Middle School Theatre Arts: Grade 6
Ms. (206) 524-7452
Room: DRAMA
Overview
Welcome to Theatre Arts! Theatre is a tool for communication and a platform for bringing your voice and your ideas to other people. In theatre, you—your unique personality, perspective, and responses—are the means from which theatrical art is made. In addition, theatre celebrates our common humanity because theatre requires us to truthfully and compassionately tell other peoples stories by authenticallyliving out their experiences and engaging with integrity in their viewpoints. Theatre happens through a rich variety of means: if you like to act, sing, dance, or play an instrument, if you like to paint, sculpt, or write, if you love team sports, athletic activities, and movement, if you like carpentry, building, welding, if you like games, technology, and computers—wherever your interests may lie—there is a place for you in the world of theatre.
In Theatre Arts, we will be learning:
- Theatre processes: you will have opportunities explore your own experiences and create imagined solutions to real-life problems.
- Theatreskills: These tools help us to meaningfully explore and effectively share our ideas with others
- Professional ethics: These skills are necessary for creating a safe and nurturing artistic environment.
Theatre professionals use these skills to create traditional theatre products developed over the centuries: plays, operas, musicals, spoken word, and other public performances.
In 6th Grade Theatre, we will explore how theatre artists adapt stories into dramatic presentations. What are the components of dramatic action? How do playwrights create dialogue and movement from narrative? By immersing ourselves in the world of Greek theatre, in which theatre was both sacred ritual and political forum, we’ll expand our understanding of theatre’s ability to communicate and transform. In order to inhabit the worlds of our Greek plays, we will explore how actors use carefully chosen physical, vocal, and psychological choices to communicate character.
Classwork/Assignments
The goal of this course is to give you a secure understanding of fundamental theatre concepts, skills, and vocabulary and multiple opportunities to apply theatre skills and techniques to performance. To accomplish this, we will be participating in theatre exercises and using reading and writing to articulate thoughts and ideas. Each of you will be given a journal in which you will record learning targets and guiding questions, hypotheses, and your Entry Task. The Entry Task is a written warm-up designed to prepare you for the day’s learning, either by forecasting the day’s learning by helping you to recall previous learning. You should begin this warm-up immediately upon entering the classroom.
You will learn best in this class by giving yourself room to think creatively, by working collaboratively with others, and by exercising flexibility and a willingness to compromise so that, together, we can implement innovations and solve artistic problems. To ensure that you have an opportunity to do this, you will be sharing your thinking every day with a pair/share partner and in small groups. Always be ready and willing to share your responses, opinions, and ideas with your pair/share partner. Writing and dialoguing are essential parts of learning in our classroom!
Your writing and reflections will assess fluency and competence in the following standards:
TH:Cr2.1.6:Use critical analysis to improve, refine, and evolve original ideas and artistic choices in a devised or scripted drama/theatre work.
TH:Re7.1.6: Describe and record personal reactions to artistic choices in a drama/theatre work.
TH:Pr8.1.6: Identify personal aesthetics, preferences, and beliefs through participation in or observation of drama/ theatre work (Reflection)
TH:Cr3.1.6: Articulate and examine choices to refine a devised or scripted drama/theatre work.(Greek play)
TH:Re8.1.6: Explain how artists make choices based on personal experience in a drama/theatre work
TH:Pr5.1.6: Articulate how technical elements are integrated into a drama/ theatre work. (Reflection)
TH:Re9.1.6: Use supporting evidence and criteria to evaluate
In addition, we will work together to create rubrics for evaluation. You will be writing your own rubric! Writing your own rubric allows you to establish criteria for evaluation and demonstrate that you understand that criteria.
The course will consist of thirteen lessons. Each lesson will focus on one theatre skill and address a specific standard. Mastering theatre skills requires practice, so be sure to participate fully in each theatre exercise.
You will be writing a guided reflection at mid-term and at the end of each quarter.
Attendance and Homework Policy
Theatre is about collaboration, rehearsal, and performance, so almost all of our work is done in class. If you are absent, please check the Drama Web page for make-up work. If you are ill or plan to be absent for an extended period of time, please contact Ms. Olsen to set up a plan for success. Your attendance and participation is vitally important to the success of the whole group. If you are absent from group work for an extended amount of time, groupings and group work will be adjusted according to the needs of the situation. In these cases, we will work together to find a solution that works for all group members.
Although you will have very little homework in this class, if you miss class, you must complete the entry tasks and written work to ensure that you don’t miss out on meeting the standard embedded in each week’s lesson. I am always happy to meet with you to help you to make up missing work. Please feel free to make an appointment to see me if you have any concerns or questions. Lessons will be available on the Drama Web Page, so please use the Web Page as a resource for accessing make-up work.
NCATS ARTISTC PROCESSES:
- CREATE: Conceive and Develop new artistic ideas and work
- PERFORM: Realize artistic ideas and work through interpretation and presentation
- RESPOND: Understand and evaluate how the arts convey meaning.
- CONNECT: Relate artistic ideas and work with personal meaning and external context
SYLLABUS
WEEK/Lesson / SKILL / STANDARD / Assessments1. 11/29: Storytelling Impulse and the Ensemble Ethic / Work collaboratively in small groups
Create norms
Identify 21st Cent. Learning Skills
Goal setting / TH:Cr2.1.6
Contribute ideas and accept and incorporate the ideas of others in preparing or devising drama/theatre work. / Written: Norms
Project: The 4 C’s Information Sharing, Pantomime
2. 12/1: The Structure of Greek Theatre / Work collaboratively in small groups.
Use analysis and summarizing skills to process and share information. / TH:Re8.1.6b: Identify cultural perspectives that may influence the evaluation of a drama/theatre work. / Project: Scavenger Hunt
Written: Instructional Posters
3. 12/6: Greek Theatre Jigsaw / Work collaboratively in small groups. Synthesize Information and use improvisational and collaboration skills to Create Instructional Skit. Practice audience and responding skills / TH:Re9.1.6c: Identify a specific audience or purpose for a drama/theatre work. / Project: Rehearse and perform skits intended to illustrate points on instructional posters.
4. 12/8: Running Man: Mask Work in Greek Theatre / Students will explore and evaluate the power of mask work by participating in the “Running Man” exercise. / TH:Pr5.1.6
Recognize how acting exercises and techniques can be applied to a drama/theatre work.TH:Pr4.1.6
Experiment with various physical choices to communicate character in a drama/theatre work. / Written: Greek Theatre vocabulary
Project: Mask and Mask Movement
Design and Decorate Masks
4. 12/13: Aspects of Greek Theatre (Immersion) / 1. Parts of Stage
2. Stage Positions
3. Level and Plane
3. Chorus work
4. Performance Practice
5. Analysis andApplication / TH:Pr11.2.6
Investigate the time period and place of a drama/theatre work to better understand performance and design choice. / Written: Journal
Skill Building: Understand and practice theatre vocabulary
5. 12/15: Greek Tragedy: Round Robin Read / Students will become acquainted with plot points and structure of “The Oresteia” as interpreted by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. / TH:Cn11.2.6a: Research and analyze different versions of the same drama/theatre story to determine differences and similarities / Skill Building:
Read and interpret; compare and contrast
5. 1/3 and 1/5: Heroes are People, Too. (jigsaw) / Begin exploration of characters for final project. Assign tasks. Make plans for MEMORIZING lines by 1/28 / TH:Cr1.1.6
Explore a scripted or improvised character by imagining the given circumstances in a drama/theatre work / Written: Journal
Project: Jigsaw
Monologue (I am From…)
1/10 and 1/12: Objectives:
Character Analysis / Students will discover personal connections with themes of plays selected for presentation; students will read and select plays for presentation. / TH:Pr11.1.6
a. Identify universal themes or common social issues and express them through a drama/theatre work. / Game: “I Would Never” (identify and connect with story problems)
Round-Robin Read: Living Myths
Reflection: What drives characters (and individuals) to make choices?
6. 1/17 and 1/19: Creating Stage Pictures / 1. Students will identify key points in the stories of their plays, and create tableaux that illustrate these key moments.
2. Students will make plans to support story with period specific technical elements / TH:Pr4.1.6
Identify the essential events in a story or script that make up the dramatic structure in a drama/theatre work. / Written: Midterm Reflection
Project: Analyze for key elements; create tableaux using level, gesture, and facial expression.
7. 1/24 and 1/26: / Character Analysis
Small Group Performance (OFF-BOOK)
Reflection
Brainstorm / TH:Pr10.1.6
Explainhow the actions and motivations of characters in a drama/theatre work impact perspectives of a community or culture. / Written: Journal
Written: Reflection
Skills: Informal Performance
8. 1/31 and 2/2:
Rehearsal I / 1.Students will identify aspects of Rehearsal process
2. Students will create a rehearsal plan
3. Rehearse
4. Share / TH:Cr1.1.6
Identify possible solutions to staging challenges in a drama/theatre work. (patterns of movement, stage pictures, crosses, entrances, exits that convey meaning) / Written: Journal
Written: Rehearsal agreement and rehearsal plan
Skills: Apply at least one agreement in rehearsal
Written: Exit Ticket
9. 2/7 and 2/9: Technical
Rehearsal
(Rehearsal 2) / 1.Add technical elements
2.Final Rehearsal / TH:Cr3.1.6
Explore a planned technical design during the rehearsal process for a devised or scripted drama/theatre work. (Greek play) / Written: Rehearsal agreement and rehearsal plan
Skills: Apply at least two agreement in rehearsal
Written: Exit Ticket
10. 2/14 and 2/16: Final Rehearsal / Perform for feedback / TH:Pr6.1.6
Adapt a drama/theatre work and present it informally for an audience. / Written: Rehearsal agreement and rehearsal plan
Skills: Apply all agreements in rehearsal.
11. 2/21 and 2/23: Performance and Reflection / Final Exploration and Reflection / TH:Pr11.2.6
Research and analyze two different versions of the same drama/theatre story to determine differences and similarities in the visual and aural world of each story / Written: Reflection
Written: Academic Vocabulary
Skills: formal sharing; pacing and transitions
Grades
This course is fully compliant with Seattle Public Schools’ and NCAS Theatre Standards for Grade 6. By completing each week’s written work and participating fully in skills development activities and applications, you will successfully demonstrate competence in theatre standards for your grade level. Grades will be entered into Skyward on a weekly basis; however, you will have the entire trimester to complete outstanding work in order to demonstrate competence in the standards. Assessment is based on completion of written work and fulfillment of performance skills application for each week of the trimester.
Materials: All materials will be supplied in class. Please wear comfortable clothes in which you can move freely.
Participation: You drive this class, and your participation is essential for everyone’s success. We will be working in small groups, so each member of the class will be expected to participate in group work and group discussions.
- Be in class on time and remain in class unless it’s absolutely necessary to leave
- Limit restroom use to the first few minutes of class. You are responsible for competing all entry tasks during the first five minutes of class.
- Make all transitions quickly and efficiently.
Classroom Environment Policies:
Performing Arts education is about learning and creating with other people. Relationships based in mutual regard are essential for our work. All students need to feel our classroom is a safe and respectful learning environment, so we must be kind and respectful of one another. If you are having a bad day or are experiencing something that inhibits your participation, please let me know privately, and I will do what I can to help!
Classroom Norms: Your participation in this class will help you to develop skills you will use all your life—cooperation, teamwork, respect, patience, and perseverance. We will create classroom norms together so that, as a classroom community, we can build an environment that nurtures and promotes artistic, academic, and spiritual growth. By incorporating ASB’s Student Rights and Responsibilities and ASB’s School-Wide Learning Expectations into our classroom norms, we will ensure that we build a community that promotes and supports our school’s mission and philosophy.
School-Wide Learning Expectations:
The faculty and staff, in consultation with the ASB community, developed the School-Wide Learning Expectations. These guide all of our decisions, to ensure that our practices are aligned with the school’s mission and philosophy.
1. Each student of Assumption-St. Bridget School will be a Reflective Person of Faith
2. Each student of Assumption-St. Bridget School will be a Respectful and Contributing Member of Local and Global Community
3. Each student of Assumption-St. Bridget School will be a Competent and Confident Learner
4. Each student of Assumption-St. Bridget School will be a Self Directed Learner
5. Each student of Assumption-St. Bridget School will be an Effective Communicator
Dear ASB Families and Friends,
Welcome to ASB Theatre! I am very happy to have the opportunity to work with our 7th grade students during the coming trimester. I hope that you have had an opportunity to read the attached syllabus. Theatre is a powerful vehicle for building community and promoting personal growth: I am excited about this trimester’s course work and the gains I anticipate for each of our students
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to email me at . Please check Skyward for weekly academic updates. Please use our Drama web page as a resource for curricular updates, classroom news, and any missed class work.
Thank you!
Julie Olsen
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Please sign, have your parent or guardian sign, and return to Ms. Olsen.
I have read and understand the policies outlined in Ms. Olsen’s syllabus. I will comply with theses guidelines and uphold them with my conduct in class every day. I will do my best to ensure that we have a safe and successful learning environment.
I do/do not consent for my child’s work to be videotaped for educational purposes.
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Student Name Student Signature Date
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Parent/Guardian Name Parent/Guardian Si