The Daily News
1 Had a wonderful day teaching with my students yesterday.
2 Here’s partially what we did: we first accepted that it was a Tuesday, and then moved on.
3 Teaching Shakespeare, even though he is technically dead.
4 You may put this down and do something else at any time.
5 No, wait!
6 Okay, Okay, I don’t blame you.
7 Yesterday I decided to do a workshop on creating skits.
8 I taught drama yesterday. That is part of my current unit. I sort of know a little about it.
9 My, we had fun!
10 The students already have existing groups, complete with names.
11 When I moved to workshopping, I said, “You have fifteen seconds to get into your groups.”
12 The groups all sit with each other, so that was already magically done. Welcome to Hogwarts.
13 “You have fifteen seconds to choose a Scribe.”
14 A Scribe is simply this Socratic Seminar thing, a person who writes down simple things, no thinking required. To the students, whoever is the Scribe is an instant Cootie.
15 Look it up. I’m too old.
16 Traditionally, a Cootie is a person to be avoided, so most of my student touched themselves on the nose with their fingers.
17 Their rules come down to one rule, which is this: last person to touch his/her nose is the Scribe.
18 I timed everything beginning with the second-hand on the clock moving from the number ten to the number twelve. Everything is a countdown, which makes things flow swiftly. I would begin, “We will start in ten, nine, eight, seven…” As soon as the second-hand would hit the twelve I would begin.
19 “Scribes. Take out a piece of paper. Everyone else take out your list of prepositions! You have fifteen seconds.” I had my computer hooked up to music from Ancient Mesopotatoes. Strange, exotic music.
20 “In ten seconds, you will have six minutes to write down as many prepositional phrases that tell where as you can think of. Examples are ‘atop the hill,’ ‘at a carnival,’ ‘in a hat,’ and on and on.
21 It’s Mesopotamia. I know. I’m not dumb.
22 I then brought up the volume on this strange, exotic music. The students climbed all over each other. The music played. In my fourth period class, the Principal came in to observe, unannounced. I smiled, because it was all so fun! It was definitely happening.
23 I explained to her, “They were shaky on prepositional phrases, so I do this. I bring in music to inspire. The music will control the tone.What is going to happen is after exactly six minutes, I will countdown ten seconds and have them stop. I will then have them decide on the three coolest places and put stars next to them. This will take exactly one minute. The music will resume. After exactly one minute, I will explain that what they are doing is beginning to create skits, and that these places are settings. They will then have two minutes to decide on which setting is the coolest for a skit. Each period of time is always accompanied by the music, which I control.” Mind control. So CIA.
24 Teaching drama again. The Principal smiled, and eventually departed knowing good things were happening.
25 I won’t bore you with the rest, just had complete fun watching the students totally engaged in a drama activity, complete with music, timing, and intelligence.
26 Oh, I had them people the settings, name the people, write opposite emotional adjectives such as “happy-sad,” “curious-not interested,” “angy-mild” etc. I then had them do a series of same emotional adjectives such as “happy-happy,” “curious-curious,” ”angry-angry,” and on and on, all timed, all with music. One group left its Scribe sheet on a desk. I picked it up and looked at it.The characters had names like Fluffy, Tubby, and Minto. I laughed. I can’t imagine an angry Fluffy, or a depressed Minto.
27 For their skits, two characters had to have the character trait of any combination of adjectives. The idea was to create conflicting characters, or certainly characters who could engage in conflict.
28 To end it all, I played the ancient music louder and louder,until it got so loud that I shouted over them, “We have one more thing to do!”
29 I stopped the music abruptly. Sudden silence.
30 Sound design. Manipulative. Perfect. Sudden silence after zany madness. I looked around the room. And then I said this:
31 “Something just happened, and it ain’t good. Go!”
32 Music up. Out of control frenzy, madness, and creativity vibrated the room.
33 This old geezer sat back, let it happen, faded the music, closed the lesson, and used the music as exit music when the bell rang.
34 Curtain.
35 We’re goin’ in. Good ol’ Drama Workshops. Loved it.
36 So did they.
37 We’re goin’ in. Thought I’d share.
38 Peace.
~H~
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