Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to drama.

This is exploring narrative poetry through drama.

The lesson title is The Pied Piper of Hamelin, part two.

This lesson contains some sensitive material so you may choose to have a parent or carer nearby for this lesson.

My name's Mr. Wood, and I'm your teacher for this lesson.

For this lesson, you're going to need plenty of space.

Can you make sure that it happens indoors, that you've got your shoes and socks off, the floor you're using is not slippery, and you're wearing comfy clothing ready to move.

We'll start today's lesson with a recap of the last and we'll have our warmup.

We'll look at the child who couldn't keep up as the focus for our lesson, before we look at disabilities in the 1300s and then we will finish our lesson with some more role-play.

Your first key word for today is narrative.

And that is a story.

Disability is a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or actions.

Tension is a mental or emotional strain, or a strained relationship.

And an internal monologue is talking your thoughts out loud as if nobody else can hear them.

Let's recap last lesson and then we'll move into our warmup.

What did we learn? Well, we looked at the story of "The Pied Piper." We looked at the choices made by the mayor and then the choices made by the Pied Piper himself.

We role played both of those characters in their decision-making process.

And we looked at some of the main characteristics of who they are.

Now, let's get ready with the warmup, clear the space that I asked for earlier and let's get going.

For this warm up, we're going to start with a little bit of jogging on the spot.

So if you've cleared the space and you're ready to move, let's get going.

Just from side to side, you can bring your hands up to the side like that.

If you're in a wheelchair, you can modify this by simply bringing your arms up, you can add a slight bounce in your shoulders as well, okay? Let's see if we can change this up with our hands now, our hands are going to come up to the side as we're still jogging, and let's see if we can bring them up, down up, down, up, down, up, down.

This time, we're going to make muscle gestures and we're going to go up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.

Lovely, okay.

Okay, what we're going to do now is our hands are going to come up to our sides like this and we're going to twist our torso to face the opposite side.

We'll do four on each side, are you ready? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and eight.

Okay, hands by your side, we're going to roll our shoulders.

So we're going to take them back in small circles like that.

Okay, are we ready? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Now we're going to go in reverse, going forward.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Okay, I'd like you to take your knee and bring it up if you can.

Ooh, watch your balance.

The whole point of this is to get our hips moving as well.

There we go.

So once you've swapped it to the other side, then your feet can go down.

Okay, let's put our hands out to the side.

What I would like you to do is just very simply bob your arms up and down.

It's not going all the way up like a star jump, it's just going a little bit and it's bouncing.

Okay.

Now what I'd like you to do is make that a little bit wider.

Starting to look like a baby bird trying to fly.

And now a bit wider again, a teenage bird ready to fly.

And now, can you guess? We're going to be like an Eagle, top to bottom, top to bottom, top to bottom, top to bottom.

Okay, shake your hands out and repeat after me.

Ss, ss, ss, ss.

You're turn.

Ss, ss, ss, ss.

Sh, sh, sh, sh.

Sh, sh, sh, sh.

Hm, hm, hm, hm.

Vr, vr, vr, vr.

Vr, vr, vr, vr.

K, k, k, k.

K, k, k, k.

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

Ah, ah, ah, ah.

Eeh.

And altogether.

Ooh, ah, eeh.

Ooh, ah, eeh.

Really stretched your face.

Your turn.

We'll go again.

Ooh, ah, eeh.

Ooh, ah, eeh.

Okay, now this is a fun tongue twister.

Are you ready? Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Say that for me.

Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Now I'd like you to repeat that alongside me at the same time.

And we're going to try and get quicker as we get on.

Okay, so three, two, one.

Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Red, yellow, ah! I'm out a bit there.

Hopefully, you can get even quicker than I can there.

If you feel like your body is warm enough to move, if you feel like your voice is safe and ready to speak then we can continue with the lesson.

But if you feel like it needs a little bit more, you can pause the video and rewind to do any of those activities again.

The child who couldn't keep up, this is going to be the focus for today's lesson.

So the situation is that the Pied Piper had been told he was not going to get paid for his service of completely eradicating every single rat.

He had been tricked.

How would you react if you were in that scenario? Think back to last lesson.

First of all, our facial expressions give it away.

If someone says, "I can't have that," oh, you see it in my face.

If someone says, "Oh, well done, you did that really well," you can see it in my face.

Yeah, and the facial expressions are linked to emotion, whether they are sad, happy.

Think about to the activity from last lesson where we looked at sadness, confusion, and anger, they were all very basic emotions that linked to our facial expressions in the activity.

So now what I'd like you to do is react to being tricked.

Imagine you're the Pied Piper and you're in his position, you get tricked.

I would like you to focus on experimenting with facial expressions to show your emotions.

You don't need to stop at sadness, confusion, and anger, if you can link it to new emotions, like hatred and frustration, then that's great.

That's the next step.

Okay, you need to pause this video to be able to complete the task and then click resume when you are ready to move on.

Welcome back, how did you get on? Hopefully, you found the activity all right.

Now we look at when the Piper has started piping.

To the children merrily skipping by, could only follow with the eye that joyous crowd at the Piper's back, but how the Mayor was on the rack, and the wretched Council's bosoms beat, as the Piper turned from the High Street to where the Weser rolled its waters right in the way of their sons and daughters! However, he turned from South to West, and to Coppelburg Hill his steps addressed, and after him the children pressed, great was the joy in every breast.

So this is explaining the journey that they went on.

So once the Piper had made his decision and had known, he had confirmed within himself exactly what he would do next.

Off they go as he plays his pipe towards the hill.

Now I wonder why the child couldn't keep up, let's have a look.

When, lo, as they reached the mountain side, a wondrous portal opened wide, as if a cavern was suddenly hollowed.

And the Piper advanced and the children followed, and when all were in to the very last, the door in the mountain side shut fast.

Did I say all? No! One was lame, and could not dance the whole of the way.

Now the word lame refers to a condition where you struggle to walk without great difficulty.

So this poem, this section of the poem is referring to the fact that the boy was disadvantaged by his way of walking.

So he couldn't get to the cave and be trapped inside just like all the other children.

And as I said last lesson, that although that could be perceived as a negative, that saved this child's life.

It was very positive because he was able to help the Piper get his money.

And he was able to save his friends and he was able to be the hero.

So let's talk about disabilities in the 1300s.

These were the old views and they were generally mixed.

People thought that being disabled was a punishment for sin, to some degree.

Some people thought that it meant these people were closer to God.

There was no provision, or less provision you could say, or help, for those with disabilities.

Family and friends would try to support them.

They were mostly looked after by monks and nuns and they often resorted to begging.

Now we have the information, let's go into some role-play.

An internal monologue, if you remember from the keywords, is a way of talking to yourself as if no one can hear you.

It can be about absolutely anything, watch.

I wonder what's for dinner? I hope my sister cooks, that way it might be edible.

Why wouldn't my dog want to hug me? What have I done? Who wouldn't want a cuddle for an hour? And it's a dog.

It's me.

I just wanted to cuddle it.

I wonder which one did come first, was it the chicken or was it the egg? It must've been the egg.

What if it, what if it was a chicken? What if the egg killed the chicken then hatched then became the chicken? I wish the other children would wait for me.

I'm not as quick as them.

I can't move as quick as them.

If they just, if they just waited for a minute or five, I, I would, I would get there.

I would, I would make sure I get there, but they just, they just won't wait.

They just have to go off at 100 miles an hour.

I can't go 100 miles an hour.

Now we're going to start thinking about setting.

So we need to be able to visualise a setting in our heads before we can establish a scene.

So think about where we are as this child that got left behind.

You live in a church with nuns.

They take care of you.

They look after you, they feed you, they clothe you.

Some people, not the nuns, some people take pity on you.

Okay, so they feel sorry for you.

Some people ignore you.

That may be because they think that you are lesser than them.

They may think it's just because they are more important than you, and you can't move as quickly or as freely as other people do.

So you live in this church.

I'd like you to visualise the walls.

What are they made off? The walls of a church in the 1300s, I think some kind of stone.

What colour is this stone? If you were to put your hand on those stones and touch them, what would it feel like? Would it be coarse? Would it be smooth? Is it cold? Do you need to wear lots of layers? Because the weather can be quite harsh.

Is there a fire in the corner? Do you sit around the fire at night to keep warm? With this visualisation of the setting, what are you thinking? Do you like living with the nuns because they're caring and they look after you? Do you wish that there were more people living with you or is the church overcrowded? Are there too many people living with you? And what does that make you feel? How does it affect your feelings? Are you happy? Do you feel loved because you have the nuns looking after you? Is that enough to ignore the other people that aren't quite so nice? Or is that a constant thought in the back of your head? That you would prefer if these people didn't ignore you or didn't take pity on you, if they just looked at you like you were just the same as everybody else.

What I would like you to do now is imagine that we are still that child who couldn't keep up with the other children.

I would like you to rehearse an internal monologue, those thoughts as if you're speaking but no one can hear you.

For the moment when he realised that the other children were gone.

Okay, the moment when he realises the other children are gone.

Think about your facial expressions, they will help you communicate your emotions.

And it doesn't mean you only have one emotion, you can have a range of emotions.

There could be a brief moment where you feel sad that they're gone.

And then you might feel happy with the fact that you are now the only child left, that puts you in a very uplifting position 'cause it automatically puts you higher up, perhaps.

Have a play, there are no wrong answers here.

You need to pause the video to complete this task, give it your best go and click resume when you're ready to continue.

The child made the right choice by telling the townspeople about the kidnapping.

Do you think that's true or do you think that's false? The answer is true.

Otherwise his friends would have been trapped forever.

He would have been alone.

Now, tensions rise in this narrative, but I would like to know where it comes from.

I would like you to pick one of the following four options, the rats cause tension for the mayor to do something.

Option two, the Pied Piper is refused his payment.

Option three, the child cannot keep up with the other children.

Or option four, the conversation between the mayor and Pied Piper over freeing the children.

What do you think? Which one gives us the most tension? Now that you have chosen a moment, I'd like you to experiment with making it look tense.

This will mean it feels awkward to you as the performer.

It will make you feel uneasy and potentially uncomfortable, but it's good to be able to practise the successful deployment of our feelings.

Think about your facial expressions, the characterization and emotions that we've explored today and in last lesson.

To do this you will need to pause the video.

You may need a few moments to be able to gather those skills from previous tasks and then click resume once you feel like you've done it and we'll continue.

Today, you've worked brilliantly, as we follow along the journey of the boy who was disadvantaged because of his disability.

We saw his choices and what part he had to play in this poem.

Now, we also looked at disabilities in the 1300s to give context to the setting we created.

And then lastly, we played around with tension as it arises in this story.

So well done, you've worked really hard and you've taken on board a lot of key words today.

Well done for all of your hard work, this lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

If you have any work that you'd like to share with us here at Oak, please ask your parent or carer for permission first.

And they can tag us on Twitter using @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

I'll see you in lesson three when we explore a brand new poem, but until then take care and goodbye.