Theatre Journal
If you have had your summer off--which to many of us means we have worked away from our regular job, you know the students are coming soon whether we're ready for them or not. So let's get ready.
The first thing I hope to do is to set up what will go in their journals. This takes priority for many reasons, some reasons are purely logistic and some are even less noble.
Many of us teach either on a six-week or nine-week schedule, and for the purpose of this article, I am trying to break everything into the LCD of three. If I am going to have the first component of this graded by the end of the third week, I have to start within the first couple of days so the students will have ample time to find resources. Second, speaking of grades, the faculty likes to claim that elective classes, especially creative and artistic classes, cannot be graded. I want to let the boss and the department head know that there are objective ways of accumulating numerical grades. Third, I want the students to know right off that this is an organized class with a work schedule. On the first day, we're going to work with one of the Viola Spolin improvs (which I will talk about next week) so they know that we will be having fun and we will be moving around. On the second day, I want to explain this journal and the reading project so the ones who aren't into having fun, moving around, and working can find resources like a drop/add form.
As of right now, I have not created a rubric for the presentation or for the play critique, but when I do, I plan to use a site called RubiStar. This site helps create rubrics for anything from a Hyperstudio/PowerPoint presentation to a puppet show. They even have the 6 + 1 writing rubric like the one developed by Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. (Thank you Mrs. Lanier for this site.) To teach the publicity poster, I will use the information and a checklist from Play Director's Survival Guide. Don't look down at this because it says "survival guide." This book has checklist reminders we all could use, as well as simple instructions that are good for students once you assign jobs.
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