| |
Julius Caesar:
by Shakespeare
Post-reading
Strategy: Acting Groups
The groups for this assignment will be the same as the
groups we formed for the first activity, and for the
reading groups earlier. Throughout the unit, we
will be watching video clips from various movie, TV, and
stage productions so the students can gain a sense of
how adaptable the story is. Each group will be
asked to perform a scene from the readings, and they
have fairly free range to do as they see fit. Some
will try and make it as authentic as possible, some will
see if it would work in a different setting or with
slightly modified characters. I don't expect them
to have extensive costumes or staging, but they won't
hurt. The goal here is to get the students to
think about the text as a performance, and to see what
clues Shakespeare has written into the text for them (he
was notoriously spare with his stage direction, but the
characters offer clues in other ways). The groups
are large enough that they should be able to cover the
parts offered, and I do want everyone to read some
lines. They are not required to memorize their
lines, and indeed they may paraphrase or change the
language if the scene dictates it, but it will net them
extra points if they aren't reading off of a card or
paper. I will show them a rubric before they
perform, and I observe one rehearsal before they perform
to make sure that they are comfortable and on the right
track. These groups will be performing throughout
the unit, but this will be a major project on par with a
final assessment. This should be fun, but it will
also get them to think a lot more deeply about the
characters and their motivations, the difference between
static texts and drama, and what sorts of decisions a
director might have to make when staging a play.
Click the link below to
see a formal lesson plan for this activity. The
document is available in either Adobe Acrobat or
Microsoft Word formats.
Acting
Groups Lesson Plan
or [MS
Word]
|
|
|
Literacy
Philosophy
