The aims are to:

• create a variety of different characters
• help students to understand more about a situation and how characters react to it
• help students to understand more about why people fight
• use a variety of techniques to create the drama
• help students to understand how light and sound can contribute to a piece of drama.

By the end of this project, students are expected to:

• role play a character who is different from themselves
• have gained more knowledge about the use of staging, light and sound in drama
• show that they can work in a variety of groupings
• have more understanding about how people can react to each other in different situations and do things they might not normally do.

The skills covered in this project include (but are not limited to) hot seating, prepared improvisation, role play, spontaneous improvisation, thought-tracking and thoughts aloud.

The techniques which are covered in lessons in this project include:

• freeze frames
• hot seating
• spontaneous improvisation
• role play
• spotlighting
• thought-tracking.

The key words which are used in this project include:

• assessment
• duologue
• hot seating
• performance
• rehearsal
• spontaneous improvisation
• spotlighting.

The text which students encounter during this project includes information about a soldier going to war, a conscription letter, sound effects of war and images of war (if available).

This series of lessons has cross-curricular links with Citizenship, English and History.

Students should be assessed in this project on the extent to which they:

• develop an understanding of the techniques
• participate in prepared and spontaneous improvisation
• portray a character and perform their role successfully
• evaluate their work and that of others
• contrast two scenes in their performance.

The following Web sites contain images of war which could be used during this project:

	Combat Photography, 1918–1971

	First World War Picture Gallery

	A-Bomb WWW Museum

This project meets the following recommendation from Drama in Schools (Second Edition) (Arts Council England, 2003). For a complete mapping, see Managing: Drama in Schools.

Level 5: Performing

• Use an increasing range of different drama techniques, effects and theatre conventions in the plays they present