 Two Sides of One Coin:
Acting to Write . . . Writing to Act | Act to WriteFrom Zero to Class-written Play in 24 Contact Hours A Program for Teachers Contents- Sample FOREIGN AFFAIRS
- Twelve Day Plan go
- Nine Week Plan go
- What students can learn when they collaborate on a play. go
- Principles behind this lesson go
- Across-the-curriculum adaptations go
- Assessments go
- Bag of tricks go
- Troubleshooting go
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What your students can learn
when they collaborate on a play.
When you commission your students to create their own play, they will learn from experience about character, theme, and form -- topics they usually just write about in essays. They will look to Shakespeare and other classic models because they need to, not because you made them do it. With a performance looming, they must also learn cooperation, persistence, and problem-solving.
They may also practice research into history or any other subject: You choose when you commission the play to be about a particular time, place, or theme. (See Adaptations).
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Students learn best when they perceive a need for what their teacher offers. We succeed as teachers when we can place students in a position where they feel that need for what we offer.A student who has been a creative writer is better attuned to appreciate creative writing than a student who has only read literature (just as a former basketball player is better attuned to appreciate the action of a basketball game than someone who has never played).
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Teachers can use this model who have no intention of "putting on" a play. At the initial step of the plan, teachers can set parameters to achieve special goals:
- Counselling: Require the students to build their scenes around different perspectives that emerge from discussing a theme of your choice (peer relations, authority, diversity).
- Literature: Imagine setting the play in Atticus Finch's town among neighbors who are not named in To Kill A Mockingbird to see different ways that lives are impacted (or not) by the events of that book.
- Social Studies: After looking at pictures and reading primary sources from a specific time and / or place, let students imagine characters behind the scenes of famous events -- see how all can end up as witnesses.
- Science: Imagine the impact on lives of some plausible future development in physics, chemistry, or genetics; or imagine a community in which people are suddenly confronted with mysterious phenomena (human symptoms? growths in the ground? strange behavior of animals?).
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12 Day Plan
In twelve days of forty-five minute class period, you can achieve your teaching objectives. A smoothly-running play with impressive productions values would require a few more days and resources outside of your classroom. See the 9 week plan.
- First line exercise. details
- Commission a play with one location and time. details
- Improvise scenes in their different locales. details
- Interview characters. details
- Tie scenes together. details
- Refine scenes on paper. details
- Build the scenes up to a conclusion. details
- Stage it. details
- Rehearse on stage. details
- Rehearse on stage, with improvements. details
- Dress Rehearsal. details
- Performance. details
- Follow up. details
If you can combine or bypass steps, do: You'll want more time for another step, guaranteed; and you will never feel like you have enough rehearsal time!
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9 Week Plan
With as little as 24 full hours' contact time with your students spread out over a period of weeks, and with some outside help with production (set construction, finding props, costuming, sound effects, lighting), you can produce an impressive 30 - to - 60 minute play from scratch.
This is a list of things that have to happen, and not a time table. Every process overlaps. Every group and every project will be different.
Uncertainty is part of the process. Assume that the script will not be finalized until around the fifth week. You may not decide on an ending until the week before the show, and that's normal!
To see synopses of shows done by this model, look here.
- Gathering Material (two or three weeks)
- Commission a play..."First Line" exercise. . . Choose what the play will be about . . . Ask "What could happen? . . . Improvise scenes. . . Interview characters . . . Share scenes whenever possible.
Details.
- Shaping Material (two or three weeks)
- Decide on a time frame for the story. . . Work out plot lines for each group. . . Improvise remaining scenes for each group, and write dialogue down. . . Find a start and finish for the play.
Details.
- Producing the play from the (mostly) finished script (three or four weeks)
- Plan production's look . . . Photocopy final scripts. . . Rehearse every day until the show. . . Follow up.
Details.
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Assessments
Involve your students in their own assessments, explaining that you need a paper trail to show the contributions of each student. Open a portfolio for each. By the end of the project, it should include:
- Hard copies of successive drafts of scenes
- The written "interview" with the student's character
- The letter of self-evaluation after the performance
- A copy of the program
It's helpful to have students write interim progress reports about their groups, with self-evaluation included.
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