Creating Drama with 7-11 Year Olds: Lesson Ideas to Integrate Drama into the Primary Curriculum (David Fulton Books)

170 Pages·2009·1.81 MB·English

by  Miles Tandy

Creating Drama with
7–11 Year Olds
Lesson ideas to integrate drama into the primary
curriculum
Miles Tandy and Jo Howell
First published 2010
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2010 Miles Tandy and Jo Howell
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tandy, Miles.
Creating drama with 7–11 year olds: lesson ideas to integrate drama into
the primary curriculum/Miles Tandy and Jo Howell.
p. cm.
1. Drama in education. 2. Drama–Study and teaching (Primary) 3.
Interdisciplinary approach in education. 4. Education, Primary–Curricula.
I. Howell, Jo, 1972- II. Title.
PN3171.T365 2010
372.66–dc22 2009022754
ISBN 0-203-86434-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-56259-7 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-415-48350-6 (pbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-86434-4 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-56259-1 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-48350-6 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-86434-0 (ebk)
To Mr and Mrs Reeves: dedicated teachers of drama

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
How to use this book xi
3L Gentle Giant 1
3C The Romans 10
3F Dr Xargle’s Book of Earthlets 19
3P All about our town 28
4L Theseus and the Minotaur 35
4C Change in the environment 44
4F Space 52
4P The Comedy of Errors 61
5L The Listeners 72
5C Howard Carter and Tutankhamen 80
5F The Invention of Hugo Cabret 90
5P Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 99
6L Leon and the Place Between 110
6C Shipwrecked: making for survival 119
vii
Contents
6F Silent film 127
6P Coriolanus 135
Appendix 1: drama structures and strategies used
throughout the book 146
Appendix 2: further reading to help develop drama
in your school 149
Index 150
viii
Acknowledgements
Our sincere thanks are due to all those teachers and their classes who
have helped develop these materials: those who have lent us their
classes; those who have tried some units out; those who have read
drafts and made suggestions and comments. Also to all our friends
and colleagues at the Educational Development Service for their
support, professionalism and friendship. Thanks also to members of
the education department of the Royal Shakespeare Company,
particularly Mary Johnson, Rachel Gartside and Jacqui O’Hanlon, all
of whom have had a profound and lasting effect on our work. Finally,
thanks and love to Denise and Gideon for their support and patience
throughout.
ix

How to use this book
Recent years have seen a growing interest in the place of drama in
the primary school. Many of the teachers with whom we work
recognise drama as a very powerful way of engaging children in
learning right across the curriculum. Drama offers a very natural and
accessible medium through which children can experience, explore
and present ideas. They use their bodies, their voices, and the spaces
and objects around them to investigate, understand and make. With
skilful and sensitive teaching, children can cheerfully tackle ideas
and concepts in drama that they might find much more difficult
through talk and writing alone. And perhaps most important of all,
drama can offer children some of the most engaging, rewarding and
joyful experiences that they can have together in their primary
schools.
Although many of the teachers with whom we work would share
these sentiments entirely, many also tell us that sustaining drama
teaching over a whole school year is challenging to say the least.
Teaching drama often requires levels of skill and confidence that go
well beyond those which most teachers have been given in their
initial training. Even if you have been lucky enough to receive some
in-service training in teaching drama, you may have found it difficult
to sustain your initial enthusiasm once you have used all the
strategies and ideas you were given on your course.
xi