Process Drama IDEAS

Web-based Drama Curriculum Unit: A Process Drama

Julia Orpin

‘Creating an urban jungle’
Grade: 7/8
Time: 100mins (double lesson)
Pre-text: Uno’s garden by Graeme Base (Picture book)

Links to ELs:
- Communicating: Being Literate
Being Arts Literate
- Thinking: Inquiry
- Social Responsibility: Understanding the past and creating preferred futures
- World Futures: Creating sustainable futures
Learning Objectives and Outcomes:
- Students will develop a deeper understanding of how their actions, however small can have an impact upon a larger scale.
- Students will develop their skills in using drama as a tool for exploring ideas and concepts, opposed to only for entertainment.
- Students will develop their performance skills, especially those associated with improvisation as well as the voice and movement.
- Student will improve their group work skills.

Themes and ideas explored:
-“ Small actions can make a big difference”
- The environment
- Exploration and adventure
- The impact humans can have on nature (both positive and negative)
- It’s never too late to right the wrongs of the past.

Procedure:
➢ Warm-up: As students enter the classroom each student will be allocated an animal. Once all students have arrived they are to spread throughout the classroom and close their eyes. Students are now to navigate through the classroom with their eyes closed with the objective to find and meet up with the other members of the class of the same species using only the noises their animal would make. Once this is completed student should be in groups of four. These are their groups for the process drama.

➢ Students are gathered together and shown a picture of the jungle from the picture book Uno’s garden. During this the teacher explains whom Uno is and that he has decided to explore this jungle.

➢ Students in their groups from the warm-up are now to create four snap shots that they think shows Uno’s exploration of the jungle. Share a few groups’ snapshots with the class.

➢ Still in these same groups students are now to create a 30 second sound scape of the jungle based upon their previous four snapshots and Uno’s journey. Share a couple of groups work.

➢ By combining all of the student’s sound scapes the teacher conducts the students in an orchestra of the jungle, bringing each group to the forefront once and allowing the students to experience the full noise of a jungle.

➢ Students are now to return to their groups and choose two emotions that the orchestra of the jungle made them think about Uno’s Jungle. Using these two emotions students are now to create two 3-D statues that express each of their emotions. Share some of these with the class.

➢ The teacher now reads the students a letter from Uno himself telling them about how he decided to move to the jungle which he thinks is beautiful, about all the animals and plants living in this jungle, especially all about an animal called a snortlepig and how he has started a little garden. Uno also talks of how some fishermen have also decided to come and live in this jungle with their families.

➢ Individually students are asked to write in their journal a short description of one of the many animals that they believe lives in Uno’s jungle as if they were writing for an encyclopaedia or the National Geographic. The move inventive the animal the better. Share a couple of these with the class.

➢ Teacher now reads another letter they have received from Uno. Within this letter Uno talks about how the settlement has developed into a medium sized town and how there seems to be less plants and animals around. In particular he doesn’t see his snortlepig as much as he used to.

➢ In their groups students are now to create five tableaus showing the daily lives of those living in this new town. Share a couple of groups.

➢ Still in their original groups students are now given pieces of butchers paper and textas and are asked to create a map of Fernville (the town newly formed in the jungle) showing the main buildings and houses. Once completed students are asked to place these maps face down in a pile in the centre of the classroom. The teacher then begins to reveal each of the maps placing them next to each other to form a much bigger map creating a city instead of a town. As the teacher does this, he/she informs the students that they had been talking to Uno and the town has grown to form a large city full of tall buildings and people. Uno was worried about his favourite animal the snortlepig.

➢ Students are now called to a public meeting held by the Lord Mayor (teacher-in-role) of Fernville to discuss the disappearance of many of the animals that used to live in and around the city. What do the residence of Fernville think has happened to these animals? And how has it affected the city?

➢ Students in their groups are now asked to create a short scene which explains what they think has happened to the animals? Share a couple of group’s scenes.

➢ Gathering the students together the teacher now read from a page from the Pre-text in which the residence of Fernville wake up one day and are sad because they realise the jungle has been replaced by man made things and so many decide to move away. Students are also shown the corresponding picture.

➢ The teacher then reads another letter from Uno about how he found a single snortlepig in his garden. The first one he has seen in a long time. Uno wants to know what he should do and how can he help the snortlepig as well as the jungle?

➢ Students are now to create in their groups another short scene showing what they think Uno should/ can do. Share a few groups with the class

➢ Uno now comes into visit the class (teacher-in-role) to share his news about his jungle. He tells the class he decided to use his little garden he started years before to replant areas of the jungle that got taken over by the city and already many of the animals that disappeared have returned. His only worry is he hasn’t seen any more Snortlepigs.

➢ Student will now take part in a conscience alley for Uno as he is unsure whether he could have done anything else to save the jungle? Were his actions the right ones?

➢ Uno decides he did the right thing and leaves the class as a happy man.

➢ The class now performs a line of allegiance giving the students a chance to express their own views by where they position themselves in the line to the following questions:
- Do you think Uno’s garden made a difference to the recovery of the jungle?
- Do you think the Snortlepig will return?
- Do you think the Jungle will ever recover and be as beautiful as it was before?

➢ The teacher now gathers the students together one last time and projects onto the wall a poem from the pre-text for the students to read:

The animals go by one by one
A hundred plants, then there were none
And all the buildings double…
This numbers game adds to trouble

But if you count with upmost care
(And trust me that they are all still there)
You’ll go from ten to nothing, then
The whole way back to ten again!

➢ If time is remaining, a class discussion will follow in which students will be asked about how they felt about the story and the ideas that were explored?

Equipment:
- Butcher’s paper
- Textas
- The picture book Uno’s Garden by Graeme Base
- Letters from Uno
- Projector
- The Poem from the pre-text

Assessment: Assessment is on going. Student’s ability work in groups, overall participation and performance skills will be observed throughout the drama.