by Alex Taylor
EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVE:
Students will demonstrate their ability to assimilate what they’ve learned about playwriting by working on their scripts.
STANDARDS:
Utah Standard L1.T.CR.3: Use correct form and structure to create a scene or play with a be-
ginning, middle, and end that includes full character development, believable dialogue, and logical plot outcomes.
MATERIALS NEEDED:
Copies of the Playwriting Checklist, computers in a media center or lab setting for each student to be able to work on (remind students to save their work
TEACHING PRESENTATION:
WARM UP/HOOK:
Conduct the Capulet Activity: Assign partners randomly. Tell the students that one person in the partnership is Juliet and the other is Lord Capulet. Give them the background for this activity:
The Capulet mansion is HUGE – Juliet’s room is on the fifth floor in one end of the mansion and Lord Capulet’s office is on the twentieth floor in the other end of the mansion. The building is so large that it would take a full day to go from one end of the mansion to the other. Juliet has just been asked to Junior Prom by Romeo, the star football quarterback. Lord Capulet is a bit strict with Juliet and overprotective. She needs to receive her daddy’s permission to go to Prom, especially since Romeo is a Montague. The Montagues tried to merge with a company to overtake the Capulet business. Romeo needs his answer immediately or he will ask Rosalind to go to Prom with him. The only way that Juliet and her father can communicate quickly is through writing notes and send them with homing pigeons flying back and forth between them (this is all before phones and email of course!). Their objectives: Juliet – to get permission to go to Prom with Romeo, Lord Capulet – to keep her away from Romeo.
Start the activity by having all of the Juliet’s take one minute to write and get permission to go to Prom with Romeo. After that timed minute is up, let the Lord Capulets read what she wrote and take one minute to respond to Juliet – and to tell her “No.” Next Juliet has 45 seconds to plead her case. Same with Daddy Capulet. Finally, give Juliet and her dad only 30 seconds to get what they want. No more writing because the homing pigeon died of exhaustion.
STEP 1: Transition
Let some of the partnerships share their dialogue back and forth. Laugh and enjoy the different ways the characters tried to reach their objectives. Share that while this is an exaggeration of things, it helps to see how important an objective is and how to build action and raise the stakes by providing obstacles and conflict to the differing objectives.
STEP 2: Instruction
Encourage the students to keep on writing their plays whether they start at the beginning, middle or end. Once a draft is done, teach them to read it over for content, proof-read for typos, etc., and start with re-writes and polishing.
STEP 3: Checking for Understanding
Give the students copies of the Playwriting Checklist to double-check their own work.
STEP 4: Individual Practice
Allow the students to use the rest of the class period to write their plays. As the students write, circulate among them to ensure they are on-task and to answer any questions and provide any help that you can.
While it is up to each individual teacher to determine when the play is due, one suggestion is to have two days of writing in-class (but not the entire class period – give enough time for the students to really write and accomplish something, but not so much that they waste a bunch of time talking and thinking about their play). You can have the students print out and turn in their “dailies” from the first day of writing to you for quick grading and feedback for the second day. Then you can have them finish up their scripts at home. Be sure that you have each student save their work and take it home or email it to themselves so that they will have access to their work.
ASSESSMENT:
Students can be assessed through participation in the Capulet Activity and by the work they wrote today.
SUPPLEMENT: