A schools edition of Joe Penhall's screenplay for the hit film of Cormac McCarthy's novel, The Road features extensive classroom activities created by leading national experts of Drama within English. Perfect for KS4 English, the accompanying activities are designed to raise achievement and develop critical thinking.

Joe Penhall's screenplay for the film of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel provides a gripping and unforgettable text for use in English at Key Stage 4. The novel won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the the film starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron won praise for its faithful rendering of the novel's dystopian vision. This educational edition in Methuen Drama's Critical Scripts series has been prepared by national Drama in Secondary English experts Ruth Moore and Paul Bunyan. Building on a decade of highly effective work and publications endorsed by national organisations and supported by teachers and consultants across Britain, each book in the series: meets the new requirements at KS3 and GCSE (2010) features detailed, structured schemes of work utilising drama approaches to improve literary and language analysis places pupils' understanding of the learning process at the heart of the activities will help pupils to boost English GCSE success and develop high-level skills at KS3 will save teachers considerable time devising their own resources. The Road is set a few years after an unexplained cataclysmic world disaster has left the earth barren and hostile. It follows a father and son as they struggle to survive in a landscape where men either starve or join the marauding gangs of cannibals. Readers are advised that there are some scenes of a disturbing nature.

"Cormac McCarthy's novel was one of the best I've ever read. On reading the Penhall version it quickly becomes apparent that the desperate, post-apocalyptic emptiness of the original is unnervingly preserved whilst the sparse beauty of the dialogue does provide an uncluttered, ready-made script." - NATE Classroom

"The emotional intensity of the novel shines through in this script which would make an excellent addition to any KS4 or KS5 curriculum." - NATE Classroom

"For teachers, the detailed scheme of work devised by Paul Bunyan and Ruth Moore is - as we have come to expect from these two drama specialists - accessible, well-structured and full of excellent ideas for the classroom." - NATE Classroom

"It uses the film or soundtrack as a focus and, under each of its 15 logically sequenced headings, there are learning activities, teaching points, resources and further suggestions for reflection, analysis and discussion... [it] is symptomatic of the thoroughness and intelligence of a scheme of work which would be easily mediated and enjoyed by both the grizzled practitioner and the shiniest NQT. The highest compliment that can be paid is that I'm now prepared to view the film." - NATE Classroom

"[...] the visual descriptions are very clear...Extracts from it might make useful starting points for GCSE drama theme-based work... The activities themselves give a range of practical approaches to using the text in the classroom...On the whole a welcome addition for the English/media studies teacher." - Teaching Drama