Beginning drama students; grades 9-12. No previous experience necessary. All lessons are 55 minutes long.
Educational Objective:
Students will share their ability to tell a convincing and entertaining beginning-level story by telling to an elementary-aged audience and by first auditioning for the teacher.
2014 National Core Arts Theatre Standards
TH:Cr1-3.1
TH:Pr4-6.1
TH:Re7,9.1
TH:Cn10.1
1994 National Standards Met:
Content Standard #1: Script writing through improvising, writing, and refining scripts based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history Content Standard #2: Acting by developing, communicating, and sustaining characters in improvisations and informal or formal productions
Content Standard #4: Directing by interpreting dramatic texts and organizing and conducting rehearsals for informal or formal productions
Content Standard #5: Researching by evaluating and synthesizing cultural and historical information to support artistic choices Content Standard #7: Analyzing, critiquing, and constructing meanings from informal and formal theatre, film, television, and electronic media productions
Content Standard #8: Understanding context by analyzing the role of theatre, film, television, and electronic media in the past and the present
Big Ideas:
Stories are told each day in various ways and are therefore essential to our ability to communicate with others
The art of storytelling through various means is crucial in human development (both in an overarching way as well as an intimate way)
Essential Questions:
Why do we tell stories as humans?
What role does storytelling, in its various forms, have in human interaction?
What makes a story “good”?
How can one decide what is “age appropriate” and what is not?
Key Knowledge/skills:
Telling stories in a professional manner
The ability to critique one another’s work
The ability to self-assess
The knowledge that sometimes you must prove what you can do before you are allowed to do it to your target audience
Authentic Performance Tasks:
Researching in order to find a suitable story to tell
Passing an audition in order to earn the ability to tell in the classroom (which simulates the passing of an interview or another such thing in which one must prove his or her skills before moving forward).
Educational Objective: Students will be able to identify the basics of storytelling as a class after going over storytelling packet as well as learning about its history.
Educational Objective: Students will be able to assess the tellability and learnability of a story by choosing one story to adapt for a young audience.
Educational Objective: Students will be able to identify strong things and weak things about storytelling after watching various examples and apply strong things to their own stories as well as decide upon which medium of story (traditional, puppets, overhead projector, or felt board) that they will use to tell their stories.
Educational Objective: Students will show their ability to both tell a story and to assess a story by working with one another to critique each other’s stories.
Educational Objective: Students will organize their telling agendas after being placed into groups by filling out an organization sheet and then practicing their agendas.
Educational Objective: Students will share their ability to tell a convincing and entertaining beginning-level story by telling in front of an elementary-aged audience.
