Act One Review

In previous lessons, students explored the characters of Mr Birling and Sheila, considering the impact that their identities had on their choices and actions, and the role that power played in their interactions with others. This exploration built the foundation for students to examine the complex interplay between individuals, society and power – the ways in which who we are is both influenced by and influences our choices, whilst the impact that our choices have is linked to the amount of power we possess. Students also finished reading the first Act of the play, analysing the role Sheila and Mr Birling played in Eva Smith’s death, and began to develop the necessary analytical writing skills to craft clear, well-developed essays.  

In this lesson, students will consider the lessons that we can learn from the first Act of the play, selecting evidence from the play to support their claims and discussing their ideas with their classmates. Such consideration will not only enable students to explore the play’s content in further depth and to examine the author’s craft, it will also encourage them to reflect on the play’s relevance to their own lives and to think about what lessons they can learn from the characters. 

Students will then have the opportunity to adopt the perspectives of different characters in both drama tasks and written tasks. Such perspective-adopting exercises not only help students to familiarise themselves with the content of the play, but also help to boost student empathy as they put themselves in another’s shoes, as it were. This process can also assist students in making reflections on their own lives and their own behaviour, and in building links between the learning in the classroom and the world beyond school.

The activities in this lesson refer to pages 1–26 of the Heinemann edition of An Inspector Calls.

Before teaching this lesson, please review the following information to help guide your preparation process.

Activity 1 Reflect on the Lessons from Act One

• Explain to students that today they will be reflecting on Act One of the play, focusing their reflections on the lessons that we can learn from the characters – their interactions, choices, and decisions. 
• Ask students to choose one of the following five options to explore in their journals:
  • What does Act One of An Inspector Calls teach us about:
    • Identity?
    • Choices?
    • Power?
    • Relationships?
    • Social Responsibility?
• Have students share their ideas with a partner, in small groups, or you can ask for students to volunteer to share with the class.

Activity 2 Collect Evidence to Support a Claim

• Explain to the students that for this next activity they will be collecting evidence that they can use to support a claim about the lessons that we can learn from Act One of the play. They will be using this evidence to support their claims in a structured discussion activity, known as Fishbowl, later in the lesson. 
• Divide students into small groups of three or four and ask them to complete the sentence starter: Act One of An Inspector Calls teaches us. . . on the top of a piece of A3 paper. Let them know that their ideas can be based on what they wrote down in the journal activity or it can contain something completely new. 
• Then, give the groups 10–15 minutes to find at least three pieces of evidence to support their claim from Act One. They will need to skim-read the play by dividing it up between them (there are twenty-six pages, so groups of three could review nine pages each and groups of four could review seven pages each).
• Once groups have selected their three pieces of evidence, they must briefly sketch out how and why their selected evidence supports their claim on their A3 paper.

Activity 3 Share Ideas in a Fishbowl Discussion

• Next, give students the opportunity to share their ideas with the class using the Fishbowl teaching strategy. Let them know that they will be discussing the question: What lessons can we learn from Act One of An Inspector Calls?
• Ensure that one student from each group is represented in the fishbowl circle, and that the remaining students are sitting around them, listening to the discussion. Explain that those students who are listening will be joining the discussion, so it is important that they listen carefully so they don’t repeat what has already been said. You can have them change over after a set amount of time, or students can ‘tap out’ someone in the circle to take their place.
• If your students in the ‘fishbowl’ need structured guidance to help them get started, you might invite the students to first take it in turns to share their group’s claim and research.
• Then, after all the students have shared their claims, invite students to ask each other questions. 
• To debrief the activity, as a class, brainstorm all of the different claims made about the lessons that can be learnt from Act One of An Inspector Calls on the board.

Activity 4 Reflect on Lessons Learnt

• Finally, ask students to respond to the following prompt in their journals, reflecting on what they covered in the class, what they learnt from their peers and their own ideas: The most valuable lesson in Act One of An Inspector Calls is ________ because. . . 
• Invite the class to share their ideas in a wraparound.

Activity 1 Reflect on Character Influences

• Explain to students that they will be exploring a character’s perspective, thinking about a character’s identity, position of power in society, and decision-making process before writing from the point of view of a character.
• Project the following prompts and ask students to explore them in a journal reflection:
  • Which of the following factors influence the characters’ actions, choices, and behaviour in the play? Explain your view. 
    • Conformity
    • Obedience
    • Societal expectations
• Lead a class discussion to allow students to share their ideas with each other.

Activity 2 Adopt Character Perspectives

• Explain to students that they will now adopt the perspective of different characters in preparation for a creative writing task. 
• First, ask the students to write at least one question that they would like to ask each character they have met thus far: Mr Birling, Mrs Birling, Sheila, Eric, Edna, Gerald, and the Inspector. These questions could connect to their actions in the first Act, their interests, their values, their relationship to one another, or their identities.
• Next, have students select one character from the list to adopt the perspective of and lead them through a Rapid-Fire Writing task in which they imagine they are the character and are writing about their thoughts and feelings. For the students who need more support, give them the choice of writing a text or letter to a friend, or a diary entry, outlining what has happened in Act One and how they are feeling. They should write from the first-person perspective, using ‘I’.
• Invite one student up to the front of the class to pretend to be their character (you may wish to give them their prop for this) to model hot seating to the class.
• The rest of the class can ask questions to which the student must respond in character.
• Divide students into pairs, and give each student five minutes to hot seat their character and then switch.

Activity 3 Reflect on Adopting Perspectives

Ask students to choose three of the following questions for a journal reflection:

• How did you find adopting a character’s perspective? What makes you say that?
• Has your perspective on the character which you were writing about changed? If so, how?
• What are the benefits of writing from another’s perspective?
• Is there someone in your life who you would like to understand your perspective better? Explain your answer.
• Is there someone in your life who you think it would be useful to adopt the perspective of? Explain your answer.

Activity 4 Write from a Character's Perspective

• Give students the Character Perspective Task Sheet handout and inform them that they can choose which task most appeals to them and which character perspective they would like to adopt. Give them a set amount of time to work independently in silence and circulate to see what they produce. As it will be difficult for them to finish the task in the time available, inform them that it can be finished for homework. 
• If there is time, you could invite students to share their favourite lines to the class once the time is up.

Extension Activity Reflect on the Character Prop

Give students the opportunity to consider the following questions regarding whether or not any of the characters should have their props changed after the first Act:

• Should any of the characters have their prop changed? If so, who and why?
• What would you change their prop to? Why?

Invite students to share their ideas in pairs or with the rest of the class.