Monday 30 September 2013

Creating Speeches through the Medium of Mime


I love it when pupils collaborate on a piece of work. I love it even more when they are given the opportunity to showcase their efforts. So, with this in mind, I created a lesson that would (hopefully) culminate in a paired one minute speech (partly) through the medium of mime. 

Objectives:

As part of the History GCSE pupils learn how medicine has changed through various periods of time. The focal point of this year 10 lesson was to introduce pupils to the Renaissance, not just medical advances, but also an overall sense of the main features of this extraordinary period of history. By the end of the lessons (two in total) I wanted the pupils to:

  1. Investigate the main features of the Renaissance.
  2. Collaboratively create a one minute speech.
  3. Communicate their work both orally and through the medium of mime. 

Starter:

To get them started I played this brilliant Horrible Histories clip and told them they needed to remember (not write anything down) two facts about the Renaissance: 


The Investigation:

To enable pupils to carry out their investigation I placed information about the Renaissance around the room and projected these instructions on the whiteboard:


Once pupils had collated their information they were given time to write up their speeches and additional time to 'rehearse' their pieces. 

Presenting:

Some pupils were initially reluctant to share their work, however, after the first pair delivered their self proclaimed 'sick speech' the rest of the class seemed eager to follow suit. I think it helped that the person delivering the speech got to use the inflatable microphone! I made sure that after each speech pupils were give some FeedBack (what was good about their work) and some FeedForward (how they could improve) about their work. 

Reflection:

Overall this activity worked really well. Admittedly, the quality of the speeches varied and there was some questionable miming (Renaissance Man?!). However, the pupils did manage to to meet all of the learning intentions and, more importantly, seemed to have some fun in the process. As for me, I loved watching the pupils collaborate, create and perform their work and effectively educate each other. 


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