Live Theatre: The Bone Sparrow SOW

This resource is helpful for Drama teachers wishing to explore Live Theatre with their students. This explores Pilot Theatre’s production of The Bone Sparrow.E This SOW is tailored to the AQA exam board for GCSE Drama and explores their mark schemes/structuring. Every moment explored has a YouTube link of the performance attached so students can rewatch moments.

Every lesson has a PPT and resources included and follows the following structure:

Lesson 1: Introduction to Live Theatre. Additional resources include the extracts to be explored in the lesson. Students recap what they know of the production including it’s key characters, themes and story. Then they work together to embody their interpretations of the characters throughout the extracts and develop their understanding of their relationships.

Lesson 2: Exploring Moment 1 - Jimmie’s Second Visit. Students recap key performance terminology then make detailed notes on the performance as they rewatch the moment within the play. Key quotes have been chosen for students to explore if they wish. An exemplar paragraph is provided for students to see how their notes can be applied in an exam format.

Lesson 3: Exploring Moment 2 - Eli in Alpha. Similar to lesson 2, students explore key quotes within the moment and incorporate their notes into an exam response.

Lesson 4: Exploring Moment 3: The Riot. Students begin the lesson by analysing a full response to identify the description, analysis and evaluation. Students explore the third and final moment within the play and focus specifically on analysing the skills they have identified within the moment.

Lesson 5: Essay Race. To develop their understanding of the structure of an exam response, students work in teams to complete an essay race so they understand how to answer the full 32 mark question.

Lesson 6: Essay Race DIRT. Students reflect on their feedback from the essays they completed in their previous lesson and apply some DIRT to develop their understanding.

Lesson 7: Structure and Planning. Students use this lesson to begin planning to answer a full 32 mark question. For this, they are provided with a planning sheet to support them structuring their responses.

Hope you find this helpful. Feedback is appreciated so I can develop this resource!