The craft of play, writing, and acting.
This inventive survey class begs students to be playful as they read, descriptive as they write, and expressive as they act.
Children explore the narrative structures of stories by reenacting the best parts of the history of storytelling. Beginning with oral storytelling, we quickly become well-versed in being expressive and making strong and profound contact with an audience. Soon we encounter Greek drama and the comfort and community that comes about through choral reading, partner dialogue, and group scene acting.
By learning about the acting craft of Commedia dell’arte, we create, act, and write about thickly described characters filled with the virtuous and devious traits of heroes and villains.
Through writing flash fiction, we begin to master the art of writing stories that have richly described characters, atmospheric settings, and well conceived plots. Students utilize both conventional drawing techniques and PhotoSketcher. There is a very good chance your child will become part of a living comic strip as we develop characters and story-lines. The last day of class we invite parents, grandparents, and friends to hear creative readings of the work we create in our literary salon. | Personalized for the StudentI learned to use my hands to paint a picture, my body shape to change characters, and that by changing my voice, I could become somebody completely different.
I learned that being expressive with a partner means I had to make eye contact with them. If I did, then I knew when it was my time to read.
I didn’t know that I could read that loud in front of a group of people. Learning about drama was more like play and less like work. That’s how much fun it was. I think I want to reread what I read today for fun at home.
I learned that I can take an archetypical character, and by adding a few details, make it into someone completely new and exciting. It was great to have the permission to change the characters.
I realized how stories are a little bit like pictures with movement. By imagining a place and time, and then researching the clothing the people wear, it’s easy to make a plot. A plot is an event driven story, and so is a comic strip.
Because I didn’t have a lot of words to use, I decided to use higher quality words to tell my story. I also had to pick and choose what details were absolutely necessary.
I found that perfection in fruit was boring. I picked a piece of fruit that was damaged. It was as it had been in a fight for its life and had barely made it. From that experience with the fruit, I created a character that had not had a great life, but a rather hard life.
Final drafts require a great amount of attention to detail. It was fun to debate about my story, and I think because of that experience, I am not afraid of criticism. In fact I like it. Practicing reading dramatically was difficult because I am quite a quiet child, but today I was shouting with my friends and it felt great! We got goofy, but learned a lot by having so much fun.
When I put on a mask that I made, for the first time I wasn’t me. I was my character. It felt so freeing to be somebody else for a brief period of time. I learned that I have many different dimensions.
My voice was really strong during the Greek play. It reminded me to read my story with the same volume and power. It’s different reading a fiction story, but I can see how that small portion of dialogue I allowed myself to write in my flash fiction story set the tone of the story. | Reading Material- various versions of the classic story, The Three Little Pigs, oral story-telling of your own version
- classic fairytales (partner choice)
- Greek Theatre, Comedy, Tragedy, Satire
- oral acting texts created by teacher, a student of The San Francisco Mime Troupe
- Cinderella, Rumple Stiltskin, Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- a visual journey across the world, close-ups of everyday objects, plants, and animals
- writing and acting workshop
- Commedia dell’arte
- student flash fiction stories
Skills & Activities - cause and effect relationships, oral storytelling
- expressive partner reading
- choral and dramatic reading, Greek drama
- Commedia dell’arte, archetypes, reading dialogue expressively
- telling an active story with beginning, middle, and end, PhotoSketcher
- the art of plot, flash fiction
- richly described environments and essential themes,
- living comic strips using motion as plot
- writing final drafts, and time to practice
- creation of props and simple backdrops for our performance, time to practice
- final presentation and roundtable discussion
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