Drama Unit Planner
Year 4
Term 2
Teacher: N Mackereth
Duration:
Unit/Topic/Theme
Fertile Question
How could I create the world of a
story?
Dramarama
Achievement Objective
Level
Practical Knowledge
2
Students will explore and use elements of
drama for different purposes
Developing Ideas
2
Communicating &
Interpreting
2
Understanding & Context
2
Students wil develop and sustain ideas in
drama, based on personal experience and
imagination
Students will share drama through
informal presentation and respond to
elements of drama in their own and
others• work.
Students will Identify and describe how
drama serves a variety of purposes in
their lives and in their communities
Elements
Role
Time
Space
Action
Tension
Focus
Techniques
Voice
Body
Movement
Gesture

Learning Outcomes
Facial Expression
Students will:
1. Look at the different ways and purposes in which life is lived on
the sea in the past to today.
2. Experiment through various drama games, with: role, time,
place, action, tension, focus, choral movement and speaking, hot
seating, improvisation, voice, movement, space and gestures.
3. Create a prepared improvisation based on a real life experience
of someone experiencing life on the sea- reflecting the purpose
and hardships of their experience.
4. Maintain a planning sheet that reflects on the process they go
through to prepare their story as well as identifying and reflecting
on how the elements are used in their performances and that of
others.
Conventions
Mime
Flashback/Flashforw
ard
Freeze-frame image
Narration
Movement piece
Soundscape
Parallel play
Repetition
Ritual
Slow motion
Chorus of
voices/movement
Spoken thoughts
Voices in the Head

Summative Assessment Opportunities
In small groups of 4 students will create a 1-2 minute
drama based on a day in the life of a someone living
out to sea.
Reflective planning sheet
Key Competencies
Relating to Others
Thinking
Managing Self
Using language, symbols
and text
Participating &
Contributing
Values
Excellence Innovation
Inquiry
Equity
Diversity
Curiousity
Integrity
Respect
Community &
Participation
Ecological Sustainability
Peer assessment of others dramatisations
Collaboration with Other Learning Areas
Dance
Visual Art
Music
Literacy
Social Studies/History
Resources / Materials
Tonight on the Titanic by Mary Pope
Osborne (literacy activities, comp questions
vocab focus)
Lesson plan on Scholastic.com ‘Summing
up the Disaster’ – write a newspaper article
for a class newspaper on the Titanic
disaster
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
xpeditions/lessons/17/gk2/piratelife.
html
http://www.scu.edu/scm/spring2007/
feature1.cfm
Teaching Learning Sequence
Explore the Elements and Techniques using warm-up games.
Key questions
Role = WHO? Role involves stepping into the space of another prerson,
representing that person’s relationships and point of view.
Time = WHEN? Time is when the drama is set.
Place = WHERE? Place is where the dramatic action takes place. It refers both to
the imagined place of the dramatic action and the physical space that the
students have to work in.
Action = WHAT? Action is what each person in role is doing and thinking alone
and with others. It’s what happens in the drama.
Tension = is the force that drives the drama. It’s created by obstacles that those in
the drama have to overcome.
Symbol = Where an object or action in a scene means more than it is.
Mood = the atmosphere of the piece.
Focus = the point that demands the audience’s attention. It is the central event,
character, theme, issue or problems of a drama.
(See ‘Drama Handbook’).
1:
Brainstorming- purposes, reasons, ways people have lived at sea
Create a timeline
Looking at the elements- rubric handouts for Inquiry books
Why do people live at
Sea?
Week 3/4:
Developing character- Pirates
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/17/gk2/pirate
life.html
http://www.scu.edu/scm/spring2007/feature1.cfm
Wallwisher- what do we think a pirate looks like, sounds like,, feels
like? Why
Who were real pirates? Pirate exhibition video and powerpoint.
Photo-analysis – Pirates
Walk like/ sit like/sing like a...Pirate game
Name game warm-up
Create a shape – sea theme
-Case study the National Geographic exhibition sunken pirate ship
‘The Whydah’- the slave & trade routes, - the crew of the ship
What are pirates like?
Why do people think
pirates are like that?
-Pirates- what was their life like? Hardships, Fun
Photoanalysis
PMI done on a pirates life
Hot seat- my created Pirate character (using character profile
sheets)
4 & 5:
Emigrants- on board the Bombay
Examines each social class, the difference between them and what they would
have been doing on board the ship of emigrants.
Timeline – http://themes.pppst.com/disasters.html (Disasters)
Freezeframe- a scene on board an emigrant ship
6&7
ExplorersWho were they? Maori, Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook
research an explorer.
Venn Diagrams- compare Tane and _____ voyages
Freezeframe and Spoken thoughts aloud- the explorers leading their
crew into the unknown- a moment of fear/ doubt
10&11
Inquiry: fertile Question – How do I create the world of a story?
Students create their own worlds and demonstrate through a skit
performed in front of class