Subject: Drama Grade 7

Class/Date: November 29th /December 3rd, 2012

Unit: Mask
Topic: Character Mask Exploration
Lesson Objectives: Through the exploration of the character mask, students will be able to:
Movement
(Level 1)
The student will be able to:
2. Demonstrate awareness of personal and shared space.
3. Use physical relaxation techniques effectively.
7. Demonstrate awareness of his or her own body and its movement potential.
8. Display increased freedom of movement.
(Level 2)
The student will be able to:
21. Display clarity of movement and gesture.
25. Communicate environment, character, and situation non-verbally.
(Level 3)
The student will be able to:
27. Create and sustain mood through movement.
Improvisation/Acting
(Level 1)
The student will be able to:
2. Respond to directions without breaking concentration side coaching.
3. Demonstrate the ability to be still.
4. Create experiences through imaging, visualizing and fantasizing.
11. Create a dramatic situation in response to varied stimuli: objects, pictures, music.
(Level 2)
The student will be able to:
15. Use the body and body language to enhance characterization.
16. Demonstrate economy in movement and speech.
21. Sustain a character throughout an exercise or scene.
Materials:
Student masks, music, music player.
Introduction/Warm-ups: (In Circle Formation)
Time:
- General Warm-up
5 Mins.
Game
- The teacher will now explain the game Samurai
10 Mins.
- In this game, the students will need to get into a circle formation.
Activities:
Get into Character Mask:
- The teacher is going to explain the activity to the students. The teacher should let the students
now that he/she is going to get the students into Neutral (without a physical Neutral mask),
and then they are going to put on their mask and become their mask characters. They are
30 Mins.
going to explore these characters through audio stimulus and interactions with each other.
- The teacher will ask students to go grab their masks that they had made and sit down
somewhere in the room. The teacher is going to get the students to lie on their backs and clear
themselves out through breaths. Basically, the teacher is going to get the students into Neutral.
The teacher will use words such as blank slate, emptiness, openness, etc.
- When the students are cleared out, they are going to turn over on their side and sit up. While
they are sitting, they are going to grab their masks and look at all of the colours and shapes on
the masks that they had created.
- When they are ready, they are going to put the mask on their face. They should be encouraged
to stand up to see how their character would stand and walk around.
Character exploration 1 (This activity is done through auditory stimulus to music. The students will
7 Mins
listen to the music and react as their mask characters).
Dancing competition
- The students are going to walk around the room and eventually the students are going to find

their own space. You tell them thank you for coming to this dance audition! We are so
grateful to have you here!
- Encourage the mask characters to dance. Give them circumstances (Dance like theres no one
watching, dance for a loved one, dance as is its your last dance, etc.)
- Encourage students to show us how they move.
- Again, they are going to walk around the room. The students are leaving the audition. How do
they feel about this audition? How has it changed the way they walk? Eventually students are
going to find their own space on the floor.
Character exploration 2 (This activity concentrates mostly on the individual relationship in relation
to a group. Before this activity, the teacher is going to need to assign a guilty student).
Usual Suspect
- Before this activity begins, the teacher is going to ask all of the mask characters to close their
eyes. The teacher will explain that they are going to play a game with the characters. The
teacher will explain that all of the characters have been sent to be executed because someone
in the room committed a heinous crime. (Example: Mr. Taylor was meticulously counting all
of his pencils the night before, and noticed that one of his pencils had not been returned! So
Mr. Taylor has sentenced all of the mask characters to death.)
- While this activity is being explained, the teacher is going to secretly touch one of the students
and tell the class that the student that has been touched is the one who is guilty. The students
need to find out which one of their classmates stole Mr. Taylors pencil. Note: the teacher
should tell the students that they have to find out without using language.
- By the end of the activity, you will let the characters know that they have been poisoned
through the air in the room, and all of them are going to die a slow and painful death. The
teacher should encourage the students to have fun with their death scene and drag it out as
much as possible. As them to die in character.
Clearing out of Mask/journaling
- When all the characters have had their proper death scene, and all of them are lying on the
floor, then the teacher can start clearing the students out. The teacher will encourage students
to release their tension and to start breathing. The teacher will encourage students to sit up and
keep breather. When theyre ready to let go, tell them to remove their masks and hold them up.
- Again, they can offer it up and the teacher will collect the mask.
- After the students have given their masks, the teacher should encourage students to quietly sit
down into a circle.
Closure:
- When every student has gotten into a circle, the teacher is going to tell the students to lift both
of their hands and high five each other for all of their creative death scenes.
- If there is time, allow students the chance to talk about their experiences.
Student Evaluation:
Misc/Business:
For this lesson, the teacher will watch how the students Prior to the lesson, the teacher should have all of the
get into their character body. The teacher will watch to
masks laid out on a table ready to go.
see if the students become another person, and if they
The teacher also needs to have pre-set music ready to go
are able to become their character. The teacher should
for the lesson. There should be a variety offered for the
also watch to make sure the students arent using
music so that the students will have different things to
language.
react to.
Lesson Critique: