Something I found very useful today when teaching my Drama students to stage a duologue scene from War Horse was a whole class performance of the duologue in snapshot form.

It was scene 18 at the trenches between Albert and David. I got students to use stage blocks and chairs to create their own trenches in partners and stage the scene.

We paused halfway through and I asked questions aimed at stimulating improvements to their scene. These included:

What can Albert and David hear at this moment?

How would this make them feel?

What do they need to achieve in this moment?

After this, students continued to rehearse whilst I walked around the space giving feedback.

For the class performance, we set up a lighting state to create the atmosphere of the trenches and I informed students that they should all be following the script even when another pair is performing as I will pause at any moment and “hand” the scene over to another pair to continue.

I found this a great way to see as many students perform the text as possible for formative assessment purposes as well as keeping them focussed on the task by following along.

It’s a great way to keep as many students on task and active as possible.

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