and student roles
students skipping school with humourous or dangerous consequences
the experiences and consequences of teasing or bullying
students transported through time to a school in the future
attending summer school with astronauts, knights of the round table, firefighters, miners,
search and rescue teams, or other careers normally reserved for adults. Use the summer
school locations as a starting point for research and a location for the drama.
Improvisation/Tableau
Read the poem entitled “The New Kid on the Block.” Explore through various drama strategies,
episodes, or situations where an individual or a small group is being bullied.
Examine differing perspectives within a bullying situation including those of the students
involved, their friends and bystanders, families, teachers, and community members. For
example, a student in role might be telling his/her grandparents (other students in role) about the
experience. How might the grandparents react? What will they say? What will they do? What
will the student do next?
Reflection
During periods of reflection, discuss how bullying is an issue not only for young people, but also
for adults.
Help students explore through drama various ways of resolving bullying situations. Incorporate
strategies such as teacher in role, meetings, small group improvisations, tableaux, and writing.
Meeting
Call a meeting of local citizens (i.e., students in role) including teachers, social workers, and law
enforcement officers to discuss the short- and long- term effects of bullying on individuals and
communities.
Teacher Note:
Teachers may find that it is more effective to explore the issues of teasing
or bullying in school by having the bully or bullies in the drama represented
by a troll or giant, a gang of ogres, evil wizards, or a group of raucous
animals such as wolverines. This may be preferable to having students work
in role as other human beings. Victims of bullying could be represented by
less aggressive creatures such as ordinary townspeople, elves, or friendly
wizards.
Selecting non-human roles avoids the situation wherein students may feel
they are representing themselves if they are personally involved in bullying
situations in real life. Teachers are cautioned to be sensitive to the roles that
students select if this or a similar sensitive topic is explored. Ensuring that
students have opportunities to explore situations from perspectives other
than one's own is one of the strengths of learning in drama.
Tableau
Create tableaux to represent how the bully, the bullied, and the bystanders are feeling during a
bullying incident.
Tapping in
Tap students on the shoulder and ask them to say what they are thinking in role as they hold their
positions in the tableaux.
Research
Invite guests from the community to tell students about their school experiences from the past or
from other countries. Use this information as background research or inspiration for a contextual
drama.
Writing
Create diary entries and other expressive writing related to the context of the school life drama.
Students may choose to explore situations such as the following:
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The new student who is being bullied writes a letter to a friend at a former school
explaining his/her current predicament.
Immigrant students write diary entries describing their new lives in Saskatchewan .
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Students at firefighting school write newspaper or radio reports about the challenges of
learning to fight forest fires.
Reflection
Ensure that students spend time reflecting, both in and out of role, on the direction of the drama
and on their own actions and contributions to the drama.
Storytelling
Research and conduct interviews with parents, senior citizens, and elders about schools of the
past. Describe a typical school day for children in different decades during the 1900s.
During the drama, encourage the students to tell stories about school experiences in role as
elders, grandparents, and others in the community. Explore the experiences by assuming
different roles throughout the drama. Episodes might include:
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planning country dances and community fowl suppers
encountering a blizzard while attending a one room schoolhouse
attending school in Europe during WWII
going to sock hop dances and drive-in movies from the 50s.
Teacher Note:
Some stories of school life in the 1900s that students may hear during
interviews with elders, such as abusive boarding school experiences of
previous generations, may be disturbing for grade 4 students to discuss.
While many details will not be appropriate to explore through drama,
teachers might include related concepts such as the shock of being suddenly
removed from one's family; or the loneliness that a student experiences
living in a boarding school; or the frustration of not being allowed to speak
one's own language. It would be important to invite support from the
principal and other resource people in the community if this or a similar
sensitive topic is introduced by students during the drama.
Meeting
Call a meeting of the School Community Advisory Committee and introduce a motion during the
meeting that creates a conflict for students to solve. Conflicts might be created by events such as
the following:
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Due to some mischief at a school dance, all future dances have been suspended.
Students are no longer allowed to wear a fashionable type of clothing.
Due to financial cutbacks, all sports or arts activities have been cancelled.
Explore the conflicts through further meetings and improvisations involving various interested
parties.
Encourage students to contribute their own ideas to further the direction and development of the
drama.
3. Concluding Activities
Narration
Read a narrative to the students to create a strange situation in their imaginary school. For
example, read a newspaper report stating that a mysterious cloud has formed over their town.
Scientists have been receiving reports of strange occurrences wherever the cloud moves. The
scientists have noticed that when the cloud moves away, everything returns to normal. But until
the cloud moves away, people are warned that they will have to cope with some strange
occurrences. For example, all of the girls in a small town awake in the morning to discover that
they are boys, and the boys awake to discover they are girls. Or alternatively, students awake to
discover they are now the teachers, and the teachers are now the students.
Role
Create small group improvisations of students going about their daily school activities in
reversed gender roles. How will experiences in school be different for boys and girls who find
themselves in reversed roles? How different, for example, are the sports activities, games at
recess, travelling to and from school, interactions among friends, behaviours in the classroom,
after school activities, and so on. Ensure that students have opportunities to explore the humour,
but also the unique strengths and positive attributes of each gender.
In role as students who have been transformed into teachers, call a staff meeting to create new
school rules and a new curriculum. Explore the experience of the teachers and the students who
have had their roles reversed. Perhaps instead of math class, there is now a class on how to
skateboard or play video games.
Flashforward
Flashforward in time to explore the consequences of the changes that the students implemented
while in charge of the school. For example, what will daily life be like for the students as adults
who have never developed any math skills?
Mini Unit: … And Beyond
Sample Topic: "Local Issues"
Suggested Resources:
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Local newspaper
Radio or TV news broadcasts
Member of town or band council
Field trip to local sites
Books, articles, and resource people who know about the local issue
Articles about urban and rural issues in Saskatchewan
Information about environmental issues such as grasslands or wetlands, and their role in
the lives of people and animals
Duncan's Way by I. Wallace
Teacher Information:
Teachers may select a local issue that relates to another subject area such as
the Grade 4 Science Optional Unit: Diversity. This unit includes the
following objectives related to environmental issues:
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appreciate the diversity of plants
appreciate the value of plants
develop a sense of respect for all living things
explain ways in which plants enable other living things to survive
explain how plants can be affected by changes in the environment
simulate changes that occur with the widespread destruction of
plants.
1. Introductory Activities
Discussion
Establish a daily tradition of sharing news that is happening in the community. Choose a
particular issue and follow its developments in the newspaper, or bring updates from home that
students have heard about on television or radio.
Research
Challenge students to pose some key questions about the selected issue. Have students search out
sources that will help find the answers to the questions.
Invite experts who are knowledgeable about the issue to speak to the students. If exploring the
issue of youth crime, for example, invite a police officer to discuss consequences of drug use,
gang activities, car thefts, or other property crimes.
Meetings in role
Working in role as various experts from the community, ask students to speak about different
aspects of the issue from expert perspectives. Invite the experts to suggest ideas and to develop a
plan to help resolve the issue.
As the drama unfolds, introduce some conflicts or complications into the students' plans that
students will need to work together to overcome.
2. Main Activities
Develop a contextual drama that unfolds parallel to the local issue while it is still in the media.
Teacher Note:
Teachers are cautioned to be sensitive to local issues in which students'
families may be directly involved. In such cases, teachers may decide to
explore a broader issue that is common to many communities.
Tableau
In small groups, have students create tableaux to show photos from the newspaper story that has
been reporting the local issue. Invite students to speak aloud the newspaper headlines or captions
that accompany the photograph.
Role
Have students assume roles based on the range of people affected by the issue in the news.
Teachers may decide to arrange the physical space of the classroom appropriately to suit the
dramatic context. For example, if the story deals with a legal case, the classroom might look like
a courtroom with a desk in front for the judge and tables for the crown prosecutor, defense
lawyers, and defendants. Chairs for the jury members may be placed along the side. The
remaining desks might contain family members of the victim and the accused, reporters, and
members of the public.
Guide students as they create and present the evidence. Include the prosecutor's case, the
defense, and the media coverage. The issue or crime may be explored from the viewpoints of
different characters involved.
Role
Examine an environmental issue such as water quality or the export of water to other countries.
Structure a drama with students in role as people in a farming community next to a big lake.
Explore the role of the lake in the lives of the people in the community and the impact of losing
the lake to pollution.
List the benefits the lake provides a community (e.g., people may drink, wash, play, swim, or
irrigate with the lake water).
Brainstorming
Ask students to form small groups and list additional information they need to know about the
issue. What do they need to know to be informed about the issue? Who do they need to
interview? Where can they locate the information that they need?
Compile a list of research questions or tasks on chart paper and put it on the wall.
Research
Invite students to choose topics from the list on the wall to research. Students may need to
research causes behind an issue such as poor water quality (e.g., pollution, drought).
If possible, invite a knowledgeable visitor to speak to the class about the issue. In role as town/
band councilors, MLAs, townspeople affected by the issue, or as other characters in the drama,
have the students think of two or three questions to ask when interviewing the visitor who may
or may not be in role.
Invite the visitor to join in the drama to provide a new perspective and to share ideas with
students.
Drawing
Draw a class map of the community including the lake. Mark all the places where people interact
with the lake: water purification plant, swimming areas, irrigation system on farm, and so on.
Include natural areas such as nesting grounds and reed beds.
Tableaux
Have students present still images of their favourite or most important purpose for the lake.
Brainstorming
Decide what the various people do in the community. If it is a farming community, what kinds of
jobs and services might be in the community? Students might list some of the following:
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farmers
grain elevator
school
equipment dealers
grocery store
post office
restaurant
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coffee shop.
Teacher in role/Writing
Have students choose roles from the brainstormed list. Give students a few minutes to decide
what students do in the town. Enter in role as a newspaper reporter and ask the townspeople to
write down why the lake is important to them and to their businesses.
Interviews
Have councillors conduct interviews with people who have been affected by the issue (e.g., sick
people and water treatment plant employees).
Teacher in role
Enter in role as mayor or reeve and present a letter with a proposal from a company in a nearby
city. The company is offering many jobs and lots of money if the people agree to divert their lake
water to a neighbouring city.
Reflection
Lead students in a group discussion in or out of role. What are the pros and cons of agreeing to
this proposal? What do students need to determine before making a decision? If the offer is not
acceptable as it is, can they negotiate to make it acceptable?
Improvisation
Have the students form small groups. Ask the groups to determine the impact of the proposal on
the lake itself and on the community. Generate a list of concerns such as:
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What would happen upstream?
What would happen downstream?
How would the town be affected?
What effect would new jobs and money have on the town?
How long would the business last?
Is the offer worth accepting?
What are the options?
How else could students bring their town back to life?
Meeting
Invite each group to present its recommendations and the reasons for the recommendations.
Voting
Ask students to consider the following question: Given what we know now, what should we do
next?
Try to reach consensus on what the town will do next. Vote if consensus is not possible.
Flashforward
Guide the students as they flashforward in time where they hear their great-grandchildren (i.e.,
students in role) talk about the consequences of each choice.
3. Concluding Activities
Writing
Write letters to the local newspaper about the issue, either in role as characters in the news story
or out of role as themselves.
Reflection
Discuss out of role how students feel about the decisions that were made in the drama. Would
students have done that in real life? Why? Why did they choose those particular solutions to the
problem?
Read and discuss the book Duncan's Way by Ian Wallace. For seven generations, Duncan 's
family has fished off the coast of Newfoundland . Now the fish are gone and with them the old
way of life. Duncan notices that his father is spending the days staring out to sea, watching
television, and baking bread and pies. Many families have left town in search of work elsewhere.
Duncan and his teacher come up with an idea to help Duncan 's father.