High School Lesson Plan

"Cinderella" ASU

Standard: Students will make and write plays

Indicators of Achievement: Students will:

• understand how individual elements (e.g., plot, theme, character, conflict, etc.) comprise the structure of a play
  
• write an original one-act play with developed characters, specific setting, conflict, and resolution

Standard: Students will act in formal or informal presentations

Indicators of Achievement: Students will:

• compare and contrast the physical, emotional, intellectual, and social dimensions of characters found in dramatic texts
  
• demonstrate acting skills to create and sustain a character in an ensemble
  
• exhibit concentration and consistent believable behavior enacting a character from a written script

Standard: Students will manage and produce informal or formal presentations. (Managing and producing informal and formal presentations includes maximizing creative use of space, personnel, time, budget, and materials; and planning, organizing, and marketing.)

Indicators of Achievement: Students will:

• collaborate to coordinate backstage, on-stage, house, and front-of-house activities for informal and formal presentations; and
  
• collaborate to develop and implement a marketing campaign

Standard: Students will assess the characteristics of theater, evaluating productions and audience response

Indicators of Achievement: Students will:

• evaluate a presentation's effectiveness in communicating ideas and emotion (describe/analyze, interpret and then evaluate); and
  
• analyze how audience responses to a dramatic presentation can have an impact on that presentation

Preparation: Students need to have had experience with improvisation and script analysis and performance.

Solicit stories from elementary school students in the district.

Activity: Discuss children's literary and dramatic interests. Have the high school students choose the children's stories with the most dramatic possibilities, e.g. interesting characters, the possibility of tension/conflict, etc.

After discussing the process of adapting a piece of literature for the stage and reinforcing the essentials of collaboration/ensemble, divide the class into workable groups. Have them improvise a scene(s) from the story they've chosen. Share the scenes discussing plot (beginning, tension/conflict, ending), character (finding the "voice"/language to make the character unique), and setting.

Have the groups write their scene(s). A process to keep them ontask might be to require a teacher signature at the end of each of the following steps: plot outline, setting, character descriptions, rough draft, revision.

Have the students read their rough drafts to the class, followed by a critique focused on the playwriting choices. Rewrites follow.

A day is spent in developing a marketing plan for the grade schools (perhaps the high school students travel to the elementary school for the performance or the children travel to the high school). An evening performance for student's families might also be effective.

After the rewriting is completed, the students gather the necessary props and perhaps costume pieces to suggest character. They rehearse, memorize and perform their scenes for the class a second time. The order for the presentation of the scenes is developed and the whole production is rehearsed.

Logistics for the performances are planned. After the performance a critique is held focusing on the playwriting choices, actor/character choices, the ensemble collaborative process, audience response.

Assessment: Student journals, inclusion of the draft and final version of the scene and a final written critique in the student's portfolio. Forced answer test on play structure.

Adapted from a lesson written by the National Theater Standards Writing Committee