LESSON SIX: Stage Fright

LESSON DESCRIPTION

Students create a nonfiction scene to add to the War of the Worlds radio play and perform it for their classmates.

GRADE-LEVEL EXPECTATIONS

LS2         In discussions and presentations create concise presentations on a variety of topics; incorporate appropriate media or technology; respond to feedback; defend ideas; demonstrate poise and self-control.

LESSON MATERIALS

§         Sources of literature 

§         Supplies 

o        Goldilocks and the Three Bears

o        Overhead transparency

§         Handouts provided

o        Fright Night Formative Assessment

§         Words to know

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT                      Assessment          

Students use nonfiction articles about public reaction to the War of the Worlds broadcast to write a new scene for the radio incorporating one nonfiction event into the fiction broadcast. Students create a scoring guide based on the characteristics of a radio play. Students write plays to fulfill scoring guide requirements and perform it to the class. Peers evaluate performances using the scoring guide.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

1.        Ask students to imagine a world without television where evenings are spent gathered around a radio. Students should connect to information learned in Lesson Two. Give history of the radio play genre.

2.        Students discuss the importance of sound and speaking to the genre.

3.        Apply genre characteristics to the War of the Worlds radio play. Discuss how sound and speaking enhances the effectiveness of the play and audience involvement.

4.        Students read the children’s story Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Students brainstorm ideas and make a random list of characters, setting, sounds, etc. that would be needed in a radio play version of the passage. Refine list by making an appropriate graphic organizer categorizing like ideas. Make final decisions about performance.

5. Students present an impromptu performance of Goldilocks and the Three Bears radio play using the ideas discussed in the brainstorming activity. Students in the audience turn their backs to the performers (or vice versa) to create a radio play environment rather than a visual one.

6. After the performance, discuss the sounds used by the performers, how they were made, and their effectiveness. Do the same with the speaking parts. Discuss how performers used their voices to create unique characters. Audience should ask questions of performers concerning their choice of appropriate sound effects, volume, placement of sound effects within the text, appropriate speaking tone, style, pitch, pace, and stress.

7. Students read the nonfiction selection Radio Listeners in Panic.

8. Using the folded lineup strategy, create groups of two or three.

9. First give students the assessment prompt. Groups choose from the “Radio Listeners in Panic” article an example of how one person/group of people reacted to the radio broadcast of War of the Worlds and turn the news article information into a new scene to insert into Orwell’s version of the radio play. Students add sound and speaking elements, decide where in the radio play the scene will be inserted, write the script, then perform the new scene for the audience following the same format as in the children’s story performance.

10. In a whole group class discussion, under teacher supervision, students create a scoring guide based on the desired characteristics of a radio play to evaluate all students during the lesson assessment.

11. Perform the new scenes.

12. During the performance, students evaluate one another’s performance using the class-created scoring guide.

13. “Question and Answer” session follows the performance. Using the class created scoring guide, audience questions performers about decisions concerning their end product. Performers defend their ideas much as they did in the earlier practice performance.