Renaissance Charter School and Young Playwrights, Inc. - "Write a Play!"

Many students have trouble connecting their inner lives to their studies.  This project was extremely successful at motivating some of the most intractable students to reach inside and write authentically. All goals in writing, creativity, and higher-order thinking were met through incorporating social studies themes into a creative work of drama.

Teaching artist Erin Courtney led students through prompted writing exercises of gradually increasing complexity that empowered students to express themselves openly and imaginatively. They also developed skills in improvisation that they then applied to their writing. Plays that were written by the seventh and eighth graders were performed by seventh grade drama students. 8th grade ELA students share their plays.

Teachers learned experiential exercises in which visual images, music, and improvisation provide the necessary stimulation for students to develop their ideas.  Through these exercises they got to see writing potential and acting talent a teacher might not generally see. Teachers reported that their own writing has been inspired and invigorated through the process.

Comments from teachers:
"At this stage of development and into students' teenage years I constantly hear, 'How does this relate to real life?' I can think of nothing more real than the making and performing of live theatre.  Each time students engage in this type of work, it confirms my belief of how hungry students are for these experiences."

"I have a male student who has struggled socially to get along with his peers.  He is very intelligent, animated, but has a lot of anger.  Doing the improvisation and experiential exercises as well as the writing, I have never seen this boy so engaged.  In fact, he was so inspired he spent the entire spring break finishing his journey play.  The class unanimously voted for his play to be the basis for their musical theatre performance.  I have seen this student who was once on the periphery now being embraced by his peers because of his talent."

"My students are acquiring skills to analyze character, plot and an author's point of view when they are reading other literature. Because writing a play is so structured, the details a student uses to create a play can easily be transferred to other forms of writing such as essays or short stories." "Students had a much stronger grasp of dramatic vocabulary and of the structure of a story.  Ideas seemed to flow more freely and went from abstract to concrete with more grace and ease. They had a greater reverence for and understanding of the creative process, making more allowance for the evolution of ideas."

8th grade ELA students share their plays.

Comments from students:

6th grade musical, final number: "Alex in the Land of OOZE"

"Working on this play for me was a fun and an emotional roller coaster.  I didn't know how much fun and talent could come out of one class....My favorite part was writing a song with my friends.  I taught myself how to play an instrument (guitar) and the song came out great.... I learned that you have to be patient when working with a big group of people."

"Going through this process we all have had good and bad moments....If we all work together we can build something big like our wonderful play.  Also I learned that you will not always get your way and that you have to accept what you have....When we finally finished the play it was like a reward of us working hard and finding the actors and musicians inside us. This play brought us together as one big family."

Scene from "OOZE": these are Munchkins©...literally...they are little donuts with pink icing.

"This musical was a total blast for me....My teacher always says, 'What you put out there is what you get back.' We put out our hard work and got back something that we deserved.  For real, I felt I was on a journey of life.  This journey experience was phenomenal."   Backstage at the 6th grade musical.