Strand: Drama to explore feelings, knowledge and ideas, leading to understanding
Strand Unit: Exploring and making drama
The child should be enabled to
- enter into the fictional dramatic context with the same spontaneity and freedom that he/she has earlier applied to make-believe play
in a drama about a family situation, experience the anger and frustration arising from a conflict over changing the television channel
while accepting a commitment to the fictional consequences, take on the task of creating a welcome for members of a rival tribe whose help is needed in building a dolmen
déan dráma ina dtarlaíonn easaontas i measc grúpa páistí ag imirt cluiche ‘hopscotch’
using the ‘mantle of the expert’, the teacher helps the children to enter into the fiction by reading a letter from Lord Caernarfon inviting them to Egypt on a dig for Tutankhamun’s tomb - understand the relationship between role and character and develop the ability to hold on to either role or character for as long as the dramatic activity requires
in role as members of a tribe, the children decide to build a dolmen, but as their characters develop through the drama they decide to abandon the project
a whale has landed on the shore: encourage the children to become certain people with attitudes to the whale (other than the children’s own)
the Children of Lir meet a group of people who have diverse attitudes to swans
in a boat scene a group member is briefed to show, in role, how reflective (St.) Patrick is, compared with the other hostages - discover how the use of space and objects can help in building the context and in signifying dramatic themes
imagine PE mats as magic carpets that fly to different places
imagine any object as a machine that he/she is trying to sell at the market
become aware of how the protagonists in an argument, gradually moving closer to each other, can increase the expectation that they may soon come to blows
become aware of how the need to move away increases as soon as the decision to betray a friend is made - explore how the fictional past and the desired fictional future influence the present dramatic action
the members of the tribe, having had the experience of trying to move the stone and desiring to go home to help their starving kinsmen, decide whether to bring the stone home or let it sink into the bog
knowing that the tide is coming in fast and that some of the children can’t swim, decide whether to try and wade to safety or spend the night on the island
the parents, knowing that a child has fallen into the lake, decide to find out how it happened
Aengus knows that Patrick is holy and doesn’t want to disturb his prayers, but when Patrick stakes Aengus’ foot by mistake enact what happens next - become aware of the rules that help maintain focus in the dramatic action
learn and apply simple rules that give focus and meaning to dramatic activity, for example ‘do your bit,’ ‘believe it is happening to you,’ ‘listen to and accept the contributions of others’
work out from the map the meaning of the riddle that will lead him/her to where the UFO has landed
follow the leader in hauling weapons along a narrow mountain pass
help the other children to teach the spacewoman how to treat the flowers - begin, as a member of a group, to include in drama activity the elements of tension and suspense
brief a third character, who is joining the drama, with an agenda that is not known to the two who are already involved
a greedy worker at the tomb of Tutankhamun tempts others who are busy making copies of hieroglyphics to steal what they can
in a drama about differences between two groups of children, increase the tension by implanting the knowledge that any person in a particular group could be a spy for the other group
enact the scene when, in the market-place where Miolchu is buying Patrick, one of the hostages tries to escape - begin the process of using script as a pre-text
learn to look on a piece of script as an invitation to create dramatic action, discovering that interpreting six lines of script, for example, can lead intomany different situations
learn to transform script into one’s own thought processes
bí in ann script ghearr Ghaeilge a láimhseáil agus dráma a dhéanamh di
it is the turn of the hieroglyphics expert to entertain campsite colleagues by enacting the story of hieroglyphics he/she has copied.
Strand Unit: Reflecting on drama
The child should be enabled to
- use reflection on and evaluation of a particular dramatic action to create possible alternative courses for the action
he/she wonders if a parent would treat his/her child in this way and what direction the drama could take if he/she were kinder
in a drama about friendship, the cowboy wonders if he should have told the sheriff what he had seen his friend do
decide whether the drama is exciting enough and what could be done to make it more exciting - learn, through drama, the relationship between story, theme and life experience
through a drama about a child whose parents never let him/her do what he/she wants to do, explore and ask questions about freedom and responsibility
if one were to make a soap-opera about the school, enact with others a small group scene that would best encapsulate the school
small groups depict people’s reactions at moments of great change in history - use the sharing of insights arising out of dramatic action to develop the ability to draw conclusions and to hypothesise about life and people
discuss one child’s opinion that the drama is silly, because if the gang had behaved like that they would have been arrested long ago
reflect on whether parents generally behave as the parents in the drama did
reflect, as a result of doing a drama on a dolmen, on the number of problems people in the past had to solve to get us to the world we have today
the archaeologists from Tutankhamun’s tomb are compiling a history of the dig, and each expert must profile himself/herself and explain his/her work.
Strand Unit: Co-operating and communicating in making drama
The child should be enabled to
- develop, out of role, the ability to co-operate and communicate with others in helping to shape the drama
in small-group work, exchange roles so that each member of the group has a chance to contribute in the making of each character
co-operate with other members of the group in making an art representation of the kind of world the crag-people live in
research the kinds of domestic and farming implements people used a thousand years ago in order to experience in drama the kind of work they might do - develop, in role, the ability to co-operate and to communicate with others in helping to shape the drama
in small-group work, keep the improvisation going without repetition in order to ensure invention and creativity
in an Irish-language play, decide what to do when a farmer has gone to the Gardaí after learning that he/she, as a member of the group, is trespassing on the farmer’s land, and abide by that decision and its consequences within the drama
from a map supplied by the teacher, decide how best to get to the house of the friendship-maker
when, on an upturned boat, food rations are running out, decide as a member of the group whether to eat now and hope the group is rescued or to ration the food to make it last longer - develop fictional relationships through interaction with the other characters in small-group or whole-class scenes as the drama text is being made
discover how tribal rivalries influence relationships when food is being distributed
discover what relationships develop between people when they are worried about whether their relatives will survive the storm at sea
discover how relationships develop in a scene in which the light has suddenly gone off in the haunted house - enact spontaneously for others in the group a scene from the drama, or share with the rest of the class a scene that has already been made in simultaneous small-group work
as part of a drama on the making of a dolmen, show half a minute of action in which the members of the tribe endure great hardship
show the scene at home when the teacher’s letter arrives to say that Jenny has been misbehaving
in a drama about a crime, show, as groups of detectives, an enactment of how each group thinks it happened
in a drama about life on a tropical island, show how the relationship between the girls develops when they go swimming in the sea.