Welcome to Literature and
Performance
• Agenda: syllabus
• Name Game ball
• Speed Dating
Syllabus
• Need a notebook just for English
• Journals and free response writing
Name game with ball
• Stand in circle
• Say your name then say the name of someone
you are going to throw the ball to.
• That person must say the name of the person
who threw them the ball, their name, then the
name of someone new.
• That person only says the name of the person
who threw them the ball….their own name and
throws ball to another student….until all students
have had a chance.
• Remember the order….
New Challenge…..Repeat
•
•
•
•
Same order
Without dropping the ball
Introduce another ball….
And another….
Speed Date
• Circle around the room facing each other
• When the bell rings the inner line moves
clockwise
• Introduce yourself (don’t shake hands)
• Answer the question then let partner answer
same question.
Questions
1 What are you most looking forward to this
year?
2 What was the best movie you saw this
summer?
3. What is one of your best memories from the
summer?
Last request: think about it for end
of class
•Please write something, anything about
yourself that you want me to know. It can be
something special about youself that you want
to share with me. (brag) A secret fear, a goal,
special skill, anything that will help me
understand who you are besides an English
student.
5. What do you dread the most about this coming
year?
6 What was your favorite book that you read for
school last year?
7 If you could be anywhere else at this moment,
where would it be?
8 9 What colleges are you thinking about attending
next year?
10. Teach your partner a foreign word.
11. Share your favorite hobby or extracurricular
activity.
12 What do you hope to accomplish this year?
•
•
•
•
Name Game 2(if name is called you touch, if
touched you call out name.)
Stand in a close circle
Teacher begins by calling out a name
That student touches someone’s shoulder
Whoever is touched calls out someone else’s name.
But not the name of the person who touched them
• OUT IF…
–
–
–
–
–
You call a name when you should touch
If you touch when you should call a name
Call an incorrect name (someone not there)
If you delaty in your response.
Last two standing win.
Day 2
• Stereotyping and Prejudice
• Scene making
• Concepts:
conflict through dialogue
Soliloquy: speech in which actor speaks to
self revealing true thoughts and feelings
resolution: sorting out the conflict, bringing
action to an end
Stereotype:
(Noun)
A generally accepted opinion or fixed notion
of a person based on generalizations.
a widely held but fixed and oversimplified
image or idea of a particular type of person or
thing
Stereotypes refuse to acknowledge a person
as an individual.
Prejudice
• A prejudice is a negative belief or feeling about a
particular group of individuals. Prejudices are
often passed on from one generation to the next.
• preconceived opinion that is not based on reason
or actual experience
• "English prejudice against foreigners"
• prejudgment
• "male prejudices about women"
• conflicts with desire to be treated as individuals)
•
Acting out Prejudice Scene work
• Divide into groups
• Work on scenario assigned to you. Come up
with lines that help us understand conflict
• Bring to a resolution…it can be positive or
negative
• What is another option for resolution?
– Can we try it?
Day 3
• Warm up Bombs and Shields
– Choose a bomb with out letting them know
– Choose a shield with letting person know.
– Aim of game to keep the shield between you and
the bomb.
– Count down 1-10
– Command Freeze. Those who are safe, continue.
– Those who are not, sit down.
Day 3
•
•
•
•
Finish scenes
Review drama terms
Suburbs and City stereotypes
Read Same Difference
scenes
Drama terms
conflict through dialogue
Soliloquy: speech in which actor speaks to
self revealing true thoughts and feelings
resolution: sorting out the conflict, bringing
action to an end
Tell your own story
• First:
• Journal 1 half a page
• Write about a time when
– You felt judged
– Someone didn’t listen to you
– Were misunderstood
– Or any story that you want to share
– Or a time you judged others
Second step
• Share story with group if comfortable
• Group chooses a story they want to act out
• After the scene, discuss the effect of seeing it
play out.
• How is it different? How would you change
the resolution?
Same Difference
Samuel Roberson
Scene Journal
• After each scene we read I will give you time
to respond to it. Half a page= 5 pts. 21 Things
to consider:
– How do the conflicts relate to your life?
– What are some lines that seem significant? Why?
– What is the playwright’s message ? What is he
trying to get you to think about?
– How are the characters changing?
Stereotype:
(Noun)
A generally accepted opinion or fixed
notion of a person based on
generalizations.
a widely held but fixed and oversimplified
image or idea of a particular type of person
or thing
Stereotypes refuse to acknowledge a
person as an individual.
What are some stereotypes of
living in the suburbs?/City
• Burbs
• City
•
•
•
•
•
•
Suburbs
Quiet
Safe
White
Rich
Mean, franchise
restaurants, stingy,
snobby distant,
pribvate schoolo,
stuckk-up,
City
Gangsters, rebelliouys,
low income,
dangerous, public
schools, don’t speak
proper, no discipline,
druggies, sexually
active, more single
parents, moms, laid
back, drinking, noisey,
part-eee loud,
undisciplined, criminal
records, stds,
stereotypes
• Suburbs
• Rich, stuck up, red
neck, white, similar,
big houses, daddy’s
money, snobby,
wealthy, plaine,
cocky, peaceful,
preppy, pigs ,
City
Bad, savages, bad
influecnce. Ghetto, ,
ignorant, fancey, ,
crazy, dangertous,
murderous, educated,
, violent, basic, poor,
unruly, druguse. ,
dirty, social, traffic.
Conflict
• External: with another person
• Internal: within yourself
Telling your story: In your journal:
– Write about a time when you were
stereotyped because of the way you look,
dress and/or speak.
• Who stereotyped you? Describe this
person/group of people.
• How did you know you were being
stereotyped?
• How did this make you feel? Did you
address the situation directly?
Share with neighbor.
Share with class.
Derogatory:
• (Adjective)
– Showing a critical or disrespectful
attitude: She tells me I'm stupid; she
always makes derogatory remarks.
In your journal:
• Choose a friend who is particularly different
from you.
• List all of your differences.
• Now list ways in which you similar.
• How does the phrase “same difference” apply
to Jahmal and Anthony?
– Do they differ from other people in similar ways?
Day 4
• Concept: How does Roberson create conflict
through dialogue?
• What is Roberson saying about stereotypes?
Read:
• To page 10.
• Consider how Jahmal and Anthony
stereotype each other.
• As a class we will list the facts versus the
stereotypes about each character.
• To page 8
• How do Jamal and AKA break
stereotypes?
Jahmal Stereotypes Anthony
Facts????
• Comes from burbs
• Private school
• Rich family
• Stereotype
• #.3 Jamal assumes that
aka has no problems
• Surprised by his ghetto
behavior
• Assumed that he went
to school in city.
Surprised at private
school
How are they
• Same
• Different
Scene Two
• World Scene: exaggeration
• What are Jahmal and Aka’s dreams?
• What happens when they enter the real
world?
• What point is the playwright trying to make in the
exaggerated scene?
• Is the exaggeration necessary?
Heightened State of Reality
• (to heighten: to make more intense,
exaggerated)
• When does your life – your reality – feel
particularly intense?
– Indicator: you feel especially sensitive (negatively or
positively) in these moments. Life feels exaggerated.
What are the assumptions?
• Journal #2 What assumptions do people make
about your life?
Affirmative Action
• 1965 federal contractors had been subject to
President Lyndon Johnson's Executive Order
11246, requiring them to take “affirmative
action” to make sure they were not
discriminating.
• “Affirmative action” means positive steps
taken to increase the representation of
women and minorities in areas of
employment, education, and business from
which they have been historically excluded.
When those steps involve preferential
selection—selection on the basis of race,
gender, or ethnicity—affirmative action
generates intense controversy.
• 1972: the Secretary of Labor fully
implemented the Executive Order, landed on
campus by way of directives from the
Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare.
• Supreme Court's decision in the summer of
2003 upheld the University of Michigan Law
School's policy, ruling that race can be one of
many factors considered by colleges when
selecting their students because it furthers "a
compelling interest in obtaining the
educational benefits that flow from a diverse
student body.”
Agenda Lit and Performance
1. Take Pictures and come right back
2. scene 3 (hr
As you read, identify lines that reveal Jamal and
Aka’s points of conflict.
For Homework write a paragraph that analyzes
their different points of view and how their
views reveal their character. See handout.
Paragraph
• Topic Sentence: state the main conflicts
• Two supporting details
– , (use lines from play for support)
– Followed by commentary (how do these lines
reveal character?
• Conclusion: One line that summarizes the
main conflicts
structure
• Topic sentence
– In the play Same Difference, Jahmal and Anthony disagree
about________and_______
• Introduce Conflict #1
– Line
– commentary
• Transition
• Introduce Conflict #2
– Line
– commentary
• One line conclusion
Incorporating Quotes and
commentary
• Jahmal scoff’s at Anthony’s lack of ambition
and attributes it to being raised in a wealthy
family: “________.” Jahmal probably feels this
way because we know that Anthony went to a
private school. We also see at the beginning of
the play in scene 1…..
Malcolm X
• Assassinated by Muslim Brotherhood
• Elijah Muhummad suspended Malcolm from his duites
after the comment “The chickens have come home to
roost.” Later expelled.
• Malcolm was bigger than the Nation of Islam
• The Brotherhood wanted to abstain from the Civil
Rights Movement, but Malcolm was becoming more
radical and involved.
Points of Conflict between the two? Pages 13-18
• Write a paragraph that explains:
• their different points of view regarding
• Whites/jobs/ or any other issue they disagree
with
Quote 4 different lines that support their
different points of view.
In goups of 4 read scene 3
As you read, identify lines that reveal Jamal and
Aka’s points of conflict.
For Homework write a paragraph that analyzes
their different points of view and how their
views reveal their character.
Scene Journal
• After each scene we read I will give you time
to respond to it. Half a page= 5 pts. 50 Things
to consider:
• What assumptions do people ;make about
you?
– How do the conflicts relate to your life?
– What are some lines that seem significant? Why?
– What is the playwright’s message ? What is he
trying to get you to think about?
– How are the characters changing?
Subtext
Subtext:
• The meaning beneath the lines; the interior
thoughts of the character that are hidden
within the lines that he/she speaks.
Subtext:
Meaning under the line.
Text that is read
Meaning under the text
Line-Reading Exercise
• Practice reading with partner (keep your
context secret).
• Read “scene” in front of class. Class guesses
your context.
Follow up:
• The lines all have the same literal meaning,
but context provides subtext.
As we read aloud:
Record in your notebook the
pages/lines with subtext.
Exit Ticket:
• Tear out a small(ish) sized piece of paper
from your notebook.
• On paper, define the words:
– Stereotype
– Subtext
Conflict
• Disagreement or tension between people
• Internal Conflict: character has conflict with
himself. Decision or choice that stands in
opposition to the other
• External Conflict: character
– against character
- character against environment
- character against society
How do you feel when you hear adults say that
teenagers are irresponsible. Lazy, disrespectful
and uncaring?
What limitations or restrictions does this
attitude place on you?
• What can you do to defeat this biased and
negative attitude?
Write a dialogue in play form between an adult employer and
a teen who is applying for a job. (10 points)
• The employer believes that all adolescents are
lazy, irresponsible, untrustworthy and
disrespectful of authority.
• The teen must try to overcome this prejudice
and prove to the employer that he/she is not a
stereotypical teenager and deserves the job
offered. Each character must speak seven or
more statements during dialogue.
Dialogue
• Plot, conflict and character and character
development are revealed through
dialogue.
Climax: the point of highest tension or a major
turning point in the scene’s dialogue.
Resolution: both characters reach an
agreement.
Parent to Teen:
Parent: Is that a dent in my
car?
Teen: What dent?
Parent to Teen:
Parent: What’s this D- in
math?
Teen: What do you care,
you’re never home?
Two friends sitting at a
restaurant table. The
check arrives:
One of the two: Oh, can you
pay? I left my wallet at
home.
Teacher to Student:
Teacher: Where’s your paper?
Student: I didn’t know it was
due today. You never
explain things well enough.
Employer to Employee:
Employer: You’re late.
Employee: I’m sorry, but my
car broke down.
Employer: You’re always
coming in late. I won’t put
up with this anymore.
Couple:
Person A: Why didn’t you call
me last night?
Personal B: My phone broke.
With a partner:
In 20 minutes:
• Write a 10-line scene (5 lines per character).
• Introduce a conflict between the characters.
• Bring the conflict to a climax (greatest moment of
tension).
• Find a resolution (characters reach an agreement).
Read to page 30
Scene 6 (world scene) p. 29
• Monologue: A speech that an actor
delivers on stage by himself. In it he
reveals true feelings and thoughts.
On a torn out piece of notebook paper:
(1) Define:
(a) Stereotype:
(2 pts.) (b) Subtext:
(2 pts.)
(2) (6 pts.) In a short paragraph, identify the subtext
within the following lines:
On pg. 6: Starting with: “I see, well I’m glad
to…” Ending with: “1340 actually… with the flu.”
What do Jahmal and Anthony really mean?
Analyze line by line.
Total possible score: 10 pts.
Heightened State of Reality
• (to heighten: to make more intense,
exaggerated)
• When does your life – your reality – feel
particularly intense?
– Indicator: you feel especially sensitive (negatively or
positively) in these moments. Life feels exaggerated.
• In journal: List times when your life feels
exaggerated (better or worse than it really is).
Describe in detail.
• Share.
• With a partner, choose one World Scene
(starting on pages 9, 19 & 29) and reread the
scene aloud with your partner.
With your partner:
• List lines that are particularly exaggerated within
this scene:
– To exaggerate: to represent (something) as being
larger, greater, better, or worse than it really is.
• What point is the playwright trying to make in the
exaggerated scene?
• Is the exaggeration necessary?
1) Share lists/interpretations with class.
2) Why did the playwright choose to
exaggerate scenes throughout the play?
3) Why did he choose to exaggerate these
particular scenes?
• In your journals:
Write about a side of yourself that you
hide from the world.
– Why do you hide it?
– What would happen if you didn’t hide this
side of yourself?
This writing will remain confidential. You will
not share this entry with the class.
Read to Page 54
Resolution: both characters reach an agreement
or develop an understanding of each other.
For 10 pts:
1) As we read, list in your notebooks what
Anthony and Jahmal learn/now understand
about each other.
2) After we read, write in your notebooks what
Anthony and Jahmal hide from the world. How
do they act instead? Why do their backgrounds
lead them to act in the way that they do?
• Share your writing with a neighbor.
• Your neighbor will explain to the class
one point that you make in your writing.
Monologue
• A long speech by one character to him or
herself, an imagined other character, or the
audience that:
• Reveals (through voice) the speaker’s
personality, thoughts, emotions and some
aspects of his/her perception of life;
• might resolve a conflict, solve a problem,
entertain or persuade;
• might require some stage directions and setting.
• Read to the end of Same Difference
Scene 12 p. 58
• Monologue: A speech that an actor
delivers on stage by himself.
Where do we see internal
conflict?
•
•
•
•
I’m through with your kind?
You need me
Getting rid of you
You never would have made it without my
protection
Who is Aaron?
• Why does Jahmal need him?
Will Jahmal get the promotion?
Blackface
• Blackface is more than just burnt cork
applied as makeup. It is a style of
entertainment based on racist Black
stereotypes that began in minstrel
shows and continues to this day.
Scene 13
How does Jahmal feel about the way the
white boy is talking to him?
-what lines tell us that?
What is the playwright saying here?
is the white boy seeing Jahmal as an
individual or is he stereotyping him?
Scene 14
• Why is Jahmal angry at Anthony in this
scene?
• What has Jahmal learned about himself or
the world?
• What is the climax of the scene? The point
where the emotion is at its highest?
Monologues p.66
• What one line best expresses Jahmal?
• What line best expresses Anthony?
Scene 15
• Prompt:
• Do you feel that people listen to you?
When did you feel unheard? What would
you want them to hear?
Scene 15
• Why do you think he ended the play like
this?
What does the title mean?
• Same/Difference
Role Play
• First lines and situation. You have to build
a scene with climax and resolution.
• Handout on Stereotyping and Prejudice
– With a partner brainstorm what these
– characters would say.
– Teen and an adult employer
– BUILD CONFLICT AND REACH
– RESOLUTION
Backside Acting out Prejudice
• Choose one of the three scenes and write
a few lines that each character would say
in this situation.
(For 10 pts.) With partner, choose
one monologue from Same Diff.:
1. What do we learn about the speaker’s
life?
2. What does the speaker want?
3. Describe the story the speaker tells.
4. What do you learn about the speaker’s
personality, emotions, or thoughts?
5. What makes this section different from a
multi-person scene, poem, short story,
letter, dialogue or article?
- Is this format effective? Why? Why not?
Monologue
•
•
•
•
Who is the speaker?
Where and when is this taking place?
What is going on in the scene?
What do you learn about the speaker’s
personality, emotions, or thoughts?
• What makes this performance different
from a multi-person scene, poem, short
story, letter, dialogue or article?
With same partner: (for 10 pts.)
1) One partner will read aloud Bobby’s
monologue from Five Scenes from Life.
Answer the following questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
What do we learn about the speaker’s life?
What does the speaker want?
Describe the story the speaker tells.
What do you learn about the speaker’s
personality, emotions or thoughts?
2) The other partner will read aloud Jill’s
monologue from Butterflies are Free.
Answer the above questions.
Peer Critique
•
Critique: a detailed analysis and assessment of
something.
1. Does the writing’s word choice show the
personality of the character(s)? If yes,
describe the personality of the character(s). If
not, write what you’d like to know more about.
2. Does the writing express a view on
stereotyping/discrimination? If yes, write what
the view is. If not, write what you’d like to
know more about.
3. Does the writing introduce a conflict, reach a
climax, and find a resolution? If yes, write what
each of these are. If not, write what you’d like
to know more about to help the writer find the