What Would You Do!?

: Health/Theatre for Grade 7/8

Session Design by Emily Esparza, Reanna Russell, and Kenya Thompson

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Content Standards
● Theatre Create Standard: 6
○ Create and sustain a believable character throughout a scripted or improvised scene.
● Health Education: Standard 4 Objective A
○ Recognize unhealthy or potentially dangerous situations and their consequences.
● Health Education: Standard 4 Objective B
○ Identify ways to avoid dangerous situations.

Essential Questions
● How can role playing be used as an effective tool in learning how to handle real life scenarios?
● How can we have more open dialogue about difficult topics?

Enduring Understandings
● Students will understand that communication can help avoid unhealthy or potentially dangerous
situations.

Skills
● Students will be able to identify consequences in potentially dangerous/unhealthy situations.
● Students will be able to work through potential real scenarios and identify an alternative
solutions.

ASSESSMENT
Performance Tasks
● Students participate in a role-playing activity based on potential real life scenarios in which they
create and sustain a believable character throughout a scripted or improvised scene.

Other Assessments
● Students write a reflection answering the following prompt: “How are you affected by the
consequences of dangerous or unhealthy situations that you might/do face in your life, and
what steps can you take to avoid them?”, in order to demonstrate students ability to identify
consequences of potentially dangerous situations.

MATERIALS NEEDED
Student Materials
● Paper
● Pen/Pencil

LEARNING PLAN
Framing / Hook
1. Pass around the marker
1. Have each student write a unhealthy or potentially dangerous situation they face in
their everyday life by passing white board marker around the classroom until each
student has used the marker to write their answer on the board.
2. Discuss the following questions?
i. Which situations seems to be the most reoccurring on the board?
1. Why does (said situation) occur occur so often?
ii. What are the consequences of some of the situations that are written on the
board? and/or What makes the situations on the board dangerous?

Process
1. Break students into two equal group.
2. Safety Speed Dating
a. Arrange chairs in two rows of equal length facing each other.
b. Assign one row of students “Person A” roles, and the other “Person B” roles in the
situations provided below.
c. Each situation will be allotted three minutes to role-play within the partnerships. (Role
playing is defined as the acting out of the part of a particular person or character.)
d. Explain that while students are role playing they should be creating a realistic character
and sustaining this character throughout the role-play.
1. NOTE: In each scenario, students discuss in role why the situation is
dangerous/unhealthy, what the consequences could be and give
safe/healthy alternatives.
e. After the time is over, allow students two minutes to share aspects of their role play.
(e.g. what they recognized as dangerous/unhealthy, how they got out of the situation,
etc.)
f. Students seated in the B row move down one person to the right.
g. After each scenario, allow students to share what they determined to be the
dangerous/unhealthy aspects of the situation, potential consequences, and healthy/safe
alternatives. Each discussion should last for about two minutes.
i. Train Tracks: Your friend (person A) has an assignment in his photography class
and asks you (Person B) to be the subject of their photos. After a successful
evening of modeling, your friend (person A) wants to go to the train tracks to for
one last location. You (person B) don’t feel comfortable being on the train
tracks. Have this discussion.
ii. Drugs & Alcohol: You (Person A) are at a high school football game and your
significant other (person B) has been offered an alcoholic beverages from
upperclassmen. You are worried about your significant other drinking underage.
Have this discussion.
iii. Staying up too late: You (person B) and your cousin (person A) just bought a new
video game. The two of you have been waiting months to play it together. You
 have an earth science test that is half of your grade in the morning but your
cousin wants to play all night to finish the game. Have this discussion.
iv. Texting and Driving: You (person A) and your sibling (Person B) are driving to see
your grandmother. 10 minutes into the drive, your sibling receives a text from
his/her crush. They reach to answer the text. Have this discussion.
v. Walking Alone: The drama club president (person A) asks you (person B) to stay
late after school and help build sets for the upcoming school musical. You are in
a technical theatre class and need to help out for 5 hours after school as part of
your grade. However, if you stay, you will miss your carpool and will need to
walk home in the dark. Have this discussion.

Reflection
1. Wall of China
a. Have students gather in a circle facing in explain to students that they will be forming a
wall of “protection” and “defense” around the idea of avoiding unhealthy or potentially
dangerous situations.
b. Students will each go around the circle and either chose to face in towards the center of
the circle or face outwards.
c. If they choose to face in they will name a way they can protect the themselves by
avoiding potentially unhealthy/ dangerous situations.
d. If they choose to face out they will name a way they can protect their community/those
around them by avoiding potentially unhealthy/dangerous situations.
2. Reflection prompt
a. Have students return to their seats and pull out a piece of paper and a writing utensil
and answer the following prompt:
i. “How are you affected by the consequences of dangerous or unhealthy
situations that you might/do face in your life, and what steps can you take to
avoid them?”
 Reflection Prompt Rubric

Excellent Satisfactory Unsatisfactory

Content: Possible Includes effective Attempts to lists Does not include

Solutions steps/solutions to steps/solutions to effective
avoiding a possible avoiding a possible steps/solutions to
dangerous/unhealthy dangerous/unhealthy avoiding a possible
situation. situation. However, dangerous or
solutions are not very unhealthy situation.
effective.

Content: Relates to Content is realistic Attempts to make Content is not

their own life and relates to the content realistic and realistic and does not
students life. relatable to the relate to student’s
student’s life. life.

Mechanics No misspellings or Between three or less Four or more spelling

grammatical errors. misspellings and/or and/or grammar
mechanical errors. errors.

(The other rubric on the performance task is in an excel document attached separately.)