First Line, Last Line.

Choose one of these lines to be the first line of your story and another to be the last line. The story should be short—one to two pages.

He bought 30 rubber duckies, just to be safe.

No, Grandma. You can’t have another piece of beef jerky.

I wasn’t surprised to find the dinosaur bones in her car.

It was four hours before I got off the ferris wheel.

I never should have told my sister what I really thought about her haircut.

Everything was fine until he revealed that he was a mime.

Everyone knows ghosts don’t know how to sing.

There’s no such thing as a normal day when you work in a toll booth.

I realized with a sinking feeling that I’d left the chicken in the microwave.

Against my better judgment, I took the rowboat out for one more trip.

He was the most handsome magician I’d ever seen.

When she finally got home, the postman was waiting for her.

The golf balls were a good idea.

My mother rollerbladed away, yelling “So long, sucker!”

Never trust a horse with a braided tail.

I don’t think I’ll ever get the Jeopardy theme song out of my head.

You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to go ice-fishing again.

They renamed the city after me.

Blackmailing my babysitter was a pretty bad idea.

The breakfast buffet was the biggest I’d ever seen.

Performances // Coffeehouse Fun!

Today, we'll start with your performances of your peers' scenes. You'll have 7 minutes at the start of class to work with your scene partners and identify the tone (if it's not already included) of each line. After that, we'll get right into performing!

When we finish with performances, we'll move to the lab and work on some activities to begin getting you ready for your Coffeehouse! These activities will continue to focus on tone.

Discussing Crimes of the Heart / Scene Performances

Good Morning!

Today, we'll begin with having a final discussion on Crimes of the Heart. Think about how Beth Henley uses dialogue and characterization to make a compelling play. We'll talk briefly about these questions:

• The whole play takes place in a kitchen: what literary techniques does Henley use to keep the interest of the audience? 
• How did the emotions of Lenny, Meg, and Babe shift throughout? Think about tone here--it will clue you in to how they are feeling. 
• Name one craft technique Henley uses that you'd like to use in your next piece. 

Next, you'll have about 30 minutes in the lab--those of you who did not turn in a script, or did not turn in a scene with a beginning, middle, and end, will need to turn that into me. Thank you to those of you who gave me a completed draft: you can use this time to finish or revise any pieces for this class. (Remember that your Coffeehouse is coming up in a little less than a month, so you'll need to be preparing for that!)

After that, we'll be distributing parts from your scenes. You will perform one another's work. You will perform these scenes on Tuesday. They will not need to be memorized, but you'll need to think carefully about the tones you're using in the scene. You will be evaluated on how well your performance fits the text. You'll have the last chunk of class to work with your partner and practice the scene. You'll also have a few minutes at the start of next class to polish everything up.

HOMEWORK:

Get your scenes prepared!

Tone & Performance/Finishing Up Crimes of the Heart

Good morning!

We'll be starting with a discussion of Najla Said's performance and discussion. You'll engage in a Think, Pair, Share activity.

 First, you'll have one minute to think individually about the following questions:

How did use of tone make Najla Said’s performance more interesting?  Where did you see examples of interesting tone shifts?  How does this factor in to Said’s creation of character? Then, turn to your neighbor(s) and take 4 minutes to discuss your thoughts.  After that, we'll take some time to discuss as a large group. Every group will have a chance to share out.  Next, I'll be giving a short presentation on ways to recognize and create tone in plays and scenes.  Once you've gotten a good idea of tone (and how to incorporate it into scripts) you'll do a few short writing exercises. You can work individually or with a partner. Write this on a separate sheet of loose leaf paper—Mr. Craddock and I will be collecting them.  Here's the exercise: Part 1: Write 5 lines of dialogue that have an explicit tone. Underline the part where the tone is indicated.  Part 2: Write 5 lines of dialogue that have an implicit tone. Underline the part where the tone is indicated.  You'll have 10 minutes to complete this exercise.  Finally, we'll move into reading Act III of Crimes of the Heart. If you volunteer to read, please keep these indicators of tone in mind while you're "performing"! It will make listening to the play much more enjoyable than it would be if we all read in a flat voice.  I'll give you a graphic organizer to complete as we read. This will be more tone practice—you'll choose lines from the play and think about different ways in which the tone is indicated. You'll also take on a directing role: how could an actor portray this tone?  Once the play is done, we'll discuss it. We'll talk primarily about the three Magrath sisters and how Henley develops their characters.  If there's time, we'll continue work with our scene performances. (you should have a lot of new things to keep in mind for your upcoming performances now!) Staple this graphic organizer to your character graphic organizer and put it (along with your partner activity from before) in Mr. Craddock's inbox.  HOMEWORK: Finish Crimes of the Heart and complete the accompanying graphic organizer.

Crimes of the Heart Continued/Scene Project

Good Morning.

Today, we'll begin with a discussion of tone and how we can analyze it throughout Crimes of the Heart. What are the different ways that the author expresses her characters' tones? What can we deduce about the characters from their tones?

With this in mind, we'll continue our reading of Crimes of the Heart. 

We'll finish out the class with an explanation of our next assignment. You and your partner will pair up with another group and swap scenes. You will perform these scenes on Wednesday. They will not need to be memorized, but you'll need to think carefully about the tones you're using in the scene. You will be evaluated on how well your performance fits the text. You'll have the last chunk of class to work with your partner and practice the scene. You'll also have a few minutes at the start of next class to polish everything up.

Homework: Look over your scene and make sure you're prepared to perform it next class. Also, note that I'll be collecting your character sheets from Crimes of the Heart, so continue to work on those.

Crimes of the Heart Continued/Finish Up Open Scene Project.

Good Morning!

Today, we'll continue Crimes of the Heart. We'll start with a brief recap. As you read along today, you'll choose one of the Magrath sisters and fill out a character map for her as we continue. Please use Henley's work as a model for how you should be developing your characters. What can you learn from her craft when it comes to characterization?

This will be useful to you as we move from Crimes of the Heart into working on our own Open Scenes. Add depth to your characters as you flesh out your scripts. When you finish your scene, it should be thorough enough so that someone else can perform it!

Yes, that's right! You won't be performing these scenes, but you'll pair up with another group and workshop your scenes with them before you eventually swap scripts and perform them.

Please remember to use me and Mr. Craddock as resources for writing and performing. We're both more than willing to help!

Crimes of the Heart/Open Scenes Project

Today, we'll spend the first chunk of the period reading a play called Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley. We'll start by going down to the library to get our books. Once we're all settled, we'll read some of the play as a class.


Then, we'll pair up to begin working on a project with "open scenes". Open scenes are scripted scenes that feature a conversation between two people, much like any other script, but these scenes have very little context. The conversations could take place between a variety of people and for a variety of different reasons.

Your job is to beef them up!

You and your partner will be given a scene. You'll have time to begin working in the lab. You can do anything you like with the scripts, except remove words. This means you can:

• add setting description
• add stage directions
• add more dialogue
• add music or costumes

These scenes are, in their current form, pretty boring. Do what you can to make them interesting. Keep in mind that these will eventually be performed, so make them unique!