Dramatic Mood Teacher Resources

“So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us.” Our Town is used as the text in a Common Core exemplar that examines the dramatic and...

As part of their study of set design, theater arts students put together what they have learned so far and create a thumbnail sketch of a set that they feel captures the style and mood they want to project. 

Groups create a set for a play or story they select, build a model, and share their stage with the class. The team explains the rationale for their choices and the mood they feel their staging creates.

Anger can creep inside and build up in all of us. Prepare your youngsters for this feeling by reading the story of Jace Kelly through this series of storytelling printables, and discover the strategies he would eventually learn to stay...

Where do directors and set designers get their ideas so that the set they build creates the mood and atmosphere the director wants for a production? From the script! Introduce theater high schoolers to the script analysis techniques used...

Putting together information gained from their script analysis, their readings, and their research, groups create a conceptual design statement for their assigned scene. The statement explains how their scenic design creates the mood and...

Massive storms, shipwrecks, survivors stranded on an island ruled by an aging magician, and strange creatures—Shakespeare's The Tempest appeals to today's middle schoolers. For this unit, seventh graders read selections from an adapted...

Pupils explore and evaluate poetry. In small groups, they read and summarize poems, complete a handout, create and perform a dramatization of a poem, and write a journal entry in response to their performance.

Students explore dramatization. In this literacy fluency and drama lesson, students listen to the story Mop Top by Don Freeman and add related sounds at the appropriate times. Students role play, pantomime, and add sounds to  create a...

Need to review literary terms/techniques with your class? The slides in this presentation define and give examples of 22 common literary terms. The PowerPoint could be used for AP test prep.

Students explore Hispanic countries.  In this Hispanic culture and language lesson plan, students choose an Hispanic country to research.  Students explore given websites and prepare a dramatization incorporating the facts they find....

The set for a play combines design elements (style, line, shape, mass, measure, position, color, and texture) and principles of composition (unity, harmony, contrast, variation, balance, proportion, and emphasis) to create a particular...

Designers communicate their vision for a set through a progression from thumbnail sketches, to drawings, to renderings. After examining a series of renderings, class members begin work on their own rendering paying particular attention...

What a fun idea! The class discusses, and then writes free-verse poems using sensory detail. They get into small collaborative writing teams to compose their poems. Next, they pantomime the actions from the poem while their teammates...

Students, utilizing video clips and Web sites, compare specific passages from original texts to moments in Broadway musicals on which they were based, analyzing similarities and differences between them. They adapt literature into a...

Support English language development with a family-themed unit consisting of a series of lessons designed to get your scholars moving, looking, speaking, writing, and listening. Conversation topics include birthdays, family...

The 2014 film Selma is the focus of a film criticism video.  The narrator examines how director Ava DuVernay brought to the screen the story of the voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and how she uses the tools of...

Ninth graders watch soap operas online.  In this English instructional activity, 9th graders explore the story elements of the soap opera.  Students write a journal on their own interpretations of characters. 

The second instructional activity in a unit on set design focuses on the importance of historical and stylistic research. Working in teams created in the previous session, groups consider what resources they will use as they consider...

Students explore historical importance of fish as food source, examine works of Robert Harris, create their own fish, and compose accompanying poetry. Students then explore dramatic tradition of Chorus inspired by Greek theatre,...

Fourth graders role-play a space exploration. They read scripts detailing an astronaut's journey on a space exploration. They discuss how it felt to be an astronaut, the emotions, moods and feelings of going on a space exploration.

Introduce young thespians to all aspects of the theater. A syllabus for a one-semester drama course provides lessons that take learners from the history of drama to the many facets of play production.

Scholars listen to several pieces of music in preparation for a discussion about how instruments and lyrics convey emotions. With Harriet Tubman as the focus, small groups create an original song or dance. A reflection piece concludes...

A set of 14 primary sources provides background for a study of Lorraine Hansberry's drama, A Raisin in the Sun. Featured are images from stage productions of the play, white supremacy protests, a clip from a television interview, and...