I really like your idea and have a few suggestions for implementing it, if you get the chance in student teaching or in your career! My concern is the time frame- only two weeks? Perhaps you could let them write the play over the whole semester; or each group write one act, then put all of them together and see how wacky and confusing it gets! You might get to try this in student teaching, but my concern is the difficulty of conveying the structure of plays and how they are written "briefly". After teaching one of Shakespeare's plays, and also a more modern one by a playwright like Tennessee Williams, then you could let them pick which style to follow. Perhaps you could point out the figurative language in those plays that you choose to implement to establish figurative language in this genre. As Dr. Strange suggested, videoing the plays could be a good idea, and may save time. The students could record themselves acting out their play or their act, then show it to the class. Some students are less nervous showing a video of themselves than having to act in front of their peers, so it could take off some of the stress of shy kids! Also, kids do love videos as witnessed by the sensational popularity of Vine, YouTube, etc. Sorry this comment ran a little long! You designed a very exciting opportunity for your students that would be a refreshing change from other, more structured classes; it just needs a little tweaking! Hope you get to try this out and show off the results to us when you do :) Carly
Very well done but needs some use of technology. What about videoing the plays. And it needs a rubric for evaluation.
ReplyDeleteOther than that very well done.
Sherri,
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea and have a few suggestions for implementing it, if you get the chance in student teaching or in your career! My concern is the time frame- only two weeks?
Perhaps you could let them write the play over the whole semester; or each group write one act, then put all of them together and see how wacky and confusing it gets!
You might get to try this in student teaching, but my concern is the difficulty of conveying the structure of plays and how they are written "briefly". After teaching one of Shakespeare's plays, and also a more modern one by a playwright like Tennessee Williams, then you could let them pick which style to follow. Perhaps you could point out the figurative language in those plays that you choose to implement to establish figurative language in this genre.
As Dr. Strange suggested, videoing the plays could be a good idea, and may save time. The students could record themselves acting out their play or their act, then show it to the class. Some students are less nervous showing a video of themselves than having to act in front of their peers, so it could take off some of the stress of shy kids! Also, kids do love videos as witnessed by the sensational popularity of Vine, YouTube, etc.
Sorry this comment ran a little long! You designed a very exciting opportunity for your students that would be a refreshing change from other, more structured classes; it just needs a little tweaking! Hope you get to try this out and show off the results to us when you do :)
Carly