Classroom Activities
Lesson One- Takin' It to the Street
In this opening activity students adapt the prose or poetry of a novel to an audio play.
Special consideration must be given to choosing the text, transforming literature into an audio script scene and producing the final audio scene. When choosing an excerpt to produce with students, discuss the attributes that would make a compelling audio play.
The text that has been selected for this activity is the Prologue delivered by the chorus in Romeo and Juliet. The scene from The Help used in the introduction is also appropriate for this activity.
Anticipatory Set: Students will individually answer the following questions before they read the prologue which tells the entire story in fourteen lines.
1.Identify and briefly describe three long-standing rivalries in today's world.
2.Pick one of those rivalries, and explain when and why it started.
3.How does the rivalry affect the daily lives of the people involved?
4.What happens if two people from opposite sides become friends or fall in love?
5.What would it take to resolve the rivalry?
6.What do you see as the difference between love and infatuation?
7.What does it mean to be star-crossed or to say that something is not in the stars?
8.
Direct Instruction: Categorize student responses from the above questions and rate the most frequent answers on a scale of one to three. Have students read the prologue and reformulate it into prose paragraphs. Then students will have to decide if they are going to add a narrator, add lines to the prose, include stage directions, or paraphrase their reformulation as they write a scene to turn into an audio script. With poetic language it is important to consider what is gained and lost when words are replaced and lines paraphrased. Students write the script based on their decisions of what to include and what to leave out.
Activity: Students are assigned roles in the audio play. Each group is determined by the number of characters in the script. Students record their performance of the script, enacting all of the voices in the dialogue. Next, students create original sound effects and insert them at appropriate places in the performance. Students must choose a musical clip to play at the beginning and ending of the scene, before and after the narration of the dialogue. Students use multitrack audio editing software to mix all of these audio clips together into one track (garage band). Students must cite all of their sources.
Assessment: Student rubric (see appendix). Students will also write a formal peace proposal to the Prince of Verona outlining strategies to permanently end the feud between the royal families and ordinary citizens.
Lesson Two – Has Anyone Seen Scene?
This lesson takes place after students have been introduced to key passages or film excerpts that introduce the desired character. Be sure to include the background information students have learned in the opening activity. Students are introduced to the genre of fan fiction in this lesson. Fan fiction is writing in which students write original material based on existing stories, characters, and settings. It connects to the goals of intrinsically motivating students as well as enabling them to participate in writing communities where they share ideas.
Anticipatory Set: Students will choose a fan fiction story based on a movie, graphic novel, or novel that the teacher has selected and create an original story based on the stories of others. To begin the process students will enact the segment of film or excerpted text on stage. The enactment should be no longer than five minutes. The enactment serves as the springboard for the creation of the fan fiction story types. The web is full of examples of fan fiction writing created by students.
Direct Instruction: Discuss and model with students the following fan fiction story types (Shamburg) 2 0:
Missing Scene:
A scene that is not in the original story, but would make sense in the original story. The missing scene would fill in some information that the original story left out. For example, what is the proper way to handle uninvited guests to a royal party?
Alternate Perspective:
The story is told from the point of view of another character. For example, Juliet's father may pen the beginning of his memoir with thoughts of what and how he felt when he discovered her lifeless body on the morning of her wedding. How would this information change the story?
Alternate Universe:
Characters from one story enter the world of another story. For example, what would happen if the soothsayer from Julius Caesar came to Juliet in a dream and predicted her death? Would this change the course of events between her and Romeo?
Sequel:
The story that happens after the original story. For example, what happens after the white women in The Help discover that their domestics actually wrote the vignettes that supposedly occurred in a fictitious town?
Prequel:
The story before the original story. For example, what was Brutus's position before he became a member of the Senate?
Self-Insert:
The story is rewritten with an avatar (representation of the author). For example, what would the conspirators be like if you were to join them in the story?
Activity: Each student chooses source material that he is a fan of and writes three paragraphs explaining the plot of the source material and why it is interesting. Students then create a fan fiction story based on the source material and submit a written transcript of their choice before staging, recording, or depicting their version of events. This transcript is reviewed by the teacher for appropriate language and themes. Students begin their performance with a brief (15-45 seconds) explanation of the source material using the three paragraphs they have written. Students then present the fan fiction drama that employs stage props, dialogue and narration. Students must include endnotes and cite sources of their story, including music, if it is used in their performance.
Assessment: Teacher created rubric that addresses the following areas:
Background: Clearly and concisely explains the source material to a person unfamiliar with it enough so that the listener can enjoy the original fan fiction.
Original: New story is original and substantively extends the characters in the source material.
Listener Interest: Events in fan fiction would interest both fans and those unfamiliar with the source material.
Citation of Sources: Clear credit of resources in file from audio, printed, and web sources.
Ethics: All course rules are followed consistently throughout the process
Lesson Three- Character Interview
The purpose of the character interview is for students to interpret and draw conclusions from letters, newspaper articles, advertisements, and other primary sources that relate to a character. In perusing these documents students become invested in the lives and experiences of fictional and nonfictional characters. It allows them the perspective and experience to expand beyond the information given in a story and make reasonable assumptions about the actions and motives of characters.
Anticipatory Set: Students will take the role of dynamic and stock characters in the text the class is currently studying. They will debate an issue, idea, or interesting piece of information that they deem important. For example, is Romeo and Juliet effective without the Prologue or Friar Laurence? To begin the role play students will have to research the following:
How does the narrator describe the character?
How does the character describe himself?
How do other characters describe the character?
What are the three biggest actions and decisions of the character? These could have happened before or during the timeframe of the story.
Direct Instruction: Provide students with a central question to explore that reveals significant information about the character. Then guide them in selecting quotations and other material that speaks to one or more dimensions of a character's role and development in a story. This information can then be used as students prepare a minimum of twelve questions they will use to interview their character. Remember that students should view and listen to interviews on the radio and television.
Activity: Assign students to pairs and have each pair choose a story with an interesting character to interview. Students should predetermine the purpose of their interview: inform, warn, or persuade others. Next, they should select a topic or two that will guide their interview. For example, a topic might be, describe Brutus' problem before he joined the conspirators or how might a betrayal affect all people involved. Depending on the topic(s) students will select certain background information to help the audience fully understand the topic. The interview questions should also be interesting since you do not want your audience to take a nap!
Guiding Questions (examples)
Interviewer:
Why did you (important action or decision)?
How do you (important action or decision)?
But (another character) says you are…
So you say (another character) is wrong when (he or she) says…
Then why do many people think you are (narrator's description)….
Interviewee:
Remember when I was described as a (other character's description)
Most people would call me (author's description)
I was like that at one point but now I'm ….
Assessment: Consider if students selected facts and decisions from text, developed questions and answers based on a careful reading of the text, enacted an engaging and credible simulation of an interview, and used the material of others effectively.
Lesson Four-Writing Prequels or Sequels
In recent years contemporary novelists have produced sequels to some of the great classics and students can create these too. A sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice suggests what might have happened once Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth are married, and a sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind continues the romance of Scarlet O'Hara and Rhett Butler. This lesson will help students write a prequel or sequel to a text. Students will develop a piece of writing that demonstrates an in depth understanding of a character within the original text which may include actions that occurred before or after the story.
Anticipatory Set: Choose a character you would like to be the focus of your writing. Ask yourself the following questions and take notes:
Which part of the original story do I want to connect my narrative to?
What situation do I want to put the character into?
Which (if any) other characters will be important to my narrative?
Which key qualities of the character is it important to show?
What attitudes should the character express?
How would the character respond to this situation?
How should language be used to develop character?
Direct Instruction: In this activity students will develop a narrative around a character they know well from their recently completed text study. The story needs to show your central character behaving in a way that is typical of his or her behavior in the original text. However, the character will be placed in a new situation. Please provide exemplars for students to dissect before they begin writing. The narrative should be based on one incident. Consider the following possibilities:
Write about an event that occurs before the beginning of the original text.
Develop a story around an event that is referred to but not developed in the original text (i.e. what happens when a character goes away)
Write about in detail an event that occurs after the original text ends.
Develop a story where the character is placed in a different era and show how he might fit into a different society.
Create a planning chart that identifies a main character, his traits, his situation, imagery, and motivation, and language from the original text used to describe him.
Assessment: Consider the following: ways in which the narrative reflect the original text, are ideas developed and integrated convincingly, does the writer indicate accurate awareness of the place and time of the story, does the writing use sophisticated language appropriately to create a sense of the past, does the writer include physical gestures, language, and characteristics that link back to the original text.
Comments: