A View from the Bridge: The Lifting of the Chair Scene! (Exploring Miller's dramatic devices)

This interesting and highly-stimulating lesson enables students to demonstrate a developed, sustained understanding of the dramatic devices utilised in the ‘lifting of the chair’ scene in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge. In particular, students engage analytically with Miller’s use of atmosphere, dramatic tension, dramatic irony, and stage directions throughout the scene.

The lesson follows a clear, logical, bite-size learning journey, which guides students towards differentiated learning objectives. Over the course of this journey, they become able to:
- Understand the key term ‘masculinity’ and how it affects the behaviour of different characters;
- Read and understand the chair-lifting scene at the end of Act One, making key interpretations and inferences;
- Define and understand the dramatic devices: dramatic devices, dramatic irony, atmosphere, and stage directions.
- Critically engage with Miller’s use of dramatic devices at the end of the Act One, including the events leading up to the chair lifting section.
-Peer assess each other’s learning attempts.

This resource pack includes:
- A visually engaging whole-lesson PowerPoint presentation;;
- Paper copies and online links to the extract needed for the lesson (end section of Act One);
- Dramatic Devices Cards;
- Dramatic Devices worksheet (including answer sheet for teachers);
- A logically scaffolded essay template;
- A detailed lesson plan, complete with what the teacher and students should aim to achieve at each stage of the lesson.

All images are licensed for commercial use, and are cited on the final slide of the PowerPoint.