Sample Planning Approach

The class with which I will use this Approach: Grade 9, period 2

My Assets

  • Health and Physical Education colleagues for content resources
  • Public health nurse for local statistics and information about community resources
  • Drama department head, agreed to collaborate and provide an in-school workshop for class
  • Senior drama students as potential mentors to each group outside of class time

My Needs

  • Support with using drama approaches with students
  • Information, depending on student choice of topic for their skit, dance, song spoken word poem, or other performance art form
  • Help from the school librarian with using the inquiry-based approach when students are gathering information about their topic
  • Additional space for students to rehearse
  • Help in creating assessment tools for student product

My Planning For Priority Health Topic

  • Review Grade 9 Healthy Living expectations to guide students in selecting topics.

My Plan

  • Provide students with an understanding of how drama will be used as a way for them to explore their chosen health topic and demonstrate their learning.
  • Create a timeline for students to select and explore their topic through inquiry and to then create and perform their skit, dance, song, spoken word poem, or other performance art form, in order to demonstrate their learning.
  • Make a list of topic choices with details about what must be learned about the topic.
  • Provide students with an understanding of how drama will be used as a way for them to explore their chosen health topic and demonstrate their learning.

My Actions and How I Will Monitor Student Learning

  • Share the learning goals for the unit and co-construct success criteria with my students
  • Recall the co-constructed success criteria for the living skills that will be a focus for learning and be practiced during this unit as students work in small groups, and post them where students can see them
  • Create an assessment checklist using the success criteria so students can check on the progress of their learning
  • Create a list of expected content for students to use to guide the creation of their product
  • Use the Words Worth Writing activity to introduce students to drama-based activities using the topics of consent and factors that influence substance use
  • Have students work in their small groups to learn about their topic and create their product to teach the class about the topic and share their learning
  • Build time into the learning for students to reflect on their learning and potentially provide additional learning to fill in any gaps in students’ understanding

Celebration and Sharing

  • Students will perform their skit, dance, song, spoken word poem, or other performance art piece for their classmates through their choice of a live or taped performance.
  • Groups may also choose to perform their skit outside their class, for example another class in their school, as part of an “Inviting the Community In” night, or possibly a Grade 8 class at a feeder school, depending on topic choice and content.