|
|
|
|
| Overview |
 How would the story have changed if Romeo had received the letter? If Brutus had helped Caesar? If Othello had trusted Desdemona? This activity encourages
students to pick a turning point in one of a tragedy and show how the action
of the play would have been significantly altered had a different decision been
made or a different action taken. Teachers can test students’ content knowledge
and understanding of conflicts within the play while also challenging their creativity
and their understanding of plot. This lesson focuses on Shakespearean tragedy,
but the lesson plan can be used with any tragedy that students have read—from
Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex to Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. This
activity can also be used as a book report alternative, where students are each
exploring a different text.
|
| From Theory to Practice |
As Mary Maloney Toepfer and Kara Haubert Haas explain, process drama give students
the opportunity to engage directly with a piece of literature in ways that allow
critical thinking and encourage exploration. Toepfer and Haas explain that “According
to Jeffrey Wilhelm and Brian Edmiston, leading practitioners in the field, process
drama is ‘creating
meaning and visible mental models of our understanding together, in imaginative
contexts and situations. It is not about performance, but exploration’ (xx).” Through
this exploration, process drama works as a “tool by which students assume
the persona of characters in a literary text and improvise what the characters
might say and how they might react in challenging situations” (30). In
this activity, students not only must assume the role of the characters, but
they must also think through the influence that the decisions that their characters
make play on the overall plot of the drama.
Further Reading
Toepfer, Mary Maloney, and Kara Haubert Haas. “Imaginative
Departures with Two Shakespearean Plays.” English Journal 92.5 (May 2003):
30-34.
|
| Student Objectives |
Students will
- develop an understanding of character motivation
- analyze how decisions characters make affect plot
- determine a turning point
of a tragedy
- develop strategies to change the decisions characters make at/in
that turning point to positively affect the plot, resulting in a “happy” ending
- present
their stories in a concise, logical, and visually pleasing manner
- reflect
on the activity to identify insights about the play
|
| Instructional Plan |
Resources
Preparation
- Students should read the tragedy before working on this activity.
- Decide how you want students
to complete the assignment (computer accessibility often plays into this):
do you want students to complete the assignment individually,
in pairs, or in groups of 3 or 4?
- Preview the student research sites linked below
so that you can answer student questions during the research phase.
- Test the Drama Map Student
Interactive, Plot
Diagram Student Interactive, and the additional interactives included
on the Ideas
for "Happily Ever After" Presentation handout on
your computers to familiarize yourself with the tools and ensure that you
have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical
support page.
Instruction and Activities
Session One
- If you need to review the major elements of the story, use
the Drama Map Student
Interactive to outline the characters, conflict, resolution,
and setting of the story.
- As a class, use the Plot
Diagram Student Interactive to outline the events in the tragedy.
- Print the diagram and make copies for the class so that students can refer
to the completed diagram to refer to as they work through this lesson.
- Ask
students to brainstorm to identify the major decisions that the characters
make and plot them at the appropriate point.
- Choose
one decision to model as a class and ask students: What other decisions could
the
character have made at this point in the plot? How could the remainder of
the plot have changed as a result? List student responses on the board or on
a transparency. Work toward a happy ending for the story.
- Explain the project that students will work on by comparing the activity
students just completed to a “Choose Your Own
Adventure” book. Tell students they will essentially be choosing
their own adventures from the point in the plot where the decision they
are changing occurs. Stress that the actions and decisions that are made in
the story need to fit the character and setting.
- Pass out or display using the overhead projector the Ideas
for "Happily
Ever After" Presentation,
Group Assessment Questions,
and the Grading Rubric. Answer
any questions that students have about the project.
- Divide students into groups (or let them work individually,
if you prefer), assigning each group one of the decisions identified
during the brainstorming activity. Students who work in groups
take their plots from the point when the decision is made and carry it
throughout other decisions to the end of the story. Each group member
should contribute to the new plot.
- Have students complete the Plot
Tree Worksheet handout, which
will encourage students to not only identify alternate decisions characters could
have made but also how these decision affect later the plot.
- At the end of the session, explain that the next two class sessions will
be structured work time for groups as they work out their new plots and prepare
their presentations to share with the class.
- For homework, ask students to make a journal entry focusing on their discoveries
about plot to this point. For a specific response, try the following prompt:
Pick one character from the play and decide what one main factor seems to motivate
that character. How do you see the factor influencing the character throughout
the play? Do you think the factor is an equally influential force for people
today? How?
Sessions Two and Three
- Allow students additional time as
necessary to complete the Plot
Tree Worksheet, thinking through each of the
new decisions and outcomes in their revised version of the story.
- If students need a more structured exploration of the choices in their newly
version of the story, use
the Drama
Map Student Interactive to outline the characters, conflict, resolution,
and setting of the new series of events.
- Ask each group to use the Plot
Diagram Student Interactive to outline the events for their new ending.
Before students begin this work, demonstrate the abilities of the student
interactive, showing students that the central point in their story can slide
to the left or right as appropriate for their version of the story.
- Ask students to pay particular attention to how the structure and speed of
the story changes (or doesn't) based on the new “happily ever
after” ending, recording their observations in their writer’s notebooks.
- Display or refer to the Ideas
for "Happily Ever After" Presentation and
encourage students to choose a project and begin working on it by the end of
the second session.
- Circulate among students while they work during these sessions, providing
help and feedback as appropriate.
- At the end of each session, ask students to make a journal
entry for homework, focusing on their discoveries about plot to this point
and their work on their presentations. For a specific response, you might suggest
the following:
How has the structure of the play changed as the decisions and actions changed
in your story? What do you notice when the climax occurs or the number of events
between climax and the end or the beginning of the play?
Session Four
- Give students five to ten minutes to make last-minute preparations and
to practice their presentation.
- Have groups present their new stories to the entire class, sticking closely
to the five-minutes-per-group guideline that you've established.
- Once all of the groups have presented, ask students to discuss how the
characters’ decisions affected the shape of the overall plot (e.g.,
Does the climax come closer to the beginning or end, for instance? Does a
happy ending have a faster resolution?)
- If students worked in groups, pass out copies of the Group Assessment handout
and ask students to complete their reflection and feedback and submit the
handout and their presentations before the end of the class.
- At the end of each session, ask students to make a journal entry for
homework, summarizing and reflecting on the project. If you prefer a specific
writing prompt, ask your students to focus on the following question: What
did you like best about preparing for the presentation? Least? What have
you learned that you might not have had this presentation not been assigned?
Extensions
Create a “choose your own adventure” Web site that incorporates
all the proposed solutions, using the ReadWriteThink lesson
plan Choose
Your Own Adventure: A Hypertext Writing Experience for more
information and ideas.
Web Resources
- Dramatic Structure, from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramatic_structure
- This Wikipedia entry explains the various points on the “plot mountain” diagram,
with specific details on the five points on Freytag’s Pyramid and examples
for each from The Wizard of Oz.
- Fiction, Plotting
the Story, from ArtsEdge
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2230/
- This ArtsEdge lesson plan provides introductory information on the influence
of plot upon a story. If students need additional resources as they reshape
their stories, this lesson plan can provide a quick mini-lesson.
|
| Student Assessment/Reflections |
Throughout the sessions, students write journal entries reflecting
on the insights they have about the play or reading drama. Journal responses,
if graded, should be graded based on the depth of reflection.
If assigned as a group project,
have each student complete the Group Assessment handout to help you
identify what each group member contributed to the final project.
Use the Grading Rubric to structure your feedback on the presentations
and projects. Take into account all the work that students have done, including
printouts from the student interactives as well as the final presentations themselves.
|
1 - Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
2 - Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
3 - Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
4 - Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
5 - Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
6 - Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
11 - Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
12 - Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
|
|
|
