Day 1 – Intro to Unit: Subtext & Themes (Shorter Day)

National Standard:

TH:Cn11.1.I.a. Explore how cultural, global, and historic belief systems affect creative choices in a drama/theatre work
TH:Cn10.1.II.a. Choose and interpret a drama/theatre work to reflect or question personal beliefs.

Other National Standard Met But Not Assessed:

TH:Re7.1.II.a. Demonstrate an understanding of multiple interpretations of artistic criteria and how each might be used to influence future artistic choices of a drama/theatre work. TH:Re8.1.II.b. Apply concepts from a drama/theatre work for personal realization about cultural perspectives and understanding.

TH:Pr4.1.II.a. Discover how unique choices shape believable and sustainable drama/theatre work.

State Standards:

Standard L2.T.CO.1: Choose and interpret a drama/theatre work to reflect or question personal beliefs.
Standard L3.T.CO.3: Examine contemporary social, cultural, or global issues through different forms of drama/theatre work.

Other State Standards Met But Not Assessed:

Standard L2/L3.T.P.5: Use voice to communicate meaning through volume, pitch, tone, rate of speed, and vocal clarity.
Standard L3.T.R.2: Articulate responses based on personal experiences when participating in or observing a drama/theatre work.

Enduring Understandings:

1. Students will understand that theatre can help them explore contemporary issues.
2. Students will understand that texts can have hidden meanings.
3. Students will understand that people value different things.
4. Students will understand that authors write for their audience.

Essential Questions:

1. How do we explore contemporary issues?
2. What themes are the most important to explore?
3. How do we evaluate art?
4. How do we communicate?

Objective:

Students will explore, evaluate, and choose contemporary themes through a class brainstorm activity and making tableaux.

Materials:

1. Large empty space
2. Drama 2/3 Daily Question
3. D2/3 - CS Brainstorm
4.Projector, Projector Screen, Laptop, HDMI Cable, and HDMI to USB-C adaptor

Instructions:
Hook 1 – Daily Question (10 minutes)

1. Put the Drama 2/3 Daily Question up on the board and have the students scan the code and add their answer.
2. Read off answers and have the student attached to each answer raise their hand and give us a brief reason why they said that.

a. Suggested Question: What is your favorite pair of shoes? Hook 2 – “Look at your shoes” (10 minutes)

1. “Now, we’re going to play a game!”

2. Have the students get into partnerships (if there’s an odd number of students, there can be

   a group of three), then start explaining the game.

3. “This game is called, ‘Look at your shoes’. The aim of the game is to say this sentence in

   as many different ways as possible. And each of these ways should make the sentence mean something slightly or majorly different. For instance, maybe one way of saying it is a compliment, another is trying to secretly let them know they have puke on their shoes, etc. BUT you cannot change any of the words. It’s all about how you say it, the inflection, the pauses, the physical actions, etc.”

4. “You’ll have 5 minutes to come up with as many different ways as possible. You’ll have to go back and forth between partners and try to remove any waiting time between saying it, just snap back and forth quickly to come up with as many as you can. Don’t worry about counting how many ways you’ve done it, focus on saying the sentence in new ways. 5 minutes is going to seem long, but it should help you find some of those weird choices you wouldn’t go to first. The differences between times saying it can be subtle, but they have to be different. It can help to think the precise sentence that is hiding underneath ‘look at your shoes’”
5. Check For Understanding: Have the students give a brief thumbs up or thumbs down if they understand how the game works. If they don’t understand, take a question or two to clarify instructions.
6. Once the class understands, give them about 5 whole minutes to come up with different subtexts for the sentence. It may be helpful to set a timer. Then once the 5 minutes is up, gather the class back together.

Brief Discussion (10 minutes)

1. Now, have the students find a different partner and talk with this partner about some of their favorite ways of saying “look at your shoes”.

2. After a few minutes of this discussion, gather attention again, and ask for any students who want to share something their partner said.

3. After this, if the conversation is going well, perhaps add one of the following discussion questions:

   1. How did having to do so many different choices change the kinds of choices you made?
   2. Was it clear what your partner was trying to tell you underneath the words? Why?

   3. If this was a line in a show, would you have tried this many choices? What would

      happen if you tried more choices like this?

4. Then, close the conversation by thanking the students for sharing and participating.

Instruction (~5 minutes)

1. “This next unit is Contemporary Scenes. So we’re traveling from Shakespeare and the late 1500s/early 1600s all the way to post-1900. Instead of using old-timey language and iambic pentameter, we use modern language. So some of our tools and techniques will still work, some won’t, and we might need some new ones.”
2. “One of these ‘new’ tools is subtext. Shakespeare didn’t do a ton of subtext, because characters just said everything. If a character lied, they’re going to tell the audience about it. So a lot of Shakespeare is just openly told. But that’s not really how we talk today. We don’t always say exactly what we mean. After all, we just came up with 5 minutes worth of how to say something without saying something. So you all already know how to do it, you just need to remember to do it when it comes to these plays. When you read a line, think about what the character actually means.”
3. “So even though contemporary plays aren’t Shakespeare, the text is still super important as it was written and there can still be clues left by the author. And subtext is just one tool, we’ll talk about more tools to use with Contemporary Scenes throughout this unit.”
4. “Another thing contemporary plays help with is that they talk about contemporary issues. There are some things Shakespeare doesn’t exactly talk about, even if there are still themes we can relate to today, it just works differently with contemporary plays”.

Brainstorm Activity - (15-20 minutes)

1. “Speaking of contemporary issues, in this unit, I want us to work with themes and ideas that you guys find important. So let’s brainstorm a whole bunch of themes and ideas and issues that you want to explore or feel passionate about. We’ll come up with a whole bunch at first, so don’t worry about if it’s a ‘good one’ to explore or not, yet. Just let us know what’s on your mind.”
2. Now, pull up an empty google doc ( D2/3 - CS Brainstorm ) for the brainstorm activity. Have students raise their hands to share a theme/idea/issue, then I will write it down in the document. Keep brainstorming for a little while (5-10 minutes), until the students aren’t coming up with many more ideas.

a. NOTE: Also encourage students to come up with themes/ideas/issues that aren’t as personal/deep/traumatic, some of them can be happy/positive or shallower (e.g.

connection, being indecisive, falling in love, not getting picked for the part you

wanted, etc) – it doesn’t all have to be war and depression and discrimination
3. Then, depending on the length of the list and the vibes of the class, there are a few different options for the next step (additionally, these options can be combined or used in

succession)
a. Option 1 – start putting the themes/ideas/issues into categories to make the list a

bit smaller and more manageable (e.g. put depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc into a category on mental health/disorders; put not getting picked for a part, not liking family, etc into a category on isolation/rejection; put connection, falling in love, friendship into a category on connection)

i. Have the class help categorize these so they still feel seen and recognized in the way they want to be

2. Option 2 – start going through the list and vote on if each theme/idea/issue should be kept on the list or removed

   1. Again, do this with the whole class, determine how this will go with the class.
   2. Maybe everyone can vote as many times as they want and if 50% of the class raises their hand, the theme stays, if less than 50% the theme goes
   3. Maybe everyone gets two votes and the 5 themes with the most votes stay

3. Option 3 – have the class get into small groups (2-4 people) and each group picks

   an issue they’d like to keep on the list

4. Option 4 – something else that comes to mind

4. Once the list has been narrowed down, preferably to 4-6 themes/ideas/issues, explain that this is the list of themes we’ll be kind of focusing on for this unit.

“Assessment”/Wrap-Up – Tableaux Activity - (10-15 minutes)
NOTE: if we start running out of time, prioritize finishing the brainstorm activity and cut the tableaux activity

1. Now, have the class start thinking about which of the 4-6 themes/ideas/issues they personally want to focus on. Give them a minute or two to think about it and have them give me a thumbs up once they’ve decided.
2. Once most of the class has decided which one they want to focus on, have them form groups for each theme/idea/issue. If there are any people who haven’t decided yet, let them know they can change their mind next class and they should just pick one of them to try it out for today.
3. Now, in their groups they will have a few minutes to come up with a tableau or “frozen picture” that represents their theme/idea/issue. This doesn’t have to be a realistic picture, it can be metaphorical.
4. After a few minutes, check to see how much more time they’ll need to finish their tableaux. Give them probably a few more minutes (but there needs to be time to show the tableaux before class ends).

5. Once time is up/everyone is ready, have each group show their tableaux to the class. After each tableaux, have a few audience members give the tableaux a caption/title (e.g. “the breath of connection”, “i’m sorry”, etc.), then applaud for the group.
6. Once each group has gone, have everyone give one more round of applause.

7. To finish up class, thank the students for their work and tell them to start thinking about contemporary plays (post-1900) they might want to work with. Also let them know

   they’ll have to pick their theme by next class.

a. NOTE: Again, remind students they should be bringing their chromebooks every

day to class because we’ll probably be using them