Internal Assessment: Making, Performing and Explaining Drama
Internal assessment in NCEA Level 1 Drama is where the drama you make, rehearse and perform is assessed, together with your explanation of the choices behind it. Evidence is gathered across the year: a teacher observes live performance (usually recorded for moderation), and you build a portfolio of rehearsal notes, annotated scripts, director's notes and self-evaluation. Standards are graded Achieved, Merit and Excellence, and the higher grades turn on the wording of the descriptors - "convincingly", "effectively", "integrated", "sustained".
Know your toolkit
- Techniques work through voice (pitch, pace, pause, projection, diction, tone), body (posture, gesture, facial expression, gait), movement (levels, direction, weight, proxemics), plus focus, energy, timing and tension.
- Conventions shape the story for an audience: freeze frame, thought tracking, hot seating, role on the wall, narration, split stage, flashback, slow motion, aside, chorus, soundscape.
- Technologies - set, costume, props, lighting, sound, makeup - are chosen for effect, not decoration.
- Elements such as role, situation, tension, focus, mood, symbol and contrast are what you manipulate when shaping a scene.
Worked example
Your group devises a five-minute piece about a student's first day at a new school and wants the audience to feel her isolation. You place a freeze frame as she enters the canteen, the ensemble holding mid-gesture, then use thought tracking: she steps downstage and speaks her private thought while the freeze holds. The write-up is what lifts this to Merit or Excellence. You explain that the convention was selected because it sets a public, noisy world against a private, still voice, and you record the refinement - the freeze now holds for three beats exactly, and the thought is delivered slower and quieter than her spoken dialogue. You attach a video timestamp and a note on the intended effect.
Traps
- Naming conventions without explaining purpose or audience effect.
- Using a convention as decoration rather than structure.
- Leaving evidence collection to the last week; in group work your individual contribution must be documented.
- Performing "at" the audience instead of playing an intention.
- Ignoring the higher-grade wording - "effectively" and "integrated" require refinement and connection between choices.