Learning activities
On this page: Specific learning outcomes | Activity 1: Listening in | Activity 2: Time and place | Activity 3: Exploring issues through drama
Specific learning outcomes
The following learning outcomes relate to the four drama strands 'developing practical knowledge in drama' (PK), 'developing ideas in drama' (DI), communicating and interpreting in drama' (CI), and 'understanding drama in context' (UC) from The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum.
Students will:
- understand key features of radio drama
- identify how the elements of drama are conveyed in a scene from Bow Down Shadrach
- consider how they would change a scene into a radio drama from another form.
Activity 1: Listening in
To listen to scenes from Bow Down Shadrach, click on the links below.
Scene 10: School field, day, where Hannah and Mikey discuss rescuing Shadrach
Clip duration: 1min 17sec
Scene 13: Gravel driveway, day, beginning of the scene where the children go to Nelson
Clip duration: 1min 31sec
Scene 16: Dog food factory, day, beginning of the scene where they visit the factory
Clip duration: 2min 14sec
Work in groups to record details from the scene/s that convey particular elements of drama. Also record how you got the information – was it what a character said? Was it through music or sound effects? Collate your ideas as a class into a table, see below, or print How elements of drama are conveyed (Word 47KB).
| Element | Scene | How we know about the elements |
|---|
| Role | | |
| Situation | | |
| Time | | |
| Place | | |
| Action | | |
| Tension | | |
Activity 2: Time and place
Choose a scene from a drama that you have performed in class this year. It may have been scripted or devised.
Note in your journal the setting for the play, including location and time.
Write down how ideas of time and place were conveyed to the audience. How did they know when and where the play was set?
Now imagine that the class is going to perform the piece as a radio play. How would you convey the same ideas to the listeners? Give specific examples.
Activity 3: Exploring issues through drama
In the radio play, Bow Down Shadrach, the adults decide to keep the fact that they are sending a family pet to the slaughterhouse secret from the children to protect them.
Forum theatre
Click on this link to listen to Scene 16. Dog food factory, day
This is the beginning of the part where Hannah, Mikey, and Sky visit the dog food factory. Read more of this scene in Extracts from the radio play Bow Down Shadrach – scenes 16 and 16b (Word 70KB).
Allocate roles to students in the group. Play the scene and read the full extract through once. At any point a member of the audience may stop the action and suggest how the scene might be played differently. The actors then restart the scene and play it in the suggested manner. In this way alternate endings, or ways of behaving or reacting can be explored.
Other scenes to play with are:
- Scene 10 – Hannah and Mikey discuss rescuing Shadrach.
- Scene 13/13b 10 – The children go to Nelson.
Improvise some or all of the following:
- A scene when Hannah or Mikey confront their parents after learning the truth.
- A scene where Joe and Sophie discuss Shadrach's fate.
- A scene when Hannah or Mikey are confronted with a similar dilemma when they have children of their own.
Share a selection of scenes with others.
Discuss how your own parents might have protected you in the past and how you feel about this.
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