SCHEME OF WORK – LESSON OUTLINES

YEAR 10

‘LET HIM HAVE IT’ (CRAIG AND BENTLEY)

LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Pupils will be able to:

  • Further develop the necessary skills required for the assessment of Paper 1, Unit 1. (Edexcel GCSE in Drama)
  • Use explorative strategies to deepen understanding of the theme of justice/ injustice and peer pressure
  • Evaluate their own and their peers’ work both orally and in writing.

ASSESSMENT – Response (to task), Development (of ideas and understanding), Evaluation (of their own and their peers’ work).

  • Understanding and utilising different explorative strategies
  • Shaping ideas to communicate meaning through Drama
  • Developing and realising ideas within a group
  • Production of several writing in role documents
  • Maintaining a working notebook which charts progress and records ideas
  • Using the language of Drama to communicate ideas and evaluate work
  • Devising and performing an original piece of Drama

“Let him have it”

A Dramatic investigation into the case of Derek Bentley

  • Explorative Strategies:
  • Still Image
  • Thought-tracking
  • Narrating
  • Hot-seating
  • Role-play
  • Cross-cutting
  • Forum Theatre
  • Marking the moment
  • Drama Medium
  • Mime
  • Movement
  • Voice
  • Space
  • Set
  • Levels
  • Sound/Music
  • Cross-Curricular skills/ Links
  • Media (Sociology)
  • Spatial Awareness/ Movement (Dance)
  • Justice (PSHE)
  • Peer pressure (Citizenship)
  • Discussion/ Expressing Opinion (PSHE)
  • ICT Opportunities
  • Research via internet
  • Music as stimulus
  • Overhead projection
  • Digital imaging

UNIT INFORMATION SHEET

Pupil name: / Form:
Date(s): / Unit: ‘Let him have it’
UNIT DESCRIPTION:
In this unit students will prepare for their Drama exploration I paper by gaining a practical and theoretical understanding of the eight listed explorative strategies. They will respond to stimulus material (in this case connected with the trial and execution of Derek Bentley) and use this as a starting point for their own Drama work. Students will explore the case through Drama, in a workshop environment, to gain a clearer understanding of the issues involved.
OUTCOMES: (Including criteria on which assessment is based)
Students will:
  • Gain a practical and theoretical understanding of the eight prescribed explorative strategies
  • Use the above to explore the issues of justice and peer pressure
  • Respond appropriately to a variety of stimulus material
  • Complete and present several written tasks
  • Use subject specific language to evaluate their own and their peers’ work

PUPIL’S OWN ASSESSMENT:
Name 3 of the Explorative Strategies you have used in this unit, and give examples
TARGETS:
In order to make better progress in my GCSE studies I need to…
1
2
3

LESSON ONE: Role Play, Still Image, Hot-seating

  • Share learning objectives and introduce unit.
  • Hand out and go through unit information sheet.
  • Discuss 50s – music, clothes, gangs, youth rebellion

show photographs of time and play sample of music

  • Exercise – solo mime

play music in background, pupils in role as fifties teenager getting

ready to go out – dressing in front of mirror, end in freeze

Hotseat individuals – what’s your name? Where are you going? etc

- help students to build up ‘inner life’ of characters

  • Extension – choose model

TIR enters as parent – angry at recent behaviour of child and grounds

him.

  • Exercise – Pairwork – Role-play

One pupil is teenager, other is parent. Teenager has been out with

friends who parent disapproves of and is attempting to sneak back in.

Parent catches him. Conflict arises. Parents must have reasons for

not wanting kids to dress and behave in such a way, teenagers

reasons why they do it.

View several and evaluate

  • Groupwork – Still Image

Look at OHP picture of group of ‘Teds’

In groups of 4/5 pupils make still image of similar group and then bring

the image to life showing two different perspectives –

a) Doing what the adult thinks they are doing

b) The reality of the situation

View and evaluate.

  • Revisit outcomes and write up explorative strategies employed

LESSON TWO: Thought tracking, Cross-cutting, TIR, Hotseating

  • Share learning outcomes and recap last weeks explorative strategies
  • Exercise – introducing Derek

Set up model – volunteer as Derek in cell, sat at table writing letter.

TIR as social worker introduces Derek to class and explains case

history – Derek a bit slow, a ‘lost soul’. In and out of special schools all

life (now 18) Became a recluse in his darkened room. Then met

charismatic Chris Craig – small-time hoodlum and younger than him.

Dressed and postured like an American gangster. Bentley dazzled and

impressed by style and confidences of Craig – captivated by their

world. Starts to ‘hang out’ with him – even though Father bans him

from meeting Craig. One day agrees to accompany Craig on night-

time warehouse raid. Police tipped off and confront boys on

warehouse roof. Craig carrying gun, police order him to surrender

weapon, Bentley shouts, “Let him have it, Chris”. Craig shoots, kills

policeman, both found guilty of murder, Craig too young to hang –

Bentley not. We find him in his cell, writing letter home.

  • Exercise – Thought tracking

What do you think Derek is thinking about at this moment in time?

Pupils give a thought each around the circle. Pupil in role as Derek

says his thoughts out load.

  • Group improvisations (4/5s)

Each group prepares two improvisations – one of an event in Derek’s

life before he has met Chris – at school, in park, lonely etc. One of an

event with Chris – how has his life changed?

Share several and Hotseat characters in chair in circle

  • Discuss explorative strategies covered and revisit outcomes
  • Homework – Writing in role, as Derek write the prison letter

LESSON THREE: Forum Theatre, Thought Tracking, Role Play

  • Share learning outcomes.
  • Warm-up – meetings

One half of class on each side of stage/studio, pairs facing

Take it in turns to enter the middle and meet partner in variety of ways

Try lots of different emotions – hate, love, suspicion, anger, nervous

  • Choose model – ‘A’ has new jacket which ‘B’ wants, how could he obtain the jacket without using violence?

‘B’ has much higher status (explain status if necessary)

‘A’ is lonely and friendless – ‘B’ popular and leader of gang

‘A’ gives jacket in exchange for membership of gang

  • Groupwork (3s) – improvisation

‘A’ (Derek) returns home without jacket and is confronted by father who

demands to know where it is, ‘B’ (Chris) arrives (wearing jacket) and

confirms his fears

Model one impro – Father gets jacket there is a gun in the pocket

Play out following scene between Father and son – Forum and discuss

  • Groupwork (4s) – Thought Tracking

Re-enact above scene with two other students as the characters

thoughts

Share several and evaluate – when might this technique be used?

  • Revisit outcomes and discuss strategies used
  • Homework – Working notebook

LESSON FOUR: Voice and meaning (ambiguity), Marking the Moment

  • Share learning outcomes and recap Forum Theatre
  • Warm-up – circle

Students say words ‘Let him have it, Chris’

Each one stresses a different word to change meaning

By altering stress, how are we altering meaning each time?

Say sentence with different emotions – pleading, angrily, nicely,

passionately, dispassionately

  • Groupwork (3s)- develop a scene where these words could be used in different context to the one we know

E.g.: passing salt, schoolteacher, footballer

View several and discuss

  • Same groups – roof scene

Derek, Chris, policeman. Re-enact the shooting incident.

End with the words. Half the groups’ words meaning shoot the

policeman, the other half meaning give him the gun.

Concentrate on giving as much weight to the meaning as possible i.e.:

mark the moment. How can we do this?

Share and use one as working model if appropriate.

  • Revisit outcomes and discuss marking the moment
  • Homework – working notebooks

LESSON FIVE: Naturalism/ non-naturalism

  • Share learning outcomes and revisit marking the moment
  • Warm-up – physical theatre techniques, Emotional Families
  • Discuss differences between naturalistic and non-naturalistic Drama
  • Groupwork (3s) Work on two scenes:

1) Derek’s parents visit him in prison the night before he is due to be

hanged – the appeal has failed but his Father is going to the Houses of

parliament to see if the decision can be reversed. How do they tell

Derek? How does he react to the news?

2) Derek has a nightmare that night – non-naturalistic techniques

  • Share and discuss
  • Revisit outcomes
  • Homework – working notebook, what devices used to explore nightmare?

LESSON SIX: Ritual and stylisation, Cross-cutting, Split stage, WCD

  • Share learning outcomes and recap last lesson contrasts
  • (Before students enter) Set up stage as room where Derek executed

- platform, stool, noose, witnesses’ chairs

ask class to ‘read’ what they see

discuss symbols – noose: power, death, murder, justice/injustice

  • Role-play – 4 volunteers to model scene: Derek, hangman, priest, warden

Play scene through – focus on ceremony/ ritual

Hangman shakes his hand to ascertain weight

  • Forum Theatre – thoughts out load for four characters

Develop scene as mime concentrating on ritual

Rest of class as crowd outside prison gates – what rituals?

- taking off hats, bowing heads, placing of flowers

- banging on prison gates, drum beat intensifying, chanting

- bring to crescendo running alongside above mime show up to point

when Derek is hung – then silence, freeze

  • Discuss work – what did different characters feel – emotions

What about Derek’s family – what were they doing?

Power of symbols in Drama (noose, gun, photographs, jacket)

How did we show and build tension?

Split stage, cross-cutting – could have had flashback to Derek’s first

meeting with Chris just as he’s about to be hung

  • Revisit outcomes and write up developments for homework

LESSON SEVEN: Let Him Dangle – Devising from stimulus

  • Share learning outcomes and recap whole class Drama
  • Play ‘Let Him Dangle’ (Elvis Costello)
  • Hand out lyric sheets
  • Set task for assessment – devise piece of Drama using music as stimulus

Students must use as least four of the explorative strategies when

responding to the song

They may also incorporate any of the scenes we have worked on over

the past few weeks

  • Put into (teacher selected) groups and leave to devise
  • Devise and rehearse – perform next lesson
  • Homework – working notebook, write script, learn lines, collect props

LESSON EIGHT: performance Assessment

  • Recap task and detail assessment procedure
  • Rehearse and set up
  • Perform
  • Self and peer assessment – evaluation assessment
  • Fill out unit information sheets – self assessment and targets
  • Recap and close unit