The Great Sheffield Flood Teacher card C
Suggested Lesson Plan.
Warm up:The Magic Box
Aim: To use mime as a tool for exploring objects and associated movement.
Explain that you are going to pass a Magic Box around the circle and that each child should open the box and take out something that they really want. They should then mime using the object. For example, if you took a new hat out you might put it on and admire yourself in the mirror. They should then replace the object and pass the Magic Box onto the next person in the circle. Model this activity for the pupils first.
Main Activity: Cleakum Inn
Aims: To devise narrative and character in response to an object stimulus.
To adopt and sustain a role in a drama inspired by given artefacts.
Read the account of the story to the children and discuss it using the questions as a guide. Teachers may want to discuss the use and meaning of phrases such as ‘she having been from home’, ‘offering shillings and sixpences’ and ‘relics not worth a straw’, and less familiar words such as ‘mementoes’, ‘brawny’ and ‘tremulous’.
Discuss question 3 briefly in pairs. Ask the children to suggest how these objects would be used and who owned them. Explain to the children that you have brought along a collection of objects. We are going to imagine that they were found by the girl and she has decided to keep them as ‘being too precious to be parted with’. Show the children the objects and spend a couple of minutes identifying them without giving too much information.
Divide the children into groups of 4 –5 with I object per group. They need to discuss the object and decide who it belonged to, how it was used, where was it usually kept, what did the person who used the object think and feel about it, etc. Encourage the children to imagine as much detail as they can. They should then go on to create a still image about the object. For example, if the object was a child’s doll, they could create an image of the child playing with it in the street or a domestic scene or in a playground. The focus should not just be the child with the doll but the context in which it is used. When the children have shown and evaluated their initial images, explain that we are going to create an album of memories for the Bisby girl, based on the objects. You can switch the images on with a clear signal and the children should improvise freely in the scene ending with a still image. Depending on the experience and confidence of the children you should switch off the images after a few seconds/ moments.
The children should practise and refine their image and then the whole class should then perform their improvisations in sequence with the teacher/other adult or confident pupil in role as the Bisby girl. After each one the child holding the object should give it to the girl. End the drama with a clear signal and evaluate the work done, paying particular attention to the feelings evoked by the objects.
Extension Activity – more able children could add more extensive dialogue to their improvisation
Plenary –talk about how objects can trigger memories and feelings. You may wish to hot seat the person in role as the surviving daughter.
Suggested follow up lesson –you could practise and refine the work, photograph the images and display them with the objects and some poems written about them by the children.
ACTING TOGETHER UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD FLOOD PROJECT