Of Mice and Men KS3 Drama

This sequence of lessons spanned about 10 weeks but these were the powerpoints I used to structure the first 6 lessons. After this, rehearsal took on a larger role. These 6 PowerPoints include starters relevant to the dramatic skills the students should practice, introductions and with clear objectives and activities to develop students’ abilities and play with the text. There are also plenaries beyond just comparing themselves to the objectives.

I performed this version of the script (the pdf is included for your ease here. It is not my work but is freely available) with year 7 and it has more than enough drama with none of the swearing or racism. The lessons themselves have activities for a range of abilities and ages and would be easily adapted to any other text. They work on voice, showing status through body language, symbolism, memorizing lines, teamwork and characterization, among other topics.

This play is for 14 students, so we had understudies for each part and they teamed up to work on characterisation (though some decided to perform in contrasting ways) . The narrators took on a character each, other itinerant travelers in our case, but we discussed making them cats or dogs, birds or even angels.

Break a leg!!