EdTPA General Lesson Plan Template

Grade Level: 6th-8th Number of Students: 4-5 Instructional Location: Zoom Date: 4/21/2021

Lesson Goals
Central Focus of Lesson:
What is the big idea or focus question of the lesson?
Communication is the Foundation of all Drama Experience

Standard(s) Addressed:
What Learning Standards (Common Core, NGSS, etc.) will be addressed during the lesson? (List number and text)

TH:Cr1.1.6 c. Explore a scripted or improvised character by imagining the given circumstances in a theatrical work.

TH:Cr2-6. b. Contribute ideas and accept and incorporate the ideas of others in preparing or devising a theatrical work.

TH:Cr3.1.7. b. Develop effective physical and vocal traits of characters in an improvised or scripted theatrical work

TH:Pr4.1.6. b. Experiment with various physical choices to communicate character in a theatrical

work.

TH:Pr5.1.7. a. Participate in a variety of acting exercises and techniques that can be applied in a rehearsal or theatrical
performance.

TH:Re7.1.6. a. Describe and record personal reactions to artistic choices in a theatrical work.
Lesson Objectives and Demands
Content Objectives:
What will the students know and be able to do by the end of the lesson? (use observable language with measurable verbs)
Students will be able to create creatures centered around movement vocabulary (Gurning, Plating, and Plastiques)
Students will be able to apply movement terms in an alien exploration
Language Objectives:
What language will students be expected to utilize when illustrating their understanding?
Students will be able to explain the processes they used to create their creatures in a talk back
Students will be able to discuss how movement influenced their characters and personal journey through the alien
exploration
Key Vocabulary in Lesson:
Gurning- the process of warming up facial muscles and following the impulse of facial movement. Actors imagine they have a
large piece of gum they are chewing and engage all the muscles of the face.
Plating- the process of centering the body and being aware of the space around you while focusing in on your movement. Actor
takes a wide stance and imagines they are holding one or two plates in their hands. The actors move the plates around the body as if
they are apart of you being careful that they do not drop them.
Plastiques- A system of movement that was developed by theatre practitioner Jerzy Grotowski. Beginning with isolation, isolating
the wrist or the hand or the elbow, you start to rotate and flex it and explore its possible movements. Then you see where that takes
you, where the wrist leads you; the wrist is moving you through the space. You can then start to have one part of the body doing one
thing in dialogue with another part of the body.

Lesson Considerations
Materials:
• Google slide presentation
• A space in your virtual location for movement
• Students will need to have a random object for alien exploration
• Alien exploration script
Prior Academic Learning and Prerequisite Skills:
List the prior knowledge that students will need to use and build upon to be successful in this lesson
• Nonverbal communication speaks just as loud as verbal communication
• Our bodies are the first thing that is seen by an audience on stage, and how are bodies are reacting in relation to the
space/story can tell a story
• Movement/dance is a way to speak when words just are not enough
Misconceptions: Identify common misconceptions regarding the concepts addressed in this lesson
• I’m afraid to do these exercises because people will make fun of me
• Movement doesn’t trigger a bodily response
• How can copying a style of movement of one piece of art influence another piece of art
• Gurning, plating, and plastiques are just stretches and don’t help translate movement to character

Lesson Plan Details: Write a detailed outline of your class session including instructional strategies, learning tasks, key questions, key
transitions, student supports, assessment strategies, and conclusion. Your outline should be detailed enough that another teacher could
understand them well enough to use them. Include what you will do as a teacher and what your students will be doing during each
lesson phase. Include a few key time guidelines. Note: The italicized statements and scaffolding questions are meant to guide your
thinking and planning. You do not need to answer them explicitly or address each one in your plan. Delete them before typing your
lesson outline.

Lesson Introduction - “Before”: Setting the stage, activate and build background knowledge, introduce and explain

1) Greet the students as artist at the beginning of class to empower them in who they are when they are in my class, and
set the tone for environment in which we create art in.
2) Break the ice by asking a question relevant to an event that has happened or will be happening in their lives to build on
the student teacher relationship and help build the community of the classroom
3) Energize the students by foreshadowing what we will be doing for the day.
4) Then we transition into a “Working Wednesday” bellringer and I will lay out the expectations of how Working
Wednesday Operate and the expectation for bellringers so students know exactly what they are supposed to do.
5) Play the video so students can watch what a movement director does, this gets the students thinking about the topics
that we will be covering that day, framing their mindset of where their thinking should be heading, as well as it
introduces the students to a job within theatre that they may have not known existed. The video gives the students
another way of learning about the career field rather than me just explaining what a movement director does. They get
to see it in action and respond.
 6) After viewing the video summarize the highlights of the video and ask the students to respond objectively and
subjectively to what they saw. This will be an informative pre-assessment to gauge what the students took away from
the movement teachings of the movement director.
7) After Students have shared their thoughts, use the message from the video to transition into today’s class and how the
video was relevant to what the students will be doing today.
8) Reiterate the “Big Idea” that is driving the topics that are being discussed within class to have it float in the back of the
mind of the students, so they can begin to infer throughput the lesson how what we are doing is relevant.
9) Summarize what the takeaways from yesterdays class were and how where we ended yesterday is where we are
starting today. Go over the exit tickets the students had prior to today and point out that their exit tickets influenced
todays lesson and how we will be addressing the concern within the exit ticket. Lay out to the students how what we are
doing falls into the grand scope of the unit we are currently on.
10) After preluding what todays lesson will entail, go over the objectives the students so they have a clear set expectation of
what they should be able to do after todays lesson, and gauge within themselves how the movement activity worked or
didn’t work for them in their journals.
11) Reiterate our classroom rule of our class being a safe space to create work freely without fear of judgment, and discuss
with the students that they may feel silly in todays lesson, but we are n a safe space to take risk and be silly.
12) Go over the agenda with the students so they have a full clear lay out of what the rest of class is going to entail.

Learning Activities - “During”: Active engagement in meaning making, explicit instruction, and practice (you should be checking for
understanding throughout the lesson)

13) Lead students through a physical warm up as we will be doing a lot of physical movement for the day and their bodies
need to be ready for all of the movement. This also is a great way to wake up their bodies early in the morning and
clear their heads if they are bringing anything into the class.
14) Do a reaction warm up leading students through a guided reaction session giving them prompts to physically respond
to, to set the expectation of the alien guided practice that will be coming up. This will also allow students to deepen
their understanding of how our bodies tell a story before we even speak. Respond to what they are giving you and
encourage their choices and provide commentary to make the silence feel apart of the warm up. Introduce “melting
something away” between each reaction prompt to give a foundation of vocabulary that I will be using during our
movement lesson that is coming up next so the students understand what I mean when I say “melt that away”
15) Ask a probing question on the body telling a story to have students infer and synthesize what they already know with
what they hypothesizing.
16) Introduce the term “gurning” to the students and provide an explanation of the term and what it does for our bodies.
17) As you are going through gurning do the exercise with the students so they can see a model of what they should be
doing and so they don’t feel isolated in what they are doing, as I will be partaking in the exercise as well right along
with them. Ask the students to tuck that in their back pockets for a minute as we move into the next exercise and
reiterate that we will be coming back to it.
18) For this transition ask the students to stand up in their space to get them up on thir feet and shake up the classroom set
up to something that is not what they traditionally do in an online space.
19) Explain that we will now be doing the plating exercise and provide an explanation of what plating is as well as the
benefits that come with plating. Introduce one plate to each student and have them start the process of bringing the
palte around he body, being sure that you do not drop it and are focusing in on your plate. Do this exercise along side
them providing deeper probing questions and commentary. After a while of one plate, introduce a 2nd plate and again
repeat what you did with the first plate.
20) After you have used two plates for a while have students theoretically “smash” them as you transition to the next
movement piece.
21) Introduce what plastiques are and the core elements that we will be focusing on from the plastique method. Begin to
lead the students through body isolations starting with one part of the body and gradually adding more and more parts
to being to interact with each other. You will again be doing this along with the students providing probing questions
and commentary to get students thinking about their movements.
22) Have students come back together closer to the camera, summarize the three terms of movement that we just went
over providing an auditory explanation as well as a nonlinguistic representation of what the movement term is to
remind students what we just did.
23) Use a probing question as a discussion point with students as a formative assessment to the exercise you just did with
them to have them explain their thought processes as they went through these movement explorations. Affirm their
discussion points and even build on what they are talking about with you.
24) Ask the students to stand once again. This going back and forth of standing and sitting keeps the students on their toes
and alert to what we are doing.
25) Explain that we will now be combining the three terms of movement that we have used to create some sort of creature
character. Explain that students should just begin by incorporating the three movement techniques together, and then
from their listen to their body and make a choice to shape a character around the movements they were just doing
allowing those movements to influence the end result.
26) Ask the students to keep exploring their creatures as you move closer to the camera to take a closer look at what they
have created. Ask the students to continue the exploration as you talk to them. Explain that their combination of
movements have generated an alien character. Ask some questions to each student to allow them to gain a deeper
 understanding of their characters (what sound do you make, what kind of limbs do you have, how old are you, etc).This
helps build again the idea of call-and-respond which will be using heavily in the next part of our activity.
27) Once students have an understanding of who they are and have had a moment to just live as their characters have them
melt the character away for just a moment.
28) Explain that students will be going through a dramatic exploration and lay out the expectation of what that entails so
students know exactly what I am looking for. Ask students to scramble around their space and find any small object
that they feel comfortable bringing into their zoom window. Explain that this item will come into play during the
exercise. This allows us to acknowledge the fact that we are all not together and in our own space, but we can use that
to our advantage to bring their own spaces into the classroom.
29) Test the sound scape music that you will be using before the activity starts to fix any technical problems before they are
in the middle of an activity.
30) Ask the students to sit in their space and close their eyes as you lead them through the exploration. This will be the
summative assessment for the lesson
31) Use this script more as a point by point of what to hit, but add things along the way as you see relevant. This is just to
ensure you hit all the points that you need to.:
Close your eyes and we are transported
You wake up - what is your process of waking up and preparing your body for the day

You make your way outside to take in energy of the world, how does this hit you? Are you happy? Sad? Angry with the world?

Feel the sun as it touches your skin, maybe a breeze blows in your face

You see your neighbor as you are taking in the day, how do you react, do you smile, wave, ignore them, have that moment with
your neighbor

You day has begun and you are now entering the field behind your living quarters for your morning walk

As you enter you stub your arm/tentacle/wing on an object that is laying at the entrance, and you yell out a noise of your species,
what is that noise, let’s hear the noise.

Find object

Interact with object

 Do you take it or leave it?

Sit down in your space

Close your eyes

Slowly bring back to own bodies

Transported back to earth

Open your eyes

32) Have students just sit in the moment and feel what they just experienced and layout the questions you will be asking in
a moment to allow them to sit on the question to formulate an answer

Closure - “After”: Restate teaching point, clarify key points, extend ideas, check for understanding

33) After sitting in the moment begin asking some of the questions that you posed before. These will be an informal,
formative assessment. Take what the students are responding to and discussing and build on what they are giving you
by asking questions that promote deeper thinking and understanding of their own experience.
34) Reinstate the key elements of class for the day having students summarize their understanding of the concepts, terms,
and explorations.
35) Explain that they have no homework but they need to submit their journal entry of the day that includes the bell ringer
and their reactions to what class did for them that day.
36) Close out class with our class mantra:
“May we wrap ourselves in the awareness that we are more than enough. Powerful beyond measure. Worthy of love
and belonging, and perfectly capable of holding, honoring, and sharing our stories” This helps end class ona positive
note and build that community of a safe space, and let the students know that I see them, and their peers see them as
enough, and they should see it within themselves too.
Extension: How could you extend this lesson if time permits?

If there is any time remining, have students journal their thoughts about today, and if there is an excessive amount of time
still available bring out the Contentless Scenes they have worked with before and begin to have them gnereate characters
 and perform a scene that has characters built around the movement terms we used to get a head start for tomorrows
lesson.

NOTE: Attach any Relevant handouts, activities, templates, PPT slides, etc. that are referenced and utilized in this lesson.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XrMsb_j8J-DD3eQNZ210t7wRLQYWLkQjwo1QgUuorgs/edit#slide=id.g35ed75ccf_015

Lesson Plan Appendix and Commentary Section

Evidence and Formative Assessment of Student Learning: How will you know whether students are making progress toward
your learning goal(s) and/or how will you assess the extent to which they have met your goal(s)? Use the chart below to describe
and justify at least 2 formal or informal assessment strategies that occur in your detailed plan above.
Assessment Strategy #1: Pre-assessment Alignment with Objectives:
This allowed me to assess what the students already know
The pre-assessment was the bell ringer activity at the about how movement can tell a story and understand what
beginning of class called “Working Wednesday”. This is a they already knew about translating movement exercises to
routine bell ringer we do weekly to expose the students to character work. It specifically targeted the objective:
different jobs within the theatre world, but for class today I Students will be able to discuss how movement influenced
wanted it to be used as a pre-assessment that allowed me to their characters and personal journey through the alien
gauge the students understanding of the core concepts we exploration
would be learning about without them knowing that that is Evidence of Student Understanding:
what I was doing. This pre-assessment provides understanding because it has
the students respond to essentially they activity they will be
doing today before they have done it, which tells me if they
have a grasp on what it means to use movement exercises to
form a character.
Student Feedback:
I will provide feedback by probing questions about their
answers to have them think deeper and align with the
concepts they should be looking at, as well as adjusting my
instruction for the day based off the evidence I gathered
from this assessment.
 Assessment Strategy #2: Informal Summative
Students will be taken through an alien exploration where
they will be applying the terms of movement to create their
own characters and live as those characters through the
exercise.
Note: Add more assessment strategy boxes here if needed.
Alignment with Objectives:
Objectives this assesses:
Students will be able to create creatures centered around
movement vocabulary (Gurning, Plating, and Plastiques).
Students will be able to apply movement terms in an alien
exploration. Students will be able to explain the processes
they used to create their creatures in a talk back.
Students will be able to discuss how movement influenced
their characters and personal journey through the alien
exploration.
This allows me to fully see the students incorporate the
movement terms by overlaying them on one another and
how they react to the call-and-response method of the
dramatic exploration
Evidence of Student Understanding:
This provides evidence because it is a real time application
practice that allows the students to experience as well as for
me to witness their transformation into their characters
using the techniques we learned in the activities prior to the
exploration
Student Feedback:
Describe how you will provide feedback to students on this
assessment.
I will first affirm all the choices they made in the exploration
and ask the students probing questions to answer in a talk
back style that deal with the students explaining their
thought processes and how they feel the movement terms as
well as how they were moving influenced their experience, as
there is no right way to do this activity.