KS3 / KS4 English Language: Hannah Khalil – Playwright

Video summary

Hannah Khalil, a Palestinian-Irish playwright, talks about the creative process she goes through when writing for the stage.

She talks about her dual heritage background, growing up the Middle East then moving to the UK, and how it spurred her on to write stories about the places her family were from.

Hannah also stresses the need to read your play out loud, as you'll hear things that you didn't know were there, and this will inspire you.

This short film is from the BBC Teach series Inside the Writer's Mind, and is supported by a free classroom resource from First Story.

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Teacher Notes

Before viewing

Hannah’s final piece references motherhood. Although your students are very unlikely to be parents, they should be prepared to imagine and read about situations outside of their own experience.

The protagonist in Hannah’s piece is also juggling her identity, something students will be familiar with. For example, they probably speak and behave differently with school friends compared with grandparents – and differently again with teachers.

Students could also look at how Hannah creates empathy for her character.

Remind students of the saying ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ and discuss possible meanings. How can writing be powerful? How can writing be empowering?

Recap on plays studied in class or theatre visits.

What makes something theatrical? How are stage directions used?

After viewing

Hannah Khalil has written a play without dialogue – How effective is this? Why is it effective?

Discuss how stage directions alone can communicate a range of feelings and emotions.

Give students individual situations to portray through stage directions alone (for example, a family on Christmas morning) – can their peers guess the situation through brief stage directions?

Using Hannah’s stage directions, write the first few lines of dialogue between the mother and the second character.

Consider the texts studied in class, write a conversation between two characters.

This short film will be relevant for teaching English language at KS3 and KS4 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and National 4 and 5 in Scotland.

Topics covered include character and plot development in narrative writing; making links to word meaning, effective punctuation and narrative structure; understanding characterisation, narrative planning, story structure, editing, proofreading and redrafting.

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