LESSON #9: Using the Work (Rehearsal Day)
OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of effective rehearsal by rehearsing on their own and providing a written account of what they were able to accomplish.
TEXTS, TECHNOLOGIES, and MATERIALS:
- The following meme to display at the beginning of class: Lesson 9.Meme
DAY PLAN:
“Take Action”: What was one thing you developed with your play yesterday?
Lesson Plan:
Today students are going to take everything they have worked on over the past couple days of rehearsal and smash it all together to create a fantastic performance!
- What is a fantastic performance?
- Take the final rubric (at the end of this unit) and walk through it with the class. This can either be printed out or simply projected.
- They should already have a basic idea of the expectations, but this should help them see the specifics of what is being looked for in their project.
Point out that, like the meme displayed, they are all doing what Shakespeare did as he created his works. They are being given the opportunity to be inventive and creative. After all, for the majority of his plays (if not all of them) Shakespeare took stories that were well know and re-created them. Not only that but he made them his own by inventing words and creating changes to the stories that made them relatable to the people at the time.
Remind students that they have today, one preview day, and one last day of rehearsal before they perform for the whole class.
- While today is a general rehearsal day, let them know that they will have to report at the end of class what they personally improved. Not what the group worked on, but what they individually did.
- Although today is a fairly open rehearsal day, they need to follow the guidelines given to them for their rehearsal. Project the following suggestions up front so everyone can see.
- Run through your performance and focus on how your body and voice are telling the story.
- Run through your performance and focus especially on the story line. Does the story make sense? If it doesn’t, focus on the parts that throw the story off and find ways to fix those parts.
- Who in your group doesn’t have a very large part? How can you incorporate their characters into the story more?
- What props or costumes will you need for your scene? Who will bring them? Can they all be incorporated in the next few days or should you try to simplify?
- What part of your performance is NOT ready for an audience tomorrow? What can you do today to make it ready?
Closure: About five minutes before the end of class time, have the students pause and write down three things that they personally improved on for their group performance today. They can use just a piece of lined paper for this. Once they have completed the task, they need to turn in the paper.