Curriculum, Units, Lesson Plans

This is a curriculum map for an introductory, comprehensive high school theatre class. The purpose of the curriculum is to give students an overview of theatre in general. The super objective of this curriculum is to have students “bring it all together” at the end in a culminating project. The essential questions for the year: * What are the most important tools of the actor? * Who’s who in the theatre? The answer to the first question is mind, body, and voice. Each unit reflects one of those tools: pantomime—body, improvisation—mind, etc. The answer to the second is explored throughout the curriculum.

This is a curriculum for a scene study semester at the middle school level. The goal for each unit is to build off the knowledge and skills gained in the previous unit so students are gradually adding to their abilities as they progress through different types of scene performance assessments. Students begin with the acting basics they need to create a successful scene: ensemble skills, improvisation, projection, vocal clarity and expression, characterization, pantomime, objective and tactics. They will learn script structure, blocking, and stage directions and how to give, receive and apply feedback. They will explore aspects beyond acting such as directing and simple set design.

The Drama Two Curriculum is performance based and designed for a more advanced high school class. It has been developed to expand and deepen the students’ skills as artists. They will do so by building on material covered in the Drama One Curriculum, with units in: Character Analysis, Monologue Writing and Performance, Shakespeare Performance, and Design. The curriculum will culminate in a Devised Class Play.

This collection of technical theatre mini-units will give you the opportunity to introduce lighting, sound, costuming, staging, and makeup into your program. Each mini-unit can be used independently, or you can build one upon the other toward the culminating project. These units were developed with middle school students (grades 6 to 8), and can also suit an introductory level high school class in tech theatre.

Producing a show together as a class is the ultimate in both project-based learning and using higher-order thinking skills. Students will gain experience in working in a group, time management, conflict resolution, and other interpersonal skills necessary to working as part of a creative team. This curriculum is designed for an advanced high school theatre class. By breaking down the production process into specific sections, you can ensure that your students have the necessary skills to produce a successful show. In addition, whereas trying to take a show from audition to performance usually feels rushed, The Production Classroom allows you to really dive deep into the production process. These units could easily be spaced out over the course of a semester or over the course of an entire year.

Instructor Karen Loftus has an impressive stage management resume, but she has also taught Stagecraft in a portable classroom. There was no lighting grid, no sound equipment, no place to build sets, props or costumes. This experience led to this curriculum: Stagecraft without a Theatre. Through exposure, exploration, and project-based learning, students identify and understand the various areas of technical theatre including scenic design, lighting, sound, costumes, and makeup. The curriculum culminates with a project where students work in groups to design and plan technical elements as they would for a production, and then simplify those designs to work in a classroom setting: Stagecraft without a Theatre.

There are many ways to build a curriculum for the drama classroom. One of them is to base each unit in an era of theatre history and have students apply what they learn in a theatrical manner. This theatre history curriculum starts with Ancient Egypt, Sanskrit drama, and Indigenous storytelling, then moves on to Ancient Greek theatre, and ends with 19th century Romanticism. Feel free to adapt the units in this curriculum to fit your students and your situation. Or pick and choose different units to supplement your program. The goal of this curriculum is to focus on how students learn, how they plan, and strategies for their learning, and what social and emotional skills can be applied through discussion and effective and efficient group work. Refer to the Distance Learning guide for ideas on how to adapt this curriculum to a remote teaching or hybrid environment.

Distance Learning is defined as synchronous activities in an online class session, with some asynchronous assignments to be completed and submitted. The curriculum offers the following units in a distance learning format. All of these units exist in a traditional drama classroom form on the Drama Teacher Academy site.

To perform musical theatre takes risk, confidence, and commitment. These are the focal points of this curriculum: process and discovery over product and execution. Students will be expected to participate in all of the fundamentals of musical theatre (singing, dance, character development), but it assumes that the majority of your students will not have an extensive background in musical theatre and will face some insecurities in one or more of its elements. You certainly may have students who can sing or dance, but the instruction will be directed toward students exploring new skills and taking risks with confidence and commitment. Feel free to substitute your own knowledge and personal experience into these units. You know your students and your situation best.