The Language for Learning Glossary

A hundred and fifty words, three jobs

Appendix 5i of your specification is a glossary of roughly 150 theatrical terms, sorted into eleven categories. Opening it for the first time is genuinely daunting. ⚠️ SO START WITH THE SENTENCE OCR PUTS NEXT TO IT, BECAUSE IT CHANGES EVERYTHING: "LEARNERS WILL NOT BE REQUIRED TO RECALL DEFINITIONS IN THE EXAMINED ASSESSMENT." Read that again. You will not be asked what a word means. The glossary is there to help you SAY things, not to be tested back at you. Which raises the obvious question, and it is the real one: if you are not being tested on them, which of the 150 do you actually need? ⚠️ THE ANSWER IS THAT THESE WORDS ARE NOT ALL THE SAME KIND OF THING. THEY DO THREE DIFFERENT JOBS, AND ONLY ONE OF THE THREE EVER EARNS A MARK IN A WRITTEN ANSWER. Some are for WRITING about theatre. They name things you might analyse, and they belong in an essay. Some are for MAKING theatre. They name things you do in a rehearsal room. You will use them constantly in your practical work and almost never in an essay. And some are simply what theatre people SAY. Real, useful, part of belonging to the art form, and worth no marks anywhere. Notice that this is not a criticism of the list. A glossary for a subject you both study and do has to cover both. ⚠️ BUT IT DOES MEAN THAT "LEARN ALL 150" IS THE WRONG INSTRUCTION, and sorting them is the skill worth having.

What the glossary is, and what it is for

Five things worth knowing before you open Appendix 5i. Which words fall into which job comes next.

Match each term to what it is and where it earns its keep

Which one would actually earn a mark

You are writing about a moment where a character says one thing while clearly feeling another. Four glossary terms come to mind. Which one belongs in the written answer?

• Subtext, because it names the gap between what is said and what is meant, which is the thing you are analysing
• Hot seating, because it is how an actor would have built that character
• On the book, because someone was holding the script during rehearsals
• The get-in, because that is when the production arrived at the venue

The three jobs, and which part of the course each serves

The same three jobs from step 1, now with real terms from Appendix 5i and the component each one actually serves. OCR assesses you three times over, at 30 per cent, 30 per cent and 40 per cent, and these words are not interchangeable between them.

True about Appendix 5i

Select the TWO statements that are true.

• The specification states you will not be required to recall these definitions in the examined assessment
• The terms do different jobs, and rehearsal-room vocabulary is more use in your practical work than in a written answer
• Since definitions are not recall-tested, the glossary is not worth reading at all
• All 150 terms are equally likely to earn you marks in a written answer

Why this matters more on OCR than on other boards

One fact about your written paper changes how much the vocabulary is worth. ⚠️ OCR IS THE STRICTEST OF THE THREE EXAM BOARDS ON WHAT YOU MAY TAKE INTO THE ROOM. THE WRITTEN COMPONENT IS FULLY CLOSED BOOK: no copy of the text, and no notes. Another board lets candidates work from an annotated copy in front of them. You will not have one. So think about what that actually costs you. You cannot look up a quotation. You cannot check a detail you half-remember. Everything you write has to come out of your head, under time pressure. ⚠️ AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHY A COMPACT VOCABULARY IS WORTH REVISING EVEN THOUGH THE DEFINITIONS ARE NOT TESTED. ONE PRECISE WORD DOES THE WORK OF A SENTENCE YOU WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE TO CONSTRUCT. Writing out what a soliloquy is takes a clause. Writing "soliloquy" takes a word, and buys you the space to explain its effect instead. On a closed-book paper under time pressure, that space is the difference between making one point and making three. So revise the glossary like this. Take the terms that name ideas you could build an answer around, and know those properly. Leave the rehearsal-room terms to your practical work, where you will pick them up by using them. Read the slang once, enjoy it, and never revise it again. ⚠️ A SMALL NUMBER OF WORDS YOU CAN USE CONFIDENTLY BEATS A LONG LIST YOU HALF-RECOGNISE, and on this paper it is not close.

Why "break a leg" sits next to "semiotics"

Open Appendix 5i and you will find, in the same document, the word semiotics and the phrase break a leg. One is a technical term for how meaning is carried by signs. The other is what you say to someone before they go on. They could not be more different, and students reasonably assume one of them is a mistake. ⚠️ NEITHER IS. THE GLOSSARY IS SHAPED THIS WAY BECAUSE OF WHAT DRAMA IS AS A SUBJECT. Most subjects you only study. Drama you study AND do. Your course asks you to devise an original piece, to perform from a text, and to write analytically about theatre. Three different activities, and each has its own working language. So the appendix is not a list of things to know. It is closer to a record of a working art form, taking in the rehearsal room, the technical week, the get-out and the essay, because a drama student passes through all of them. ⚠️ ONCE YOU SEE THAT, THE ELEVEN CATEGORIES STOP LOOKING ARBITRARY. Some of them describe what happens on a stage. Some describe the building it happens in. Some describe how a company got there. They are grouped by where in the process the word belongs. And that gives you the practical move. When you meet an unfamiliar term, do not start by asking what it means. ⚠️ ASK WHERE IT BELONGS: is this something an audience could see, something a company does, or something people say backstage? The answer tells you at once whether it is worth revising, and very often it tells you roughly what the word means as well.

Six words worth revising

Six terms are hidden in the grid, and every one of them is analytical vocabulary: the kind that earns marks in a written answer. Find each from its description. Five read forwards and one reads backwards.

Order the production week

Five terms from the glossary's Process category, in the order they happen when a production comes into a venue.

• The get-in: the set, lighting and equipment are brought into the venue and installed
• The technical rehearsal: lighting and sound cues are worked through and set
• The dress rehearsal: the whole show is run as it will be performed, in costume
• The curtain call: the cast return to the stage at the end of the performance
• The get-out: everything is struck and cleared from the venue

The glossary run

Five questions on what the glossary is for. Three lives.

Complete the theatre vocabulary facts

A character speaking their thoughts aloud while alone on stage is delivering a _____. What a character means but does not say is the _____. A held, silent stage picture made by the performers is a _____. Clearing the set and equipment out of the venue after the final performance is the _____.

Spot the true glossary facts

Tap the TWO statements that are true.

• The specification states that learners will not be required to recall these definitions in the examined assessment
• OCR's written component is fully closed book, so a precise term saves words you would otherwise have to spend describing
• Every term in the glossary is equally likely to earn marks in a written answer
• Production slang such as corpsing should be revised as carefully as analytical vocabulary

Three revision decisions

Three cases. Each answer has to carry the reasoning, not just the verdict.

• Asked how a moment creates tension in performance, a student writes that the company used cross-cutting and role-on-the-wall while devising. The content is accurate. Why does it score badly?
• A student reads that definitions are not recall-tested and decides to skip the glossary entirely. Is that the right conclusion?
• With limited revision time, a student has to choose between learning twenty new terms shallowly or six properly. Which is the better choice, and why?

Advise someone facing the glossary

A classmate has printed all eleven pages of Appendix 5i and is trying to learn every term on it before the exam. Write them the advice you would give.

• Explain what the specification actually says about recalling these definitions, and what follows from it
• Explain the three different jobs the terms do, giving at least one real example of each
• Explain why the analytical terms are the ones worth revising for the written paper
• Explain why a precise term is worth more on this board than on one that allows an annotated text into the exam
• Finish with a concrete plan for how they should spend the revision time they have