Teaching literacy in Drama: Stage 4

Unit: Ashley opposes Erica

Unit overview

Ashley opposes Erica is based on the story Hating Alison Ashley by Robyn Klein. Other Year 7 reading material with strong characterisation could be used as the basis for this unit, which focuses on the compositional process and making dance from a descriptive stimulus.

Students identify words that describe qualities of characters from the book and translate these words into movement shapes and qualities. Strategies are included within the teaching learning sequence to assist the development of literacy in dance, and the activities assist students to define, describe and evaluate elements of dance in their own work and the work of others.

As students translate descriptive words from a text into descriptive movements, they investigate ways to communicate meaning through dance. As students view dance performances they identify the meanings created by others in dance.

Background knowledge

It is expected that Year 7 students would have some previous experience in performing, composing and appreciation of dance including the dance terminology associated with their experiences.

This unit assumes students have a basic understanding of and ability to use dance terminology related to:

designing locomotor and non–locomotor movement for a purpose
using and defining level, direction and floor pattern as an individual or in a group
understanding simple tempo (fast, slow, speed up, slow down)
understanding basic movement dynamics (sustained, sharp, smooth percussive), to enhance movement quality.

Organisation

The unit includes outcomes addressed in the unit, a teaching learning sequence detailing activities and resources for teaching the unit and an index of online resources. Click on the links below to be taken to each section.

Part A: Syllabus links
Part B: Teaching learning sequence
Part C: Index of online resources

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