Act One

Margaret Watson

This four week 60 minute daily curriculum unit focuses on using inclusive instructional strategies to simulate and foster self-expression and retention, comprehension, and reading/speaking/listening skills. Students will learn the elements of Dramatic Structure within fairytales. Theatrical strategies will be used that encourage comprehension, retention, expression and understanding of story literary elements such as tone and mood, author’s purpose and reasoning, and inference. Students will use sensory learning to portray and act out scenes from fairy tales, and students will improve and learn in ways that are identifiably distinctive. Drama is being used to give my students an opportunity to engage in a dramatic enactment of a story which research as shown to improve their overall understanding of the story. Dramatic arts activities promote growth in positive social skills, including self-confidence, self-control, conflict resolution, collaboration, empathy and social tolerance. Research evidence demonstrates these benefits apply to all students, not just the gifted and talented Strategies used in the classroom to teach this unit include Reciprocal Teaching, acting games like Forum Theatre, and Flash Forward/Flashback, and many others. By the end of the unit, students will have an understanding of the Dramatic Structure within fairytales.