This is one of a series of lesson ideas provided by Gill Chesney-Green from Derbyshire in the UK.  (Thanks a plenty Gill! - Kim Flintoff - Webmaster)

LESSON:  KNOTS

AIMS:  To encourage creative drama from an abstract stimulus

OBJECTIVES: As above

STRATEGIES: Small group work and whole group work

LESSON: 

This is suitable for Years 10 - 11.

The idea is to enable students to create drama from stimuli that is more abstract in essence.

Ask the whole class to hold hands to form a chain. Ask them to form a complicated knot formation by weaving in and out etc.

Once the class is fully "knotted up" ask each person to focus on what they feel in the position they are in. To further focus them on their situation ask them to think of a character or role to which they could apply this. eg "I feel very much under pressure from my position", "I am being pulled in two directions at once", "If I were to let go, the person who is next to me would collapse," from remarks such as these the student can develop a role in which the person feels much the same pressures.

Ask the class to unravel the knot without breaking the chain and to focus on how they function in this part of the exercise. Some may feel that as they were on the edge they could get out of their situation easily, others may have felt that they needed to rely on others a great deal.

As a class, ask them to restate what sort of feelings they had and how they would relate to a character in a situation. Help the class to form small groups that would work together in terms of the dynamics of the knot. The groups are to devise a piece of drama to show how the symbolic "knot" formed, what the knot consisted of and how it was resolved.

Give improvisation and rehearsal time and then present work.

To develop work further, ask them to refine the work to include the knot making exercise as part of the drama itself.

Maybe the class can think of ways to combine all the versions of the knot symbolism into one whole piece.