Arts Ideas: Lesson Plan

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Week Eight: Warming Up

Student Outcome Statement: Arts Ideas - Level 3 – Explores and uses ideas, experiences and observations to make arts works within the structure of given tasks, a limited range of choices and a clear sense of purpose.

Specific Areas:

Creating: Students recognise and use the elements of drama (role, situation, voice, movement, space and time, language and texts, symbol, audience and dramatic tension) to improvise a range of roles and dramatic action using given frameworks for their ideas, selecting from a limited range of choices. They use some specific learned terminology.

Developing: Students work individually and collaboratively and with guidance to plan refine and produce drama. They make selections from a limited range of choices and use problem-solving processes with guidance.

Presenting: Students present their drama to particular audiences for given purposes and are guided to use specific skills and knowledge that will make performances work smoothly and look authentic. They focus their energy in preparation for performances and engage with and respond to an audience.

Further Outcome:

- Arts Response – Level Three

Evaluating: Students use given criteria to support their judgements about the effectiveness of their own and others’ drama, with reference to purpose and specific features, such as vocal and movement qualities, use of space, design, script and technical aspects. They take into account the observations of others and identify a range of factors that can affect their own and others' evaluations.

Teaching/Learning Purposes/Objectives: To enable the student to:

* Explore and develop a collaborative warm-up activity

* Discover and use appropriate terminology in the creation and the presentation of their activity

* Create a warm-up activity to engage appropriately for their chosen audience

Background planning and requirements[1]

Major Purpose: Highlighting the importance of warming up before drama activities

Key Question: What are the important aspects of a warm-up activity?

The Hook: Imagine you’re the director of a theatre production

- What’s happening? You’re directing a show that’s debuting in three weeks

- Who’s it happening to? Yourself, as a director

- Where is it happening? In a successful theatre company

- When is it happening? During the intensive rehearsal period leading up to opening night

- What’s at stake? You must efficiently warm-up your actors during the intense rehearsal period, if not, some may injure themselves or their voices. If you loose an important actor, the production may be cancelled.

Resources:

* Example of warm-up exercises to work through

* A list of different choices for students to pick from

Lessons description

- Whole Group Activity - Take the class through a variety of different warm-up activities. Focus on all types including energetic, concentration, ‘getting to know you’ etc.

- Class Discussion – Ask the class what they believe the importance of each exercise is. Why did we do that one? Was there an exercise that was less physical? Was there one that made you sweat? Discuss the importance of warm-ups, include specific terminology and ask students to write ideas down.

- Whole Group Activity – Present the ‘Hook’. Ask the class to discuss how we can create a new exercise for the class. Specify exact needs, such as energetic, which focuses on improvisation or concentration that deals with creating a character.

- Small group activity – Ask students to break off into groups and create one activity for a specific audience. Students could start with an established activity and develop a new spin. Produce hand-out which explicitly communicates the activity’s requirements. Point out to the students that the purpose is the actual presentation of the activity, and it must meet the requirements of that specific audience. The teacher must create a variety of different warm-up requirements, these could include…

	Concentration warm-up based on bird noises
	Concentration warm-up that focuses on smells
	Energetic exercises that are based on improvisation underwater
	Energetic warm-up that focuses on being a stick insect

The only limitation is the imagination of the teacher and the students. If having troubles, ask students to start with an activity like space jumps, and include a twist. Perhaps when human contact is made, the actors stick together and have to move as one.

- Class Presentation – Ask the students to present their exercises, detailing the reasons behind particular choices and approaches. Why do they believe it is appropriate for their given audience? Also ask students to teach and use the activity with others in the class. One of the main purposes is that students become responsible for their own learning, even their own warming up. The activity could be changed over time, thus demonstrating a need to improve approaches to meet the needs of the audience.

Lesson Evaluation:

To assess this lesson, look at the affective outcomes being reached by the students…

Affective Outcomes: To enable the student to:

- (AO1) Demonstrate interest and awareness of others’ ideas and recognise and listen to concepts being presented. (Receiving)

- (AO2) Respond and gain information by interpreting and presenting new behaviours and/or skills. (Responding)

- (AO3) Demonstrate an understanding of and a commitment to the activity through all stages. (Valuing)

- (AO4) Develop some organizational skills through ranking priorities and working towards a final project. (Organization)

Teacher Checklist

Student’s Name _______________________________________________________

Activity ________________________________________ Level ________________

Marking Key: In the appropriate box, A (always), U (usually) and D (developing).

Use a ‘+’ (high) or a ‘–‘ (low) to define a skill that is bordering on a different level.

	Always	Usually	Developing
Receiving (AO1): The student pays attention and (appears to) openly receive all instructions, ideas and examples
Responding (AO2): With limited guidance, the student (through exploration) identifies the importance of warm-ups
Responding (AO2): With guidance, the student (in workshops) attempts to create a new exercise for a specific audience need
Valuing (AO3): The student (during the activity’s creation) demonstrates excitement for and towards their work
Valuing (AO3): The student establishes and shows a personal value or ownership when presenting their warm-up
Valuing (AO3): The student encourages the work of others (e.g. applauds) as part of the construction and performative stages, as well as actively takes parts in other groups activities
Organization (AO4): The student is able to focus on the warm-ups construction rather than the just planning their group’s class presentation

Teacher’s comments: __________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

[1] Some parts modelled upon ‘The Giant who threw Tantrums’ in John O’Toole and Julie Dunn (2002) Pretending to Learn: Helping Children learn through Drama, Longman French’s Forrest.

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