Unlocking the Playwright Within: Statues
Resource ID#: 61718
Primary Type: Lesson Plan
This document was generated on CPALMS - www.cpalms.org
Unlocking the Playwright Within: Statues
This beginning experience in playwriting helps build a safe environment and encourages creative
risk-taking among new “playwrights.” Throughout the unit, students learn to develop ideas for
writing plays.
Subject(s): NGSSS: Theatre
Grade Level(s): 9, 10, 11, 12
Intended Audience: Educators
Instructional Time: 1 Hour(s) 40 Minute(s)
Freely Available: Yes
Keywords: theatre, writing, playwright, playwriting, creating, dialogue
Instructional Component Type(s): Lesson Plan, Assessment, Educational Game, Instructional
Technique, Formative Assessment, Learning Goal
Instructional Design Framework(s): Cooperative Learning
Resource Collection: CPALMS
ATTACHMENTS
Theatre 2.Rubric.docx
Theatre 2.Student Feedback Rubric.docx
Theatre 20400320.Course Description.docx
LESSON CONTENT


Lesson Plan Template: General Lesson Plan
Learning Objectives: What should students know and be able to do as a result of
this lesson?
Learning Goal (Unit): We are learning to develop ideas for writing plays.
Success Criteria: I can, based on a teacher-provided prompt:
o Write properly formatted dialogue for one or more characters.
o Develop characters through dialogue.
o
o
Improve writing through self- and peer critiques.
Critique peers in a positive manner.
Lesson Objective(s):
o This beginning-level experience in playwriting helps build a safe environment and
encourages creative risk-taking among new “playwrights.”

Guiding Questions: What are the guiding questions for this lesson?
Essential Question (Posted on the wall for Theatre 2): Whose contribution to a theatre
performance has the most essential impact?
Guiding Questions (Posted on the wall for the Lesson):
1. Class: Based on the dialogue you heard, what do you think you know about the
characters? What led you to believe that?
2. Actors: As you prepared to deliver the dialogue to the class, how did your
understanding of the character change as the Playwright/Director worked with you?
3. Actors: Was the script formatted in a way that made it easy to read?
4. Actors: What word or words were most important in helping to shape your character,
and were they written into the dialogue or added as part of the directing?
5. Class: What were some of the most effective words or phrases the Playwright chose
to help you know about the character? Which words might have misled you and what
suggestion(s) can you offer for improvement?
6. Playwrights (Class): If you could do a re-write on the dialogue you wrote, what
would you change? Be as specific as you can.

Prior Knowledge: What prior knowledge should students have for this lesson?
o
o
o
o
Previous lesson: “Unlocking the Playwright Within: Hats” – writing a monologue for
a character based on a student-selected hat (e.g., fedora, beret, top hat, portrait hat,
shabby straw hat, newsboy cap, police hat, hardhat)
Knowledge of dialogue format – character name followed by a colon and what s/he
says, using a hanging indent
Review of theatre vocabulary relating to plays
Review of how a playwright reveals information about a character (e.g., background,
physical, social, emotional, ethical, intellectual traits)
Vocabulary:
o
o
o

Dramatic elements – Plot, character, theme, dialogue
Parts of a plot – exposition, inciting incident, climax, falling action, resolution
Acting terms – conflict, objective, tactic
Teaching Phase: How will the teacher present the concept or skill to students?
1.
Setting Up for Success: Using student input, guide a brief review of dialogue format
and how playwrights reveal information about a character (e.g., background; physical,
social, emotional, ethical, and intellectual traits). Students will create a selected
number of correctly formatted lines of dialogue for two people on their own. A
volunteer from the class will share his/her dialogue in some visual way, so the class
can revise it as a means of reviewing how to write character traits. The teacher may
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

suggest a trait for this review activity or allow the students to select the trait, which
must be relatively easy to work with at this early experiential level.
Building Experience in a Safe Environment: Theatre Game: Select three trios of
students (9 students total) to work as teams; one in each trio is the sculptor and the
other two are his/her clay. The teams are given a thematic prompt and instructed to
create a statue to represent it (e.g., freedom, jealousy, electricity).
Writing Mini-Scenes: After each team has completed its statue, the rest of the class
chooses one of the “statues” and writes six lines of dialogue (3 for each character)
relative to the thematic prompt. The sculptors write dialogue, as well.
 As the students write and perform, the teacher will move among the students to
observe, offer suggestions, commend, carefully pair students for peer assistance
(only if it is likely to produce a positive experience for both participants), and
(prepare to) make notes using the rubric.
 Student writings will be collected at the end of each day during the unit and
returned the next day with brief kudos and equally brief suggestions to apply in
the new day's activities and/or in the culminating unit activity. The teacher may
also want to select a few exemplars (without students' names) from a different
Theatre 2 class in two modes to share with this class: 1 set provided without
comments, and one set with teacher comments indicating successes and areas
needing improvement. Note: If the teacher does not have another section of
Theatre 2 from which to draw exemplars, each student's feelings should be
respected and carefully considered when choosing the levels of success to share.
Not all levels need to be shared, or teachers can write the "non-examples" to
demonstrate writing that would earn lower ratings.
Sharing: The teacher will choose one dialogue for each team to present. Each
selected playwright will share his/her dialogue with the team members and coach
them briefly for their performance. As the teams rehearse (and memorize) their three
lines each, other volunteer playwrights are asked to share what they have written with
the remainder of the class.
Feedback: After each team performs, the teacher will provide minimal (and
decreasing) guidance for a peer critique process using a Student Feedback rubric.
Repeat: If time allows, repeat the exercise one or more times, using new teams and a
new prompt for each round (e.g., revenge, love, hatred).
Re-Writing for Growth: Using the student feedback, rubrics, and the verbal
feedback offered to various playwrights during the class, students will each choose
one of their dialogues from the day's experiences and re-write the dialogue, making
improvements in formatting, number of lines per character, clarity of character, etc.
When they turn in their writing for the day, the re-written dialogue should be labeled
as the re-write and immediately follow the original in each student's stack or folder.
Guided Practice: What activities or exercises will the students complete with teacher
guidance?
Setting Up for Success: Using student input, guide a brief review of dialogue format and
how playwrights reveal information about a character (e.g., background; physical, social,
emotional, ethical, and intellectual traits). Students will create a selected number of
correctly formatted lines of dialogue for two people on their own. A volunteer from the
class will share his/her dialogue in some visual way, so the class can revise it as a means
of reviewing how to write character traits. The teacher may suggest a trait for this review
activity or allow the students to select the trait, which must be relatively easy to work
with at this early experiential level.

Independent Practice: What activities or exercises will students complete to
reinforce the concepts and skills developed in the lesson?
o Building Experience in a Safe Environment: Theatre Game: Select three trios of
students (9 students total) to work as teams; one in each trio is the sculptor and the
other two are his/her clay. The teams are given a thematic prompt and instructed to
create a statue to represent it (e.g., freedom, jealousy, electricity).
o Writing Mini-Scenes: After each team has completed its statue, the rest of the class
chooses any one of the “statues” and writes six lines of dialogue (3 for each
character) relative to the thematic prompt. The sculptors write dialogue, as well.
o Sharing: The teacher will choose one dialogue for each team to present. Each
selected playwright will share his/her dialogue with the team members and coach
them briefly for their performance. As the teams rehearse (and memorize) their three
lines each, other volunteer playwrights are asked to share what they have written with
the remainder of the class.
o Feedback: After each team performs, the teacher will provide minimal (and
decreasing) guidance for a peer critique process using a rubric/scale.
o Repeat: If time allows, repeat the exercise one or more times, using new teams and a
new prompt for each round (e.g., revenge, love, hatred).
o Re-Writing for Growth: Using the student feedback, rubrics, and the verbal
feedback offered to various playwrights during the class, students will each choose
one of their dialogues from the day's experiences and re-write the dialogue, making
improvements in formatting, number of lines per character, clarity of character, etc.
When they turn in their writing for the day, the re-written dialogue should be labeled
as the re-write and immediately follow the original in each student's stack or folder.

Closure: How will the teacher assist students in organizing the knowledge gained in
the lesson?
The teacher will do a brief summary of points on which s/he noted significant
improvement, building student confidence where appropriate. Teachers may find it
helpful to use a generalized version of the Guiding Questions and then close with a smallgroup student discussion (no more than 4 or 5 per group), in which they are to discuss the
roles of the Playwright, Director, Actors, and Audience as experienced in the class, in the
context of the Essential Question for Theatre 2:
Guiding Questions, Modified:
o To learn about each character today, what percentage of information did you gather
through each of the following: the playwright's written dialogue, the actor's voice, the
actor's gestures and body, and what you think the Director may have suggested?
o As you prepared to deliver the dialogue to the class as an actor, what percentage of
the character you presented came directly from the Playwright's written dialogue, the
Director, or your own ideas?
o Did the script formatting--good or perhaps not-so-good--affect your ability to read
and work with it?
o What were some of the most effective words or phrases the Playwright chose to help
you know about the character? Which words might have misled you and what
suggestion(s) can you offer for improvement?
o If you could do a re-write on some of the dialogue you wrote today, what would you
change? Be as specific as you can.
Essential Question: Whose contribution to a theatre performance has the most essential
impact?
ASSESSMENT

Formative Assessment:
1. As the students write and perform, the teacher will move among the students to
observe, offer suggestions, commend, carefully pair students for peer assistance (only
if it is likely to produce a positive experience for both participants), and (prepare to)
make notes using the rubric/scale.
2. Student writings will be collected at the end of each day during the unit and returned
the next day with brief kudos and equally brief suggestions that can be applied in the
new day's activities and/or in the culminating unit activity. The teacher may also
want to select a few exemplars (without students' names) from a different Theatre 2
class in two modes to share with this class: 1 set provided without comments, and one
set with teacher comments indicating successes and areas needing improvement.
Note: If the teacher does not have another section of Theatre 2 from which to draw
exemplars, each student's feelings should be respected and carefully considered when
choosing the levels of success to share. Not all levels need to be shared, and teachers
can write the "non-examples" to demonstrate writing that would earn lower ratings.
Theatre 2.Rubric.docx

Feedback to Students:
After each team performs, the teacher will provide minimal (and decreasing) guidance for
a peer critique process using a Student Feedback Rubric.
Theatre 2.Student Feedback Rubric.docx

Summative Assessment:
Each student will choose one piece of dialogue that s/he has written as part of one of the
lesson experiences, and extend it into a scene or short play. The Formative Assessment
rubric used throughout the unit will be used to guide the summative assessment.
Theatre 2.Rubric.docx
ACCOMMODATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

Accommodations: Some students may require additional time, as they pore over word
choices and the structure of dialogue. Students who struggle to write any dialogue at all,
particularly those whose day-to-day vocabulary is not sophisticated, may need to begin
with a list of words that describe a person or other character before writing any dialogue
at all. Other students may need to work with a scribe, who can write what a student is
able to say, but not commit to written form.

Extensions:
o
o
o

Follow-up: The next lesson, “Unlocking the Playwright Within: First Lines,” will use
a verbal stimulus as the opening line of a short dialogue (for two actors) that has a
beginning, middle, and an end (e.g., “This just isn’t working!”). Presentations and
critiques of dialogues will occur after students have been given a short time to write.
Following plans: The students will shape bits of dialogue into a complete story using
the conventions of playwriting.
End of unit: Each student will choose one piece of dialogue that s/he has written
during one of the lessons and extend it into a scene or short play.
Special Materials Needed:
o
o
o
o
Performance space
Table or clipboards, paper, pencils for writing
List of prompts (Embedded)
Rubrics
Theatre 2.Rubric.docx
Theatre 2.Student Feedback Rubric.docx

Further Recommendations: It's very important that students be encouraged at every
turn in this lesson and unit. For most students, writing dialogue, scenes, and plays is a
very daunting aspect of theatre and should be approached with excitement for the
concept, yet with an eye to how ready students are to address each step in the learning
and creative processes. Creating a SAFE ATMOSPHERE for sharing, providing
feedback, and further creativity is critical to student success!
PUBLIC REMARKS
By Author/Submitter: This lesson, which is part of a unit, offers opportunities for students to
self-assess, provide and accept feedback on their writing over time in a safe environment, and rewrite to show acquisition of improved skills and increased understanding of concepts. Students
also have the opportunity to see their writing come to life in a theatrical manner (followed by
immediate feedback), all of which helps to reinforce their learning experience.
SOURCE AND ACCESS INFORMATION
Name of Author/Source: Shannon O'Bryan
Is this Resource Freely Available? Yes
Access Privileges: Private
Related Standards:
Name
TH.912.C.2.8:
TH.912.S.1.5:
LACC.910.WHST.2.5:
Description
Improve a performance or project using various self-assessment
tools, coaching, feedback, and/or constructive criticism.
Remarks/Examples: e.g., peer assessment, rubric, criteria,
coaching, feedback, criticism
Write monologues, scenes, and/or short plays using principles
and elements of writing found in dramatic literature.
Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising,
editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on
addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and
audience.