Heather, Carson, Cali Handout!

SPEAK

Laurie Halse Anderson

By: Cali Wilkes, Heather Starr, Carson Wright

Instagram

By: Cali Wilkes

OVERVIEW: Students will use the ideas of Instagram to explore personal character themes taken from Speak.

PURPOSE: Students will be given a character from Speak and a theme.  The students will be split into the groups and told to express the theme through the assigned character using Instagram.

DETAILS:

·      Split the class into 4 groups of 3

·      Assign each group a character and a theme connected to that character

·      Hand out cameras to the class or invite the students to use their own personal cameras, cell phones, or I-pods/ I-touches to complete the assignment

·      Have the students discuss how they can artistically express a theme from Speak through the character they have been assigned.

·      Give the groups 10 minutes to leave the classroom and take a picture together

·      When the students come back have each group write a description under the picture justifying their artistic choices

·      Have the groups share their images and explanations  

Blog posts

By: Heather Starr

For each of the four quarters, one character will be chosen and a blog post will be written (on a closed class blog, similar to how we do it) as if the student was the character. Each set of characters was chosen because they exhibited growth during that quarter. The teacher should provide specific questions (see examples), but the students should write more than it takes to just answer the question to demonstrate their understanding of the growth the character.

Students should take into account what they know about the character from the readings as well as what they can infer from the novel. It is expected that they will explore the thematic development of the character they choose (i.e. Melinda’s parents, miscommunication; David, courage; etc.) They may include just text in the response, or any combination of text, images, sound or video.

1st Quarter - Melinda or any of her friends from Junior High
2nd Quarter - David Petrakis or Heather
3rd Quarter - Melinda’s parents or Ivy
4th Quarter – Rachel or Melinda

Ideas for questions:

• What event has fueled your actions this quarter? (If answering for Melinda, please use something besides the rape.) Why did this one event have such an impact on you?
• If you could have changed the way that event happened, what would you have made differently?
• Who do you feel has influenced you the most this quarter? Why did this person have such an influence?

Discussion ideas:

• How do you let people know how you are?
• How does posting in a combination of images, text, sound, and video create a portrayal of who you are?
• How do relationships play out similar/differently on blogs than through other digital media?

SoundCloud

By: Carson Wright

OVERVIEW:
Students will use SoundCloud to explore characters from Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.

PURPOSE:
Students will be able to explore and create fleshed out characters based on what is given to them in the text. They will also be able to explore the character of Melinda by responding to the perceptions/thoughts of the other characters.

DETAILS:

• Assign a character to each student (any character except Melinda). You may also allow students to choose their own.
• Have students write a short monologue (written in the first-person of their character) about what their character thinks/perceives about Melinda.
• Have students visit http://www.soundcloud.com.
• They can log-in using Facebook, or they can create their own account. If necessary, dummy email addresses (available for free at mail.google.com), to create SoundCloud accounts.
• Once logged in, student can record their monologues directly onto SoundCloud.
• When asked to privatize the upload, select yes, and then have the students add the other class members
• Student’s then will listen to the recordings made by their classmates and respond to them as Melinda.
• They can respond in the general comments section, or they can respond directly by adding a timed comment.

Social/Historical/Educational Contexts, making it pertinent to a Theater Classroom

SOCIAL CONTEXT:

• Theatre is not a stagnant object. Theatre is constantly moving, updating. Theatre is always using new technologies to get a message across, not simply because practitioners want to seem cool, but because that is the language through which their audience is now speaking. If theatre practitioners don’t keep up and learn the new languages, they won’t be able to accurately share their message with their audience. These activities will help our students use these technologies to accurately express their ideas and feelings, as well as how to portray them via another persona. These will be helpful in both theatre, and in life.

EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT:

• Media is about sharing. It’s about identity. It’s about speaking. Theatre is about sharing. It’s about identity. It’s about speaking. The two fit so well together because in many ways, they’re both accomplishing the same goal. The activities we’ve designed here are not only activities that will benefit our students as thespians, but it will show them other ways to speak, and other ways to be heard.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

·      In the classroom it is crucial that as teacher we implement things that are relevant to our students.  Incorporating these different media forms; Soundcloud, Instagram, and blogs is evidences of people documenting their history presently.  Using current form of recording experiences, these media forms, and connecting them to older idea from theater history takes a easily boring thing and gives it a twist that engages students.