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Antony and Cleopatra: Construct a Character

Student Outcome Statement: Arts Response - Level 3 - Makes objective observations about key features and processes in the development and presentation of arts works, recognises patterns in arts works, and uses terminology and given frameworks in making responses.

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

Major Purpose: To develop a pictorial reference of their character

Key Question: How do you want the audience to view your character?

Inspiration: My own illustrations

The Hook: Imagine you’re a cartoonist for a daily newspaper

- What’s happening? You’ve just seen this class’s Antony and Cleopatra production

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

- Where is it happening? In the privacy of your own home

- When is it happening? The evening before publication

- What’s at stake? How do you draw a representation of the actors on stage? If they presented no specific physical features, not only will you not be able to draw them well, they probably didn’t stand out.

- Identify Characters in Antony and Cleopatra – Brainstorm the different characters in Antony and Cleopatra. Identify specific characteristics and differences.

- Introduce ‘the Hook’ – Discuss, in a whole group, the ways of creating and developing a character. Show examples of drawings as a means to encourage and guide similar approaches.

- Whole Class Activity – Brainstorm the different ways of pictorially representing a character from the play. Work through a whole class example on the board.

- Project – In pairs, ask the class to complete a pictorial description of how they would perform a character from Antony and Cleopatra.

- Conclusion – This could be presented as a single lesson on one Shakespeare play, or a way of getting the students to think about the way they present their character in the school production. If part of a production, such an activity should coincide with a reflective journal. This activity allows students to reflect and justify their choices in constructing their character. Another activity could solely focus on the costume of the character; how would you dress Cleopatra for this scene?

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.