Skits!

I had a good day!

Last week, I asked the students to take the scene when the creature asks Frankenstein for a female companion and find the places where the creature uses persuasion and then also document Frankenstein's reactions. The students charted these interactions as a group. Then in the same group, they turned that chart into a script for another kind of performance (their choice of commercial, tv show, or court scene). I gave a few examples and gave them time in class to work on it. Despite A LOT of hiccups in the schedule, we presented them today and some were really great. One group did "Real World: Geneva" which managed to be accurate to the story and also included lots of added drama and private testimonials. Other groups did puppet shows, eHarmony commercial parodies, and pretty good courtroom scenes. However, a few groups just read straight from their chart without adding any "scene" to their skit.

I think the groups that excelled were good despite my (again) kind of vague directions. I did give them some examples, but I wish that I had said (during the classwork time), "You need to do more that just read the chart. You can use what they said in your script, but remember that you're imagining this interaction in another venue like a TV show, a commercial, or a courtroom. What kinds of things would be added in the new venue that aren't in the scene in the book?" That statement would have cleared up a lot of confusion, but I didn't see that they were confused until after the skits were prepared and delivered. I kind of assumed that they understood and just weren't that excited about preparing skits. And that assumption comes from having problems with getting students to read, which I wrote about before. I think I assumed that they weren't reading because they didn't care, and they weren't preparing good skits because they didn't care. Today was the first day I read aloud from the book, and it really helped with having control of the classroom and I made sure that they paid attention to the important parts. I felt successful, and I had fun reading with them, too.

Speaking of reading aloud -- Mrs. Solly and I have been reading American Born Chinese (ABC) aloud in our collaborative class and the kids EAT IT UP. They also like when we playfully bicker back and forth about characters and different issues. Anyway, I'm very happy that they're enjoying ABC and so are we.