Lesson 11: Final Project

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." -Thomas Merton

It was finally the day we had been waiting for! Each student eagerly gripped his or her play, anxious to finally share what he or she had been working so hard on for the past 6 weeks.

My plan to read the plays aloud proved to be much more complicated than I had intended, so I had to do some last-minute adjusting and improvising in order to make sure that every individual could read his or her play. After splitting the class into groups, they were off!

Back to what I said about the computer lab, that REALLY would have helped in this case. We would have been able to print off enough copies of the script for every role in each play rather than passing around a single copy. This slowed things down quite a bit. Also, the scripts would have been much easier to read if we had done this.

Although we didn't have time to read through the students' plays in their entirety, I gave them about one minute to select volunteer readers and four minutes to read each to ensure that we could get through everyone. We tried to balance it out as best as we could by rotating between readers so that everyone who wanted the chance to read could. The students were so excited to finally get to act for each other again!

One of my biggest challenges during my experience teaching was that I found it so difficult to get time to both act and write in each class. I tried to balance it out lesson by lesson and make up for it the next time, but things would often go wrong or not according to plan, and I'd have to adjust, cutting performance time or splitting the students into smaller groups for performances. If I do this experience again, I will definitely place a heavier importance on performing for each other in larger quantities.

Examples of the students reading their scripts aloud can be found here. I'm afraid I can't post as many videos as I would like! I suppose I wasn't very careful and accidentally recorded the faces of some of those whose parents did not give permission for me to post photos or videos of their child on my blog.

This project helped me to see sides of my students that I had never seen before! One of my students that was rather on the quiet, polite side shocked me with his natural directing ability! He took charge and was very decisive in selecting readers, and also gave them a bit of background knowledge and direction before they began to read aloud and during the performance! I was very impressed.

When one group finished reading their plays before the other, Miss Richins gathered those students and talked with them about what they had learned. I took note of this because I think that this reflective time is so important, especially with children this age. I wish that I had included more moments like this in my lessons. I will definitely keep this in mind in the future. Gosh, Miss Richins is such a great example to me.

As I prepared to leave for the last time, my students surprised me with handmade Valentine cards. I was brought to tears at such a sweet gesture that they had done for me! I couldn't help but tear up as I read through the cards later to find that many of my students had written their favorite memories from my lessons. I have included them, along with some of my other favorite Valentine card narratives, in the album here. I was so flattered at how personalized many of them were for me! I was touched that my students remembered so much about me, such as how much I love Disney.

I hope that my students continue to do theatre. I can tell that many of them would truly blossom on the stage, and many of them already have an impressive natural ability for various aspects in theatre, be it acting, directing, designing, playwriting, or stage management! If they continue to participate in theatre, they can not only develop theatre arts skills,  but they can develop communication skills and confidence as well as numerous other skills and abilities as well. In addition, they can make friends and create memories that they will cherish for the rest of their lives.

Lesson 10: Editing (Theatre/Language Arts Integration Lesson)

This was definitely one of my favorite lessons! I love having themes to work around - and I felt that a detective theme would be perfect for an editing adventure! The students would have to search through scripts to find errors to correct and make a note of the mistakes on a handy dandy checklist! The students were very familiar with looking for writing errors and using a checklist in their own class exercises, so I worked with Miss Richins to create a checklist that they would be both comfortable with and challenged by!

I was surprised at how easily I have been able to incorporate Writing Standards in our drama activities throughout my teaching experience!

I wore all black and sunglasses to class, and as soon as the children entered the classroom, they were full of excitement and inquisitiveness. I had stuck misspelled words on the walls and desks around the classroom as well as some descriptive words. I had even borrowed a stuffed cat from my roommate to hide, to add to the script from the hook activity.

The kids ate it up! This lesson was exactly what they needed after working at their desks on their plays for so often. I was pleased at the positive reaction and participation that I received. My students are very competitive, and they were anxious to show me how well they can spell and how quickly they could complete the activity.

I always forget how important it is to provide examples to my students. Miss Richins suggested an example and came up to the front of the classroom to help me show the students what to do while correcting each others' plays and how to mark the word or sentence with a colored pencil.

If I could go back in time, I would have tried to see if my students could have written their plays on a computer. It would have taken a lot more planning and time management, but I think it would have saved a lot of time and frustration for the students because they wouldn't have to keep handwriting stuff over and over. I felt very bad that their plays were going to be all marked up, and I did get a couple of frustrated sighs when I mentioned that we'd be correcting directly on the manuscripts.

After corrections were made, we still had a few minutes left, so I had each student read one line of his or her play for the class as a preview for the final project! I was shocked at how creative and significant many of the stories seemed to be!

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Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

4th Grade

UNIT: Playwriting

UNIT OBJECTIVE: Students will demonstrate their ability to write effective stories by writing a play inspired by a stimulus.

LESSON: Editing (LANGUAGE ARTS INTEGRATION)

LESSON OBJECTIVE: Students will demonstrate their ability to edit effectively by using a checklist to edit their own plays.

THEATRE ARTS CORE STANDARDS:

Drama Standard 1

Playmaking: The student will plan and improvise plays based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history for informal and formal theatre.

Writing Standard 3

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

Objective A. Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.

Objective B. Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations.sequence that unfolds naturally.

Objective C. Use a variety of transitional words and phrases to manage the sequence of events.

Objective E.

Provide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events.

Writing Standard 5

With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.

MATERIALS NEEDED: Dialogue and detective paper strips, editing checklists, example play, colored pencils for students, white board and markers

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Hook: Detective theme! Hide strips of paper with adjectives or higher-level words written on them around the classroom (for example, “terrified”). On these strips of paper, use improper spelling or punctuation. Somewhere in the classroom, set out a dialogue between two characters for the children to read. This dialogue will feature ordinary words with little color or deeper meaning. Instruct each table of students to find two strips of paper, correct what is wrong, and insert it into the dialogue where it fits best, replacing old words or adding to sentences (for example, “terrified” could replace “scared”). Replace one word as an example. The final missing word is→KITCHEN! Give it to the students once they have completed the rest of the words!

Step 1: Individual Practice

Now that the students have been detectives in groups, invite them to be detectives on their own. Have the students trade plays with someone. Give each student a checklist of things to look for and correct as they read the play. Bring an example script in case there are an odd number of students. Using colored pencils, they will go through the scripts and circle punctuation that needs to be changed, underline words that are spelled wrong, using carrots to add in anything else that needs to be added in. Show examples of corrections on the white board.

Step 2: Assessment

Give each student a new checklist. This time, they will read through their own plays, incorporating the notes they were given from Step 1 and using the checklist for their own play.

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LESSON SUPPLEMENTS:

Instructions for hook activity:

Chuck’s cat is missing! He needs the help of a detective to find out what happened to it—and who better than Miss Richins’ class to help him! With the other detectives at your table, work together to find two strips of paper that are hidden around the classroom. Fix any spelling problems by working together, and then tape the new word over a word that is spelled wrong or means the same thing in the dialogue between Chuck and Ms. Bernard! This will help the dialogue to make more sense and can help Chuck discover the true meaning behind Ms. Bernard’s words!

Dialogue between two characters:

Outside Ms. Bernard’s apartment, which is just two doors to the left of Chuck’s apartment.

CHUCK: Ms. Bernard, I noticed that your light was on when I got home last night. Did you happen to see my cat?

MS. BERNARD: Have I seene your cute cat? No! What a shame! Where cood she be?

CHUCK: She must have escaped when I accidentally left the window open when I left for work yesterday morning.

MS. BERNARD: She must be sad, being all alone!

CHUCK: I’ll have to set out some milk outside my door tonight, maybe that will bring her in.

MS. BERNARD: Yes, I know she likes her milk.

CHUCK: How did you know that?

MS. BERNARD: (Stuttering) I… have seen her arownd once or twice. …I walked past your window a few days ago and… saw her happily drinking her brekfasst!

CHUCK: Interesting. She usually sleeps in until 10 or 11 a.m. She doesn’t like mornings very much.

MS. BERNARD: (Glancing into the kitchen) You can say that again. (Catching herself, trying to cover up what she just said)  I mean, you can… pray that you find her agan! Ha! Ha! Anyway… Is she allergic to ennything?

CHUCK: Well, she isn’t allergic to anything, but she actually really hates fish.

MS. BERNARD: Oh, is that so? I never would have guessed! She’s so healthy and smart and pretty, I would have thot that she eats fish all the time!

CHUCK: You seem to know a lot about my cat. Hopefully since you know her so well, you’ll be able to recognize her if you find her.

MS. BERNARD: I will let you no the moment I hear anything!

(As CHUCK walks away, a soft “meow” can be heard from the ______________)

***Replace CUTE with ADORABLE, SAD with MISERABLE, LIKES with LOVES, HAPPILY with EXCITEDLY, PRETTY with BEAUTIFUL

***Correct spelling: seene→seen, cood→could, arownd→around, brekfasst→breakfast, agan→again, ennything→anything, thot→thought

The final missing word is→KITCHEN! Give it to the students once they have completed the rest of the words!

Hidden papers:

ADORABLE

MISERABLE

LOVES

EXCITEDLY

BEAUTIFUL

Have the students correct spelling for the following words:

SEENE

COOD

AROWND

BREKFASST

AGAN

ENNYTHING

THOT

Example word:

NO→KNOW

Final word:

KITCHEN

PLAY EDITING CHECKLIST
I capitalized the beginning of my sentences.
I capitalized proper nouns (names of people, places, and things).
I capitalized the word “I”.
I used correct punctuation at the end of sentences.
I used commas when listing.
I have checked the spelling of words that did not look correct.
At least two characters speak in my play.
My play has a plot (a problem that needs to be solved).
In the end of my play, the problem is solved.

Lesson 9: Script Format

"Teach the children, so it will not be necessary to teach the adults." -Abraham Lincoln

As I thought of a script example that the students would easily understand and be able to relate it to real life, I recalled that many of my students love sports. I thought it would be fun to feature a video from a sporting event featuring announcement dialogue of some kind so that my students could be excited about writing scripts. As I prepared the lesson, I remembered one particular day in class when some of my students, after learning that I am a BYU student, had talked about how funny they think the Scott Sterling video is. I decided to feature the video in my lesson as an example of narration, and the kids ate it up! They were so happy, and they remembered the dialogue really well and were able to quote it when I asked for examples of narration later.

I wanted my students to have more opportunities to act, so instead of just showing examples of scripts, I had volunteers read the examples out loud. I had been focusing so much on making sure they had time to write their scripts that I had been giving them less time to act. I think in the future, instead of doing half-acting half-writing days- which often seem to run out of time for one or the other activity- I will create strictly acting days and strictly writing days. I feel that more can get done with less multitasking, especially with fourth graders.

Once again, I was incredibly grateful to have Miss Richins as a resource. She helped me break down the steps of writing dialogue for the students and provided fantastic examples that really helped the students to understand how to get from point A to point B, instead of jumping to step C.

The students were very excited to write their own dialogue in the Individual Practice step! They wrote one line that a narrator could say to set up the scene, followed by a line that a character in the scene would say. The students then read what they had written for each other. It's a little hard to hear, but a video can be viewed here (I couldn't upload it directly to the blog because my laptop is out of memory. Sorry!). I've also included photos of the students looking for opportunities for dialogue in their stories to turn them into plays!

After working through this lesson, the students made the transition to turning their stories into plays MUCH easier. And to think this lesson wasn't even originally in the plan! I am amazed at how much I have learned about teaching from this experience, as well as about my own abilities and preferences.

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Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

4th Grade

UNIT: Playwriting

UNIT OBJECTIVE: Students will demonstrate their ability to write effective stories by writing a play inspired by a stimulus.

LESSON 8: Script Format

LESSON OBJECTIVE: Students will demonstrate their ability to write dialogue by writing their stories in play format.

THEATRE ARTS CORE STANDARDS:

Standard 1

Playmaking: The student will plan and improvise plays based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history for informal and formal theatre.

Standard 2

Acting: A student will cooperate, imagine and assume roles, explore personal preferences and meanings, and interact in classroom dramatizations.

MATERIALS NEEDED: Projector and screen, script examples, images to project, computer and appropriate connecting cables

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Hook: Stand in a circle. Invite each student to share one line that he or she has planned for his or her story. Ask questions such as: How is dialogue helpful in a story? Answers may include: Helps the audience to understand what’s happening, helps the audience to understand the characters and what they are thinking, helps lead to the next part of the story, etc.

Step 1: Transition

Show the “Scott Sterling” video from Studio C. Ask the students questions such as: In a play, do you think there could be someone announcing what happens? How would this be helpful? Answers may include: Because it would take forever for characters to say it through dialogue, sometimes things happen really fast and it would be hard to understand what’s going on, sometimes the characters can’t or shouldn’t speak, etc. Introduce the children to the concept of a narrator by watching a clip from Into the Woods.

Step 2: Model

On the projector, show students examples of play scripts, one of which having a narrator. Ask questions such as: What do you notice about this script? What do you remember that we talked about last time about scripts? Answers may include writing the character’s name before what they say, every time a character speaks it is called a “line,” etc.

Step 3: Individual Practice

Project images onto a screen featuring a variety of situations, and have the students write a line that a character could say based on that situation. For example, one photo could feature a mean-looking teacher entering a classroom. The kids could write: “TEACHER: CHILDREN! Open your books to page eight hundred and ninety-two.” Etc. Invite each student to read out loud what he or she wrote for the whole class or for the students at their table.

Step 4: Checking for Understanding

Have the students search for moments within their stories that they could insert lines to begin dialogue. Have them write notes in their stories before writing it on a new sheet of paper.

Step 5: Assessment

Have the students pull out a new sheet of paper. Now that they have an idea of what they want the characters to say in their play, have them write it in script format.

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LESSON SUPPLEMENTS:

“Scott Sterling” video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9jXYOH2c0

Into the Woods video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqwzUVsihs8 (00:00-00:52)

Script examples:

Christmas With the Aliens by Nikki Lewis

Lesson 8: Dialogue

"True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own." -Nikos Kazantzakis

I tried to keep this lesson on the shorter side so that I could give the students plenty of time to write their dialogue. However, the lesson ended up taking much more time than I had planned. Although the students grasped the concept and significance of dialogue, they were having trouble understanding script format and finding dialogue opportunities within their stories. This was a major wake-up call for me, and it's during times like these that I am so grateful for the many wonderful teachers throughout my life that have been willing to stray from the lesson plan and stick to a topic before moving on to ensure that every child understands. I now see that it isn't easy, and it can very much throw things off. I had expected to be finished with dialogue after one lesson, but I could now see that my students would need at least one more day of strictly dialogue focus. I had expected my students to make the transition to writing dialogue so easily. I had failed to realize that with fourth graders, I can't assume that they will connect the dots and fill in the blanks on their own - they need to be guided every step of the way until they can do it on their own. I was very grateful that I had enough time in my schedule that I was able to include one more lesson day. I am also very grateful for Miss Richins and her patience and being willing to adjust her schedule so that I could come for an additional lesson.

As the students wrote their dialogue for the step 4 activity, they were very anxious to read their scenes for each other. However, I hadn't included it in my lesson plan and, since we were running short on time, I figured it was more important that they work on their own stories than perform for each other. I felt bad about disappointing them, but sometimes priorities have to be met. I learned once again how quickly an hour goes by and that I should always be prepared for when things go wrong.

Miss Richins gave me some wonderful pointers of exactly how to go about breaking things down so that the students can understand the concept. She is an invaluable resource to me, and I will never forget the things that I've learned just from observing her in the classroom!

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Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

4^th Grade

UNIT: Playwriting

UNIT OBJECTIVE: Students will demonstrate their ability to write effective stories by writing a play inspired by a stimulus.

LESSON 8: Dialogue

LESSON OBJECTIVE: Students will demonstrate their ability to write dialogue by writing dialogue for their stories.

THEATRE ARTS CORE STANDARDS:

Standard 1

Playmaking: The student will plan and improvise plays based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history for informal and formal theatre.

Objective 3

Describe and explain plot structure in terms of beginning, middle, climax, and end.

Standard 2

Acting: A student will cooperate, imagine and assume roles, explore personal preferences and meanings, and interact in classroom dramatizations.

Standard 4

Analyzing and Constructing Meanings: The student will explain personal preferences and construct meanings by responding to improvised and scripted scenes and to theatre, film, television, and other electronic media productions.

Objective 1

Analyze and explain how the wants and needs of characters in a dramatic presentation are similar to and different from one’s own wants and needs in real life.

MATERIALS NEEDED: Whiteboard, markers, sentence papers, scene situation papers

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Hook: Give each table of students a strip of paper with a sentence on it. When you point at the table, have the students at that table say that sentence out loud in unison. Point at different tables to somewhat make sense of what is being said, but leave room to have fun and once in awhile throw in a sentence that doesn’t make sense in context. Examples of sentences can be found in the lesson supplements.

Step 1: Transition

Ask the students questions such as: Why did this dialogue not work sometimes? Answers may include: It sounded funny, it didn’t make sense sometimes, etc. When did this dialogue work? Answers may include: When responses were natural.

Step 2: Checking for Understanding

Have the students select two storybooks from the bookshelf and write down one example of dialogue from each book.

Step 3: Model

Get examples of dialogue that the students found in books. Write some of them on the white board in the format that would be seen in a play.

Step 4: Group Practice

Provide each table with a scene situation. In their tables, have the students write dialogue that could be featured in the scene (encourage them to keep it 5 lines or under). Have them consider what each character is feeling and what he/she wants as they write the dialogue. Have them read it out loud to one other team.

Step 5: Assessment

Have the students consider the following questions as they write dialogue for their stories: What is the character feeling? What does the character want? What could the character say to try to get what he/she wants?

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LESSON SUPPLEMENTS

Write the following on strips of paper for the hook activity:

“Did you go to basketball practice?”

“No. I’m sick today.”

“I’m sorry. Do you need anything?”

“A sandwich would be nice.”

“PB&J?”

“Sure, sounds good. Thanks!”

Write the following on strips of paper for scene scenarios:

A brother and sister fight over the last cookie.

Three astronauts are stranded on the moon.

The power goes out at a birthday party—leaving the guests in the dark.

Four friends play a game of volleyball until the ball starts to deflate.

Two sisters get lost while taking their dog for a walk.

A boy is walking home from school when he hears an old lady calling for help.