English Language Arts 9Unit 9: Drama

Gertz-Ressler High SchoolAlliance for College-Ready Public Schools

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1. What are our unit focus standards?2. Which learning tasks can we choose?3. When are our deadlines?4. What is the art of drama?5. How does drama differ from narrative?6. What dramatic terms must we know?

Learning Questions

Drama Unit:Lesson 1: Focus Standards

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High Priority Focus Standards

Categories

Reading – Vocabulary, Word Analysis

Reading - Literary Response and Analysis

Writing – Research & Technology

Other Standards – See Self-Assessment

Rubric before beginning the Unit Project.

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High Priority Focus Standards

Reading - Word Analysis

R1.1 Literal and figurative meanings and word derivations.

R1.2 Denotative and connotative meanings.

R1.3 Greek, Roman, and Norse myths, word origins and meanings

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High Priority Focus Standards

Reading - Literary Analysis

3.2 Structural: Compare/contrast how themes or topics are expressed through different genres.

3.3 Narrative: Compare/contrast interactions of main and subordinate characters (internal and external conflicts, motivations, relationships, influences) and how they affect the dramatic plot.

3.4 Narrative: Determine characters’ traits expressed in dialogue, monologue, and soliloquy.

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High Priority Focus Standards

Reading - Literary Criticism

3.11 Aesthetic approach: Evaluate the artistry of style, especially how diction and figurative language (imagery and ambiguity) create tone, mood, and theme.

3.12 Historical approach: Analyze how the play expresses or responds to themes and issues of its historical period.

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High Priority Focus Standards

Writing Strategies–Research & Technology

1.5 Synthesize multiple sources, noting complexities and discrepancies.

1.13 Analyze emotional appeals and logical arguments (authority definition, analogy, circumstance, evidence, causality).

1.14 Identify the aesthetic effects (style) of media presentations, and evaluate the techniques used to create them (e.g., compare text with film)

Drama Unit:Lesson 2: Learning Tasks

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Lesson 2: Which learning tasks can we choose?

Drama Unit Project - Requirements

Team-read A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Keep an individual Reading Journal.

Produce a one-act play based on Greek, Roman, or Norse myth: each student must complete two of six tasks (next page).

Write an individual reflection.

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Lesson 2: Which learning tasks can we choose?How to create Drama Reading Journal

Fold your paper vertically into three columns.

The left section is for the 5-8 line reading passage you select.

The middle column is for your paraphrase or summary interpretation of the passage.

The right column is for your personal comments and observations on underlying meanings (symbolic) or connections with life today.

Passage

Para-phrase

Comments

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Citing your sources

How to cite where you find your passage:

I, i, 200-201

…means Act 1, scene I, lines

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Lesson 2: Which learning tasks can we choose? Select two or more tasks and collaborate!

1) Write a “treatment” summarizing the setting, characters, situation, and plot.

2) Design stage set, properties, or costumes.

3) Write the play (action, dialogue, mono-logue, soliloquy, aside, and directions).

4) Write a musical theme with three verses and refrain.

5) Direct or act in the play on video tape.6) Write a circular letter promoting your

play to the class.

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Lesson 2: Which learning tasks can we choose?

How to write your reflection

After your production, write an individual reflection: 1) Describe how well you worked and the

team worked together, 2) Evaluate the team project, and 3) Explain what you can do to improve

your work.

Drama Unit:Lesson 3: Deadlines

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Lesson 3: What are our deadlines?

Plan your production schedule

4/13-14 Act I-II 4/16-17 Act III4/20-21 Act IV 4/23-24 Act V4/27-28 Film & Comparative Chart4/30-5/1 Comparative Essay (Assess)5/05-06 Written Project Due5/11-18 Project Performances,

Reflections, and Unit 9 Self-Assessments due.

Drama Unit:Lesson 4: What is “drama” and dramatic art?

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Lesson 4: What is “drama”?

Word origins and meanings

The words theater and drama come from Greek words that were pronounced nearly the same.

A theater (noun) usually refers to a space or to the abstract idea of plays performed in that place.

Drama (noun) usually means the play itself or its intense emotional activity.

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Know and understand that dramatic moments in our lives and on the stage result from

human choices and decisions, and

the intensity of human emotions.

Lesson 4: What is “drama”?

To appreciate dramatic art…

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Lesson 4: What is “drama”?

Choices and decisions

o Aristotle believed that action is the core of drama, because o our actions make us happy or

unhappy and o our characters cause our actions.

(The Poetics)

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Lesson 4: What is “drama”?

Intense feelings

Playwright and screenwriter DavidMamet believes we create drama byexaggerating our emotions

(Four Uses of the Knife).

Drama Unit: Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

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Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

Real -Time Performance

Real time dialogue and action.

Action stays close to dramatic plot.

Unity of Time, Place, and Action.

Unity of Character creates credibility and meaning.

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Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

Dramatic Plot

Unlike narrative, drama presents action for the characters and audience simultaneously (at the same time).

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Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

Dramatic Plot

Dramatic action can occur in real time and real space, simulating real cause-and-effect events.

“The Three Unities”: one Place, continuous Time, and sequential Action. (Aristotle, The Poetics)

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Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

Dramatic Plot

And the viewer, like a child looking through a window, sees all that occurs “in the now”.

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Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

Dramatic Plot Map

EXPOSITION

RISING ACTION (Complications)

CRISIS

CLIMAX (Point of highest emotion or action)

FALLING ACTION(“Untying” the complications)

RESOLUTION

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Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

Dramatic art also employs…

Unity of Character (ethos): To be meaningful and credible

to the audience, a character’s motivations (goals, desires, obstacles, and fears) must be closely connected to his or her beliefs and values.

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Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

Compare Types of Drama & Narrative

Comedy Ends happily, often with a wedding; virtue is rewarded; evil, justly punished.

Tragedy Ends sadly for a noble protagonist who tries but fails due to his or her own tragic “flaw” or error.

Romance A heroic protagonist overcomes temptation to find his “better half.”

Melo-drama

A domestic drama with character stereotypes and exaggerated emotions.

Tragi-comedy

Begins with a tragic or potentially circumstance but ends with a degree of justice or realism.

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Lesson 5: How does drama differ from narrative?

Contrast Drama & Narrative

Drama Narrative

Real-time dramatic plot (dialogue and action.)

Narrative often reorders or interprets action.

Action stays close to dramatic plot.

Narrative elaborations postpone action.

Unity of Time, Place, and Action

Exposition juxtaposes settings and characters.

Characters’ values create credibility/theme.

Narrative interprets character motivation.

Drama Unit: Lesson 6: What literary terms must we know?

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Lesson 6: What terms must we know?

Review poetic figures of thought

Pun – a play on words that carries two meaning

Double-entendre – a pun with one meaning that is a bit scandalous or critical

Allusion – indirect reference referring to another text / event in literature, history, person, place, etc.

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Lesson 6: What terms must we know?

Parts of the play

Act, scene, five-act, four-act, one-act, interlude, masque.

Dialogue, monologue, soliloquy, aside.

Setting, situation, characters, properties, costumes, lighting

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Lesson 6: What terms must we know?

Parts of the Play Act main division of a play

Scene subdivision of an act

Five Act a full-length play following the dramatic plot

Three or Four Act

a full-length play compressing the dramatic plot and splitting the climax between acts

One Act a short play about a single event.

Interlude a one-act usually performed in the middle of another play, often to music or song.

Masque: a dance-play performed in silence, to song, or with limited dialogue.

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Lesson 6: What terms must we know?

Parts of the Play

Dialogue conversation between two characters

Monologue direct, uninterrupted speech by one character to others.

Soliloquy speech by one character talking to him- or herself and not overheard by others even if they are also on stage.

Aside words spoken directly to the audience and not overheard by other characters.

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Lesson 6: What terms must we know?

Parts of the Play

Primary characters: protagonist/antagonist

Secondary characters: supporting role, dramatic foil, deus ex machina

Dynamic, static, flat, and round characters.

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Lesson 6: What terms must we know?

Kinds of Charactersprimary A main or central character.

protagonist “first actor;” central character attempting progress

antagonist “anti-actor;” opposes progress of the protagonist

secondary Supporting character or dramatic foil

dramatic foil

Provides contrast that helps define another, primary character.

deus ex machina

“god from the machinery;” a device used to artificially forward or resolve the plot.

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Lesson 6: What terms must we know?

Types of characters

Dynamic (changing or growing in action)

Static (unchanging through action)

Round (with multiple traits, virtues, vices)

Flat (with a single trait, virtue, vice)

DYNAMIC STATIC

ROUND

Bottom Oberon

F LAT

? Puck

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Lesson 6: What terms must we know?

Dramatic Outcomes / Resolutions

Tragic Inspiring pity (pathos) or grief.

Comedic Satisfying Inspiring pleasure, happiness, comfort

Surprising Inspiring fear or delight

Ironic (reverses the expected outcome)

Inspiring mixed emotions and thought

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Get started, and enjoy!

Remember,

“The play’s the thing!” -- William Shakespeare

“…The play's the thingWherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.” Hamlet II, 2, 603-605