Teaching Day Four

We discussed dialogue today and talked about the format of scripts and what makes dialogue interesting to read. We did a good activity with them on the board that got them all engaged in what the discussion was about. They thought about the contextual factors of plays and what makes them different from novels. They also realized the audience only knows what you choose to tell them. We talked about word choice and I think they were surprised by themselves at what they already knew. I think sometimes we don't know how much we know until we're asked to explain it. We asked them to start writing their scripts in their groups and they were off to a good start. Mrs. Foster had said that the students hate playwrighting but I think it was because they felt so much pressure to make a play. Since they were in groups of three to four people they were each able to contribute ideas and be able to forward the process along. Today was a good balance between instruction and activity because some of our beginning activities were also instructing them how to write for the latter part of the class. They are starting to treat us like teachers, which is a very odd feeling for me, but I'll get used to it!