Drama Improvisation Cards for S. E. Hinton's 'The Outsiders'

Just like so many teachers, I have used S. E. Hinton’s ‘The Outsiders’ in English and Drama contexts over my teaching years. I created this set of improvisation cards to assist my students

1. to use a drama activity in the understanding of plot, character and setting during a novel study of the book in English lessons and

2. as a starter for improvisation work in Drama lessons. Regarding the use of the cards in Drama, I have often used them to create a unit for the Improvisation section of the GCSE Drama course assessment.

This resource consists of:

1. Teacher notes

2. A plot summary of ‘The Outsiders’ for reference, if the resource is not being used for novel study

3. A chart showing the link between the drama cards and the chapters of ‘The Outsiders’

4. Example questions for discussion/evaluation of the drama work

5. The 30 x A5 drama cards

The 30 drama cards are designed to stimulate collaborative drama improvisation work. They are all based on the story of ‘The Outsiders’, and the subject matter of their tasks progress in chronological order through the plot. Each card is a prompt to stimulate improvisational drama for either pair or group work, and looks at a perspective of what is happening in ‘The Outsiders’ at that moment.

The cards contain a) the characters required for the drama task, who may be real characters from the story or my own ‘add-on’ characters who are not; b) the setting and c) various questions and prompts to help the students into the task. They also have a space where students can make their own notes while they’re working. The cards can be printed and laminated for repeated use. They can also be added to a student work portfolio for evidence of work.

The resource works best with ages 14+ and examination groups.

In my product preview, I have included the drama cards 3, 7, 14 and 25, to give you a broad view of their appearance and the tasks they present to the students.

Thank you, Maggie