Lesson Plan

Date: January 29th 2013

Duration: 1 hour and 15
minutes

Cycle 3 / Grade 5
Subject: Drama & ELA

Class size: ~25 students

Topic fall under: Emotions,
acting and narrating

Lesson description:
This lesson will give students the opportunity to produce and act out an expressive scene in
groups; with the task of choosing one element of emotion and involving an action/theme. They
will have to come up with a scene and deliver a narrative portion of telling a short story in their
final performance which should last about a minute long. The activity is designed to make
students engage in the combination of three practices which is through emotions, bodily
movement and narration. This activity will help students develop and improve their skills in
areas of non-verbal and verbal setting while reinforcing their use of body movement to act out.
Objective(s): Students will be able to do the following

To construct and come up with a scene that is appropriate to the chosen emotion and
theme of action.
To engage in a performance that will require the whole group participation (not as one
persons show).
To formulate a narration of a story that corresponds and relates to the scene being acted
out.
MELS COMPETENCIES:
Drama:
Competency 1: To invent short scenes
- Students will work in groups to create their very own short scenes to act out in front of
the class and it must include the chosen emotion (happy, sad, angry, surprised) and the
theme of action (baseball game, family dinner, playing at the park) following a
narration of their story.
Competency 2: To interpret short scenes
- Will be addressed as each group decides on how they want to come with their short
scene, and once they have then they will need to form the narration portion of the scene
into a short story. This allows for the audience (class) to interpret the scene. (will be
explained in the development phase)
Competency 3: To appreciate dramatic works, personal productions and those of
classmates.
- Is addressed by having the students take part in performing their scene and then watching
and observing other teams as member of the audience. In both ways they will be
constantly providing their contribution in this activity. Also, towards the end of the
activity, students will reflect their work and provide one feedback to the other teams.

English Language Arts:

Competency 4: To use language to communicate and learn
- As students will have to use English as the spoken language in order to interact and
communicate with each other, to the class and to the teacher during this activity. They
will also learn from sharing and formulating ideas for their short scenes.
Cross-Curricular MELS
Competency 1: To use information
Students will need to make use of the information obtained with the chosen emotion
(happy, sad, angry) and
Competency 4: To use creativity
Competency 5: To adopt effective work methods
How well the group is able to actively work together to get the task done effectively.
Competency 8: To cooperate with others
Competency 9: To communicate appropriately
Prior-knowledge: Students will have at least learnt about narration in their previous class. They
should have an understanding of what is to be expected in this activity since they have a prior
understanding of drama and arts performance. Facial expression will be rather a new concept and
in this particular activity they will have fun working on their emotions and expressions through
moving around and acting out their scenes. As this is a drama class, this activity can be
additional practice for their narrating and acting skills.
Required Materials: Classroom board, one deck of cards labeled as emotions & one deck of
cards representing the theme of action placed into two separate boxes and large room to be able
to move around easily. Daily journals ( assuming students write at the end of every class a selfreflection on what they learnt and did in every activity they work on. As this is not graded and is
meant for them to keep track of their learning progress throughout the year)
Activity
Introduction: (Take about 10 minutes)
-

Teacher will revisit with the class on the concepts of narrating a story and to make sure
everyone has understood it. Assuming the class has learnt about narration in drama from
their previous class.
Teacher will ask the class stimulating questions like, Who can remind everyone what is
a narration? How does narrating a story work in drama? What are some examples of how
performers narrate the story to the audience when they are up on stage acting?
Teacher will look forward to students responses on how well they have a general
knowledge and understanding of the topic. As these questions will be provide a quick
review for students in the later activity.
The teacher will use the classroom board to write down the definition (like, narration uses
one or more performers to speak or tell a story to the audience) just in case as reminder
for any student who can refer back to.
Ask the class about what are emotions? What are the kinds emotions we display on our
face? What about when youre in situations that make you upset, happy, surprised,
confused? How do you show it?
Teacher will collect their responses openly without having to write it on the board.

Development: (~30 minutes = to explain the activity and work on their scenes)
-

Teacher will number students (1,2,3,4,5,1,2) into their perceptive groups.

Teacher will explain the activity once there in their groups, each group will select
randomly a card from one box labeled as emotions (happy, angry, laughing, sad) and
from another box labeled as theme/action (which can be from dining with family,
baseball match, playing at the park).
As soon as they all have their cards, they will be instructed to create a short scene that
deals with the two components that allows the characters to narrate a story for about a
minute.
Provide the class with an example so they have an idea of what they are expected to do.
Alright, lets say my group got the card which says happy and the card which says
baseball match. Then in our group, we will brainstorm ideas openly to try to come up
with a story that will include the two. Okay so we decided since were six, Tim and Jenny
will pretend to be playing the catchers on the field, Molly will be pretending to be the
receiver catching the ball, Kate will be the pitcher and I will be playing the batter for the
our home team. We decided to narrate our own character in the scene when it comes to a
moment in victory and were happy that we hit a whole run. Of course will be
emphasizing our expressions of happiness in our acting.
But lets say for instance, Jenny feels she would rather participate as being just the
narrator for our group, then she can do so and the rest of us will just act the emotion and
scene of our baseball match.
Teacher should state that everyone will need to participate in the activity and has the
choice as either being a character whos only performing the scene, as a character whose
performing and narrating the scene at the same time or as just the narrator telling the
story while her/his group performs the scene.
Give them the choice to do what they want, either being involved in the action or to carry
out the role as narrator or do both at the same time. Which is fine if everyone is parttaking in the activity some way or another as they will at the presenting shortly.
Teacher will give them time (-20 minutes) to practice and she/he walk around the class to
see if everyone is on task and doing what they are asked to do.

Conclusion (performance should take up 10-15 minutes)

- Now, the teacher will have everyone be seated and bring their attention to the front.
- State: We will be starting our mini performance shortly but before I begin calling each
group to come to the front and preform their scenes. I would like to mention a few notes
for you to keep in mind. As for the group performing, you need to be sure your able to
deliver your acting through the emotion and theme you have chosen and as a narrator you
will need to be engaging in the emotion you have chosen through your words and tone
while delivering the story to the class. And when you are sitting and watching your peers
preform, you are asked to be respectful and give your listening ears to the group
preforming.
- Teacher will mention to inform students that they are encouraged to provide comments
and feedback at the end of each group (as this will become helpful when youre going to

write your refection of todays activity in your daily journal).

After every group has performed, have them take out their journals and write a selfreflection of todays activity. Suggest questions to keep in mind when writing, what did
you like about this activity? What did you do? (were you the performer? the narrator? or
did you do both? What did you do in your group to come up with your story and be able
to narrate it to everyone? Did you find it difficult or easy to do the chosen emotion and
did you feel you could have done it differently?

Assessment
Teacher will evaluate the group on the three components (narration, emotion and theme
they chosen) in preforming their short scene.
Were the students able to cooperate and work effectively in order to come up with their
story? (i.e. sharing and exchanging ideas)
Did everyone in the group contribute to the performance? (as either the performer,
narrator and had done both in their short scene)
Professional Competences addressed:
To act as a professional inheritor, critic and interpreter of knowledge or culture when
teaching children.
To communicate clearly in the language of instruction, both orally and in writing using
correct grammar, in various contexts related to teaching.
To develop teaching/learning situations that are appropriate to the students concerned
and the subject content with a view to developing the competencies targeted in the
programs of study.
To adapt his or her teaching to the needs and characteristics of students with learning
disabilities, social maladjustments or handicaps.
To engage in professional development individually and with others.