Scripting Word Problems

Combining Theatre, Wrtiting and Math into one awesome lesson.

Math, my least favorite subject. I do not like math, when we had to take math in college I literally took a class that was nicknamed among the Fine Arts students as "math for actors and their goldfish." I do not like math, but I realize that I and my students need to be exposed to more math. So I am trying to step outside my comfort zone for some of my assignments this year.

Students love turning Math word problems into scripts. 

Last week my third grade students were working on elements in a script. They learned the parts of a script and how to compose simple scenes. Then it came time for the closing assignment. Students had to form groups of three and write a script. Typically I just let students pick their topics, but as I said I'm trying to push myself this year. So I walked myself down to the math teacher to see what they ere studying in math. Turns out in math my students were studying two things (oh good more challenge!) 

The students were studying 100s grouping and greater than less than. So when we set about creating our scripts they had a choice in topics.

Here is how I organized this lesson. I am including my instructions and one of my student's scripts. I will also link to my TPT store for the rubric download for acting and rehearsing.

Basic Theatre Rubrics

1. Choose a standard- students needed to choose what type of math problem they wanted to solve.

2. Write your numerical math expression- I am not sure if this is the correct terminology but basically have your students write and solve the math problem they want to tell a story about (7 groups of 100=700 or 27>25). If you want to control how hard a problem you give, you could also assign them a problem from a textbook or worksheet.

3. Brianstorm your story- this is where we start integrating in story elements students had to write out their characters, setting, and conflict. Beginning, middle, end, etc

4. Rough draft of script- have students write out their script. To help ease problems I make sure to tell them that each student is responsible for writing their own lines. Helps stop a lot of fights.

5. Check your math- this is a very important step that I skipped when I first was assigning this problem. Students sometimes get so excited writing their script, that their math goes wonky. 1,200 becomes 12000 or something else. Just make sure they go back and double check the math.

6. Rehearse the play- remind students about finding entrances and exits and useing levels to create stage pictures.

7. Perform the play- let students perform the plays and have the audience solve the math problems. 

I love how they use stage directions and that one of the characters makes a mistake in the math. These scripts don't have to be long, they just need to solve the problem!

Well this is my idea for math word problem scripts. I love that this assignment integrates math, writing and theatre. It was a great way to get some cross curricular lessons for my kids. I hope you will give them a try! Let me know if they worked out for you! What math problems did your kids solve?

Creativity part two

Now it is time for part two of my creativity post. You can check out the first part HERE. Most of these tips are tips that can work either for a classroom teacher or ideally, for a specials teacher who sees the same children year after year. This is definitely a process for building creativity. 

Start early

If you are a core teacher, start fostering creativity early in the year. If you set a precedent that creativity is acceptable, then students will be much more willing to continue being creative throughout the year. Students are always more willing to try new things at the beginning. They like to please their teachers early on. If you wait until later they will be much more concerned with their friends and looking "cool". 

For specials teachers, begin fostering creativity in kindergarten. I am always amazed at what Kindergartners can come up with when given the opportunity. This also helps set a precedent in your classroom. Student know that they must be creative in your room. This year is the first year that my 5th grade students will have spent all 6 years with me (they started as kindergartners in my program). Their creative ability is beyond any I have experienced before this. The fact that they have been being creative since kindergarten has really given them the confidence to push their limits. Their improvisational skills rival some 9th graders. So PROUD of them!

Start easy

Just like you scaffold core subjects like math and reading, you need to scaffold creativity as well. When you begin teaching creativity start with very simple tasks. Check out my creativity brain breaks for some ideas. I love to start off with games because kids think of  it as "fun" and not "learning;" it makes them much more willing to try new things. Once they have had some success with creativity, start assigning small assignments for them to get creative with. Make sure you work with them and encourage students to go farther. After they are good at small assignments, try a huge project. I love the bunraku assignment we use. Check it out here. This is a great assignment for students to be creative both in their writing and art. 

Give lots of opportunities

the more opportunities and ways to be creative, the more likely students will try. When creativity becomes part of their daily routine, students are more likely to integrate creativity. Try to make sure every day/week has at least one or two creative assignments. This does not need to be intense projects. It could simply be a simple game or writing assignment. But practice makes perfect, even in creativity. The more often they are creative, the more creative they will become. 

Praise

Students need confidence. When you are creative, you are very vulnerable. Students want to make sure they what they are doing is acceptable. The more praise you can give, the more confident they will become, the more likely they will be to become more creative. Students love praise. When they are really creative give lots of praise. Let them present/perform for the class or school; they will get tons of praise from the people who matter most (their peers). Find creative ways to praise the students. Have them display artwork in the building. Praise them in front of other teachers. Let them go and perform for another class. Try to do anything you can to get them excited about creating.

Have fun

Creativity happens when you are having fun. Don't be so serious. Sit back and relax!

It amazes me how creative my students are. I love teaching creativity in my classroom. I firmly believe that the jobs of the future rely on workers ability to be creative. If we do not take time to be creative now, students will never learn how to stretch their minds and push their limits. Even though creativity is not a specific common core standard, it is still one of the most important things we can teach our students. 

How do you teach creativity? Link up to this post in the comments and we can create a database of the best creative projects for students! 

Students as Puppeteers, How to Make 80 Rod Puppets in a Week

I teach a lot of students. I mean I have a crazy number of students (over 500). This means that when we want to do any sort of art project I have to be able to do it for an entire grade level. This means that 80 kids need to be able to create puppets in the same week. It's a little overwhelming to say the least. For my upper grades I really try to do a meaningful puppet with them, so we create rod puppets.

I love rod puppets. They are easy to make and look great. I also like to introduce Japanese Bunraku Puppetry with this unit, even though technically Bunraku puppets are much more complex then the rod puppets we make, the students get a kick out of learning about a new culture. I use this video to introduce Japanese theatre. The link on amazon is down but you can probably find it somewhere. After the students study Bunraku we are ready to make our puppets.

Materials per puppet (buying in bulk helps save money)

12 in dowel any diameter

Masking tape

Newsprint or any scrap paper

Tissue paper or construction paper (I like tissue but construction works and is cheaper)

Googly eyes

Popsicle sticks rubber bands

Craft accessories (yarn, scrap fabric, pipe cleaners, feathers, anything you want rid of)

1 square foot of fabric (ask your parents, fabric stores or friends, there is usually someone who will donate this, I haven't bought fabric for years, if you can't get anyone to donate go to good will and buy lots of sheets, you can get plenty of colors for so much cheaper than at a fabric store)

The cost for me to do an entire grade level is relatively cheap

80 dowels -$10

Sheets - $10

Scrap paper - free

Tape - free 

Popsicle sticks 1000 count - $4

Rubber bands - free

Eye 700 count - $6

Yarn assorted -$8

Other accessories - free (scavenge your room and others, people always have stuff they are throwing out.)

Total about $40 (that's about $0.50 a student so not to shabby)

Step one.

Give each student a rod, square of fabric, tape, scrap paper, and tissue paper. 

Crumple the scrap paper into a ball and tape onto top of rod. I like to make a ball with one piece of paper, then cover it with more onto the stick until it is the size I want. Tape paper to stick head. Make sure some paper is actually taped to the stick.

Step two.

Once you have a big head (haha) add tissue paper to give you puppet a face color, tape this down.

Step three.

Cut a small hole in the middle of the fabric. Pull the fabric up over the stick and tape in place underneath. Hold puppet up. You now have the basic puppet done!

Adding arms 

If I have time on the first day we add the arms, if not wait until the end of 2nd day. Add Popsicle stick to end of fabric secure with rubber band.

Final Product.

Allow kids to decorate their puppets. To save supplies I tell the kids they can choose only 4 items. Every one chooses different supplies and their puppets are always end up being as unique as they are.

I always like to have the students perform with their puppets after they make them. This year we learned about flashback and foreshadowing. Students had to write a mini scene that represented one of those vocabulary words and perform it with the puppet. This turned out great! The students always love this project and they learn a ton about theatre!

I hope you liked this project. Let me know if you try it in your class I would love to know how it turns out.

Script Analysis- Dramatic Elements

Please Take Care My Dog Smells. This is the sentence I teach my kids when we begin our unit on script analysis. In my experience when a teacher says "today we are going to learn about script analysis" almost all the class shuts off. They groan and whine and complain. Lots of kids think that analyzing scripts is too hard they give up before they even try. Teaching students this silly sentence helps make script analysis easy.

Aristotle said that there are six things that make a good play. Plot, Theme, Character, Music, Dialogue, and Spectacle. Memorizing my silly sentence helps students memorize the six aspects of a good play. I have found that once they can identify the dramatic elements, they have a much easier job in analyzing the script.

I like to start and finish with plot. Most students know the basics about plot. It has a beginning middle and end. There needs to be a conflict and resolution. Most students as young as first grade are good at identifying beginning middle and end. At the beginning of the lesson this is where I start. After we cover the other dramatic elements I come back to plot and teach the plot diagram. Students learn about exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement. I find that coming back to the plot diagram after you have covered the others elements allows the students more time to gain confidence in script analysis. Feel free to use my plot diagram poster that I provided. You can also download the entire packet on teacherspayteachers.

Check out my entire Plot Diagram Packet at TPT

Theme is another difficult element at first. Help the students by starting off with fairy tales and working your way to more difficult literature. Making an anchor chart of common themes also helps student gain confidence in identifying themes.

Character. This element you can go as simple or as complex as you want.  You can talk about simply identifying characters. You can talk about the difference between main and supporting characters. You can talk about dynamic and static characters. You can talk about the protagonist, antagonists, and foils. How in depth you go about characters really depends on the age and maturity of your students. My second graders have a great handle of stock characters but foils are well beyond them. Have fun with this part of your unit. In my opinion, characters are what makes theatre unique. Students of theater love studying about character, so push your students to discover all they can about characterization.

Music. According to the Greeks music encompassed sound effects, background music, and singing. Have students discuss how music enhances a play. This is also a great time to talk about how to choose background music or sound effects for a play. In my first grade theatre SLO this is a major part of the test. Students must be able to read a simple play and identify appropriate sound effects and music. 

Dialogue. This is another very easy part of the analysis to teach. Students find it easy to figure out when a character talks. I like to talk about the difference between monologue and soliloquy in this section. I also will touch on how characters talk. How they say something is just as important as what they say. Getting students to identify motivation of dialogue is very important to script analysis.

Spectacle. Spectacle rhymes with technical. Spectacle is all the other technical elements and special effects that make a play what it is. This is a great time to show several different versions of the same play and talk about how the different elements enhance or detract from the play. 

Download this FREE poster at TPT

Once students learn all the vocabulary words associated with each element, I recommend helping them create a graphic organizer. This does not have to be fancy (on some days i literally just have the students divide the paper in 1/2 one way and in 1/3 the other so that there are six boxes for the kids to work with. Have the kids watch a movie version of a Broadway play (my two favorite to show are either Peter Pan or Into the Woods depending on age).  Let the students practice identifying the different dramatic elements as they view them on the movie. I usually let the students work in groups for this activity so I can make sure they have the concept down.

If you want to take the concept even farther have the students brainstorm a play using the dramatic elements as a guide. You can then have them write the plays if you have time (I did this for my anti-bully campaign videos and it worked great!) However far you go with this lesson, know that students chunking the elements will help students no only identify the elements but also analyze scripts more effectively. And remember Please Take Care, My Dog Smells!

Arts Integration Ideas- Historical Monologues

One of the major pushes in Education right now is Arts Integration. Theatre is one of the easiest Fine Arts subjects to integrate. Throughout this blog I will talk about several ways to use theatre to enhance Common Core Curriculum. Today I want to talk about one of the first arts integration lessons I did. This lesson is my go to lesson when I need to show off my students in an Educational Setting. My students have presented this lesson in front of our Superintendent and all the principals in my county. All to often the "higher ups" in the county view theatre and other Fine Arts subjects as fluff. This assignment helped change the minds of the "higher ups" in my county. Hopefully you can use it to help change people's minds as well.

I would partner with your History or ELA teacher in doing this project. Since I only see the kids once a week for 40 minutes partnering is a must if I want the students to write anything. They just don't have time to in my class. 

Step one- have the students bring their history books to class. I then have them search through the book to find a historical person that inspires them. (I typically base this assignment around Black History Month but you could easily focus on any other topic you wanted to- presidents, women, heroes etc).

Step two- once the students have chosen their person, have them research specifics about that person. Depending on your time limits and the age of your students you can either create an outline for them to complete or simply have them write their five favorite facts .

Step three- have the students choose  their person's most exciting life event (Rosa Parks on the bus, Abe Lincoln before Gettysburg, etc) 

Step four- teach the difference between a monologue and soliloquy. Have students choose if they are going to write a monologue or soliloquy. 

Step five- allow students time to write a monologue from their historical person's point of view. Remind students that the soliloquy needs to be written in first person pov and they need to include what the person is thinking or feeling. If they are writing a monologue it still needs to be in first person but they should be talking to another person. Most of your students will probably end up writing soliloquies and that's great!

Step six- Once the monologues are written it is time to begin the rehearsal process. When students are rehearsing I like to set up rehearsal centers so that they can focus on individual aspects of their piece. I have also had students partner up to rehearse or you can simply embrace the chaos and let all the students rehearse together. If you are new to teaching or an English/Social Studies teacher who is not use to allowing rehearsals in the room keep in mind it will get noisy. I like to set up some basic rules (no talking to other groups, no wandering from your general area, etc. )You might want to keep a noise meeter in your room to warn kids if they get to loud. You could also take them to a gym/ outside area where they have more space to spread out. In my experience since the students know that they have to perform the piece they typically use the rehearsal period to their advantage with very little silliness. Make sure you tell the students before they start if their monologue has to be memorized.

Step Seven- Perform monologues for the class.  I would tell the students that they can dress the part if they want to . These performances typically turn out very well and all of the students learn things about the other famous historical figures as well.  When you have your performance day make sure you talk it up. You might even want to invite another class to come and watch the performances.

Step Eight- Grade the performances. Make sure you check out my Theatre Rubrics at the teacherspayteachers store. The rehearsal, script writing, and acting rubrics can be very useful in determining grades.

Make sure you keep a copy of the student's monologues that you liked. That way you have any easy demonstration piece for an observation or showcase.  Parents and teachers love to see kids participating in cross curricular activities and this is a wonderful chance to show your teachers what the students know.

Alternative Assignments:
Living Wax Museum- This is one of our favorite assignments at my school (and the kindergartners and first graders are the performers for the older students). Follow the exact same instructions for the lesson. When you reach step six have all of the students report to the gym. Give each student a "Button" to place in front of their character (Red Circle cut out of construction paper usually works well). All the students must then freeze in an exciting pose behind their button. When someone steps on their "button" they come to life, say their monologue then go back to freezing. This is a great assignment for other classes to come participate in. This is also great for students who get stage fright because they are only performing in front of one/two people at a time.

Literary Characters- You can use this same assignment but have the students create monologues for the book characters you are reading. Bonus points if they have to use so many sentences from the book.  Great say to engage the students in the reading.

Students as Playwrights and Directors Part 2 (The Director)

Last post I wrote about how to help students creatively write a story that they can use in this lesson. Part one is a great lesson for any drama/ ELA teacher. You can decided to skip part one or you can use another method for helping students create a story (you can also just pull short scripts if you would rather use something more authentic). Regardless of your method make sure you have a unique story available for every student.

In doing this project I did something I have never done before. I didn't let every play perform. Every group performed at least once, but every play was not performed on stage. Check out below for how I worked this system. As a theatre teacher, the idea that not everyone was going to perform their play killed me but there simply wasn't time. I mean can you imagine getting through 30 plays in 40 minutes, it just doesn't work. Not having every play performed was actually more freeing then I thought it would be. It gave me the freedom to choose which groups were clicking during rehearsal and allowed me to facilitate more class discussion. I will definitely be using this method again. 

Step 1- hand out stories to each student. These can either be the stories they wrote in part one, a creative story they wrote at another time or  a play you found. After every student has a story divide the students into groups. I made groups of four but feel free to adjust as need. I would recommend not having more than 5 in a group for time reasons. Once students are their groups assign a director order.(director 1, director 2, and so on). I did this randomly but you could assign an order as well.

Step 2- review the role of a director and actor. Director is in charge of casting, running rehearsals, and making final decisions. Actors are in charge of creating a character and practicing their parts. This is a great time to talk about how you need to show respect for everyone. I also point out that  the director gets to make the final call about all decisions and I will only step in for emergencies. I also point out that sometimes you don't like the part you are assigned (and sometimes boys play girl parts and girls play boy parts). Everyone had to do what the director said and they couldn't tattle if they didn't like their part. I did encourage the directors to be kind when casting, and if they had to change the gender of a character to make someone happy that was ok. 

Step 3- Model a rehearsal. This is a huge step. Do. Not Skip. Students need to learn how to lead. If possible choose a group with a weird number (there is always one with more than everyone else). Have one of those students be your model for this experience. I recommend giving the directors an exact order for what their rehearsals should look like, this will help you when grading later.

1. Read the story to the group.

2. Cast the play

3. Perform any rewrites or revisions that are needed (should not take very long)

4. Block the play (tell the actors where to stand and move)

5. Rehearse the play until time is called. Make any other revisions/ changes that are needed.

6. Director reads the play while the group performs.

For the modeling section I recommend you talk the students through each step. This way they know what to expect when it's their turn.

Step 4- director 1 rehearsal time. Now it is time to turn your directors loose in each group tell director one to begin reading their play and casting. Walk around and monitor groups but try your hardest to let the directors work their problems out with their team (after all that is what is being a director is all about). After the allotted time (5-10 minutes) have the groups sit back down and choose one or two groups to perform their plays. This is also a great time to have a class discussion about any issues that arose during rehearsal. We had a great talk about how it affects a play when one actor doesn't show up (after a kid had to go to the clinic during class). It really helped the kids to see how they affect each other in a performance.

Step 5- director 2 and so on rehearsal times. After a few groups perform director 1 plays allow the students to break back into their groups and rehearse director 2's play. Continue this process of rehearsal and performance until all directors have had an opportunity to direct. Make sure that every group has performed at least once by the end of assignment. Continue to have class discussions between the steps as problems arise. This is a great opportunity to highlight problems you have been having in rehearsal as well. ( I have a huge problem with kids talking to each other during rehearsal, I made sure to point out how frustrating it is when you are trying to direct and someone is talking to another group). These discussions are so helpful and I really saw an improvement in the acting and directing over the course of the lesson.

Step 6- exit slips. I had each student write about who they felt was the best director in their group. They had to give me a legitimate reason why they felt that way (he was good at giving directions, she was organized, he told me where to stand, etc.) This served two purposes, I was able to see who they thought was the best director and I was able to tell if the students could identify positive director traits. You could do this step on appear or verbally as you were summing up the lesson.

Grading- if you have the students perform both parts of this lesson you can easily get three grades out of this assignment: a writing grade, rehearsal grade, and director grade. I always use rubrics when grading this type of work. Here is a sample of the directing rubric I made for the class. Feel free to download and use in your class as well. You can purchase the full set of theatre rubrics on my teacherspayteachers site (follow the link at the bottom of the page).

This is a great assignment and the students really got into it. I have always struggled with hitting the directing standard in my lower grades. I will defiantly be using this again in my class.

Students as Playwrights and Directors- Part One (The Playwright)

This lesson is an excellent Arts Integration lesson that would work in both a Theatre or ELA classroom. It worked much better than I expected ( in all honesty I thought it would fail miserably when I thought about trying it). This lesson would work great for any grade level- you would simply need to increase the rigor. This lesson is a great example of integrating Theatre and Language Arts together. I hope you enjoy! I broke this lesson into two parts you could do either part of the lesson or combine them to create an awesome super lesson!

Part one: Students as Playwrights

Supplies- thought provoking pictures (I used The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg but a friend of mine used Ansel Adams photographs.) You could probably use anything interesting that is age appropriate. You either need enough pictures for every student or the pictures need to be big enough for several students to look on together. 

Step 1- Introduce the writing/play-writing process. Remind students there are 5 steps: pre-writing, rough draft, edit/ revising and finial draft/production. 

Step 2- Give each student/group a picture. Help them create a quick brainstorm by asking open ended questions. 

~where are you?

~what do you see?

~what do you feel?

~what time of day is it?

~ What is unique about your picture?

~etc.

I tell the students ahead of time that there are no right/wrong answers. I encourage them to write quickly without thinking to hard about their answers. This usually helps the creativity flow.

Step 3- Give the students a quick review of descriptive writing. Remind them that they only get one chance to get the picture in their head into someone else's. There is a huge difference between "The lady drove the car" And "The old blonde lady with the flowing red scarf quickly drove the bright pink convertible down the long mountain road to get her kids McDonalds" (This is the sentence my 2nd graders came up with) Have the class help you expand the sentence to see how details create the story.

Step 4- First draft. Allow the students time to create a story based off of the picture. Remind them to use details and refer back to their brainstorming. I tell them they can write about any school appropriate story as long as it is clearly based on the picture. Give any parameters you feel are needed at this time (must have beginning,middle, end, characters, be written like a play, etc.)

Step 5- (optional) depending on your time you could have them revise/edit their story and type a final draft. I only see my students for 40 minutes once a week so this step gets combined with the next steps in part two. If you had more time or you are an ELA teacher I would highly recommend you doing this step.