Twenty lessons · pre-reading to whole play

Lessons by scene

A sequence that sticks to the structure of the play. Each lesson gives a focus, page references (class edition), a key question, activities and a written outcome. The running trackers, motifs, the abyss, stage presence, quotation tables, are the unit’s connective tissue.

Jump to: Pre-reading sequence · Act One, Scene One · Act One, Scene Two · Act Two, Scene One · Act Two, Scene Two and whole play

Pre-reading sequence (before the play)

Four to five lessons. The aim is double: enough history to read the play truthfully, and enough curiosity to want to. End with the cast list so the doubling is a known device before the Border Official appears. Student page for this section →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	The dilemma –	What would make a mother send her child away?	Anonymous dilemma discussion; then reveal the historical Kindertransport; Teachers TV testimony video with worksheet.	Personal response: the hardest choice in the scenario and why.
2	Kristallnacht and the transports –	What did the children carry, and what did they leave?	Research quiz (Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht, the ten thousand); packing-list activity against the real restrictions.	Completed research quiz.
3	Propaganda and dehumanisation –	How does language turn people into vermin?	Poster analysis with rhetorical devices; the Eternal Jew review as a language-analysis text. Frame carefully.	Annotated propaganda analysis.
4	The Ratcatcher legend –	Why would a playwright reach for the Pied Piper here?	The Hamelin legend told in full; prediction: how might it map onto a play about the transports?	Prediction paragraph.
5	Cast list and the extract pp. 83–84	One actor plays four men; Eva and Evelyn are two actors. Why?	Doubling hypothesis discussion; cold read of the pp. 83–84 extract; prediction of the play’s story from its climax.	Doubling hypotheses to revisit at the end of the unit.

Act One, Scene One (pp. 3–21)

Four lessons. Establish the reading disciplines here: stage directions read as meaning, the motif trackers, and the past/present/fusion labelling of every extract. Student page for this section →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	The attic and the button pp. 3–9	What is this room, and what is this lesson?	The three types of stage direction (specific / open / the one ambivalent “If she sees” direction, p. 4); the polishing; the abyss question; survivor’s guilt pp. 8–9.	Stage-directions hunt; abyss tracker opened.
2	Packing and unpacking pp. 10–15	What do the objects know that the characters won’t say?	Guided annotation: case packed against boxes unpacked, toy train, jewels in the shoes, Eva reaching by Faith’s feet (staging debate: do the worlds touch?).	Annotated extract; quotation tables opened for the three focuses.
3	The story and the label pp. 16–18	Why do Faith and Helga read the same story at once?	The simultaneous Ratcatcher reading; costume and label 3362; the station monologue as self-talk; the nursery rhyme.	Analytical paragraph: the double reading as structure.
4	The Border Official and the border pp. 18–21	Which is worse, the search or the toffee?	Doubling in action; menace under kindness; Faith made to watch (specific direction); the crossing and its dramatic irony.	Extract response: how Samuels makes the Border Official scene frightening.

Act One, Scene Two (pp. 21–46)

Four lessons. The assimilation arc needs slow reading: each small surrender is a discussion in itself. The act ends on the play’s structural hinge, give the confrontation a full lesson. Student page for this section →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	Liverpool Street pp. 22–26	How does Samuels stage not-understanding?	The Organiser (doubling continues); German dialogue and translanguaging; Faith reading the letter in parallel; the unreachable watch.	Paragraph: staging foreignness.
2	Lil and the new life pp. 26–36	What does Lil’s kindness cost Eva?	“Ich muss es tragen. Ich hasse es.”; objects and intrusive memory; the two mothers compared as they mother.	Helga/Lil comparison table with methods.
3	Fresh starts pp. 36–40	Who is erasing Eva, and does she help?	The changed birthday; “Not the German, Eva” / “Ich bin Deutsche!”; Lil’s temper; the failed permits (“Nichts. Nothing.”); integration vs assimilation debate.	Debate write-up with textual evidence.
4	The box pp. 41–46	Why must the act end here?	Faith’s confrontation; the buried name spoken; “You must forget it” exchange; Faith’s symptoms list (dust, trains, “my fault”), generational trauma named.	Extract essay: the ending of Act One as structural climax.

Act Two, Scene One (pp. 47–77)

Five lessons. The longest scene and the emotional core. The newsreel lesson needs a distress warning and an alternative task available; the rejection deserves performance work, not just annotation. Student page for this section →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	Jewels and the Postman pp. 47–52	What has changed when the act reopens?	The “cheat death” speech against what we know is coming; the Postman’s casual prejudice; Passover and “not legend but truth”.	Quotation tables updated; irony annotation.
2	The present circles the truth pp. 52–57	What is Lil for, in the present scenes?	The safe metaphor; the whitewash metaphor; second evacuation and Operation Pied Piper; the Ratcatcher in the shadows; Eva’s choking as embodied trauma.	Paragraph: Lil’s figurative language.
3	Destroying the letters pp. 58–63	Is this tidying, or violence?	The hesitation; Lil’s challenge; the tearing sequence staged (who moves, who watches); the letters’ journey across the whole play mapped.	Prop-biography: the letters from Hamburg to the tearing.
4	The newsreel and the star pp. 64–69	What does Eva decide when she sees the newsreel?	The Station Guard (final doubling); the news the parents will not come; the Star of David removed, order of events matters; Bergen-Belsen framed with care.	Sequence analysis: the order of Eva’s losses.
5	The rejection pp. 74–77	Whose tragedy is this scene?	Performance work: staging the return with the adult Evelyn in the room; “I’m called Evelyn now”; blame weighed and refused; the shared space as meaning.	Full analytical paragraph on the rejection (the unit’s anchor writing).

Act Two, Scene Two and whole play (pp. 78–87)

Two lessons on the text, then the unit pivots to the coursework itself (see the scheme of work, weeks 9–12). Student page for this section →

#	Lesson focus	Key question	Activities	Written outcome
1	The last parting pp. 78–87	What do the two wishes mean?	The mirrored lines analysed as form; “monumental”/“personal” weighed; the anaphora of loss; the cyclical ending and Faith’s inheritance; revisit the pre-reading predictions and doubling hypotheses.	Evaluation paragraph: does the play end, or stop?
2	The whole play whole text	What is this play finally about?	Tension graph; technique checklist audit (dual timeline, staging, symbolism, doubling, silence, non-naturalism, audience positioning, cyclical structure); Faith’s anger graph; the Evelyn mask activity; comprehension quiz.	Completed technique audit feeding directly into coursework planning.