Part A: MICROTEACH DETAILED LESSON PLAN

Daniel Russ, Lauren Young, Daniel Whitcombe & Karly Neoh

Subject: Drama – A focus on Improvisation
Year level: 2 Duration: 15 minutes

STRANDS
Making Responding
By the end of the lesson students will be able Participants in the lesson will contribute by
to produce sound effects using their voices, making sounds and actions in relation to their
create different movement within space and required roles and activities. Students will help
stay in role for short improvisations. They will each other feel confident to express their
work cooperatively with other small groups and thoughts and actions while building on their
the whole class. experiences and knowledge.

GENERAL CAPABILITIES CROSS-CURRICULUM

PRIORITIES
o Literacy o Ethical understanding o Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander histories and
cultures
o Numeracy ☑Personal and social o Asia and Australia’s
competence engagement with Asia
o ICT Competence o Intercultural o Sustainability
understanding
☑ Critical and creative
thinking

Our ‘big concept’ is improvisation and movement expression within a role.

Exposing students to improvisation in this context is important because:

- It allows students to practice movement in dramatic play to fulfil a role or

Rationale establish a situation.
- Promotes teamwork and collaborative work in creating dramatic action.
- Develop understanding of body and facial expressions to create roles.

Students will have prior knowledge of:

• Working cooperatively with their peers

Prior • Understand how to improvise and use creativity
Knowledge
• Students will also have sound knowledge of the different kinds of
machines from life experience and lessons throughout their schooling
 • Explore role and dramatic action in dramatic play, improvisation and
process drama (ACADRM027)
Relevant Elaborations:
- Taking Turns in offering and accepting ideas, and staying in role in short
improvisations
- Exploring possibilities for role and situation when participating in whole
group teacher-led process drama and roleplay
Content - Considering viewpoints, forms and elements: For example – How did the
Descriptions performers use their voices? What sort of movements did the performer
use?
• Use voice, facial expression, movement and space to imagine and
establish role and situation (ACADRM028)
Relevant Elaborations:
- Communicating verbally by using the voice to explore and show role and
situation
- Communicating non-verbally by using facial expression and
movement to explore and show role and situation
Small Group Activity
Students are seated on the floor in front of the teacher.
• Break students up into small groups of 3-4.
• Provide each group with a card picturing a certain type of machine (e.g.
washing machine, microwave, blender).
• Give students 20 seconds to come up with a set of actions to represent
the machine pictured on their card.
• Go around the class and have each group demonstrate their actions to
the class. Allow students to guess what machine they are acting out.
• Repeat the same activity, however this time allow students to include a
sound effect to go with their actions.
• Each group presents to the class and we guess what machine they are.
• Students begin to identify relationships between different machines
working together to produce an item or complete a process (e.g. a series
of machines to produce bread).

Reflection
Prompt questions may include:
• What are some of the similarities/differences between the machines?
`Lesson • How did you recognise parts of the machine to identify what it was?
• What movements or shapes did the participants make to create this
meaning?

Whole Class Activity

Students are standing in a large circle.
• Teachers will model the activity to students. Tell students that they will be
building a ‘machine’
• Begin with one student in the middle of the circle making a noise and a
simple repeatable gesture.
• When the student has a rhythm the next student in the circle can jump in
and add a movement which connects to the first students’ gesture.
Players must physically connect, however they do not need to stay in
order.
• Each student continues to join in with a new noise and gesture which
connects to the last persons’, until everyone is involved in creating the
machine.
 Reflection
Prompt questions may include:
• What machine do you think we have created?
• What was your part in making it?
• How could we make the machine run better?
• What happens when part of the machine is taken away?

Small Group Activity

• A theme, other than machines, could be used to prompt students’
improvisation (e.g. animals or water cycles). This could connect to other
learning areas being studied at the time.

Whole Class Activity

• You could begin the game with deciding on a type of machine and then
have everyone create it together (e.g. bubble gum machine, claw
machine, bread maker, etc.)
• To maximise participation, instead of going around the circle, students
Variations could just jump in when they have an idea or when they feel comfortable.
• If students are struggling to come up with their own ideas, the teacher
could begin by guiding students into certain roles (e.g. student A you can
be a wheel, student B you can be a pole). Then you could progress to the
original game once they feel more confident and comfortable.
• You could remove students’ adding sound effects if the focus on the
lesson is movement and gestures.
• To increase difficulty of the activity you can play around with the speed of
the machine, or slow it down to make it easier for students. This allows
students to explore different rhythms and team work.

Formative Assessment:
• Analyse student participation and communication methods (both
individual and group organisation)
• Students connect ideas from their other learning areas (English,
Assessment Mathematics, Science, D&T e.c.t) to inform their performances
• Students use their experiences to inform and develop their
understandings about the world and relationships between industries and
their machines.

• Cue cards of different machines, (including image and name of machine),

to provide action cues in first activity.
Preparation / • Examples may include: Camera, sewing machine, ATM, skill tester,
Equipment printer, scanner, washing machine, toaster, motorbike, microwave,
blender, fan, train and boat.

• HASS: History – Exploring machines from the past, comparing them with
present machines
• D&T – Designing machines from the past, present and future machines.
• Science – Exploring how pushes and pulls affect how machines work
Curriculum successfully
Links
 • This lesson is a section of a HaSS lesson which explores the different
types of technology/machines students are familiar with. It would also
include discussion about what a machine is, ensuring all students have
similar knowledge of the variety of functions machines have. This would
then lead to future lessons examining how technology has changed over
several generations.

The HaSS content descriptor this lesson will adhere to is:

Broader
• How changing technology affected people’s lives (at home and in the
Learning
ways they worked, travelled, communicated and played in the past)
Experience ACHASSK046
- Examining changes in technology over several generations by
comparing past and present objects and photographs, and discussing
how these changes have shaped people’s lives (for example, changes
to land, air and sea transport; the move from wood-fired stoves to
gas/electrical appliances; the introduction of transistors, television, FM
radio and digital technologies; how people shopped and what they liked
to buy, changes in the nature of waste and how waste is managed)
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2017).
Drama. Available from: < https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-
Resources
curriculum/the-arts/drama/>. Visited 16/04/18.