Onstage and Behind the Scenes

Introduction

What child does not love to pretend play? Whether it's playing dress up, telling a story in song, pretending with action figures or mimicking a favorite television character, children have a natural interest in making drama. This unit, as well as The Children's Museum's exhibit Onstage and Behind the Scenes, capitalizes on children's innate attraction to theatre and answers the question just how does theatre come alive? Using the Middle Ages as a context, children are "catapulted" across time and culture to explore the elements needed to produce theatre and experience how to work in partnership to create a dramatic presentation.

But why have a unit on theatre? Class time is precious; aren't there more important things to study than theatre? Why go to The Children's Museum to see an exhibit on theatre? There are multiple reasons:

1) The study of theatre can bring enormous excitement to the learning process. Clearly, the language arts (specifically reading, writing, and talking about a topic of personal relevance) can promote intellectual adventurousness in children. Why not further nurture the excitement of inquiry by having children perform what they have learned? Through performance and the study of theatre, students enhance their written and oral communication skills, demonstrate their understandings and expand their intellectual horizons.

2) Theatre can be an enchanting vehicle to time travel and experience history. Throughout this unit, students have a chance to experience theatre from a medieval perspective. As a result, children increase their appreciation for diverse ways of life, gain recognition of self and others, feel more connected with humanity, and live life more deeply and abundantly.

3) A strong message in the museum exhibit and this unit is that theatre is a collaborative process. The act of making theatre (with its interconnected elements such as developing a character, writing a script, and designing sets and costumes) helps children to develop a spirit of cooperation, perseverance, self-esteem and self-discipline, and to add another tool to their repertoire of self-expression. These are skills that contribute to a successful life.

4) The notion of putting on a show is so universally appealing to children, why not make the most of those desires by integrating lessons in social studies, literature, writing, math and science with theatre? In this unit, theatre is blended with the rest of the curriculum and the results are entertaining as well as educational. With increased interest comes increased competence and enhanced expectations for learning more.

5) Lastly, there is an intrinsic value to studying theatre. As an audience member or as a participant, theatre can be a transcending experience that we can feel intensely, yet barely describe. Children too can make a valued contribution expressing themselves and dramatizing with a playwright's vision to make enchanting theatrical experiences.

Medieval Festival Performance
What sets this unit apart is that students choose what best suits their interests and skills and as a result they become more deeply immersed in the topic. Many of the unit's learning experiences are left open-ended, including choices relating to their final dramatic presentation given in the context of a medieval festival. By combining theatre with language arts and history studies, learners research and create their own medieval characters complete with sketches of their character (costume renderings), written description of their characters' goals and life challenges, and original stories based on their characters. Some students may be intrigued with the life of a traveling troubadour and write a song to perform, while another may be fascinated with castle design and choose to be a stonecutter, or a group of students could decide to write and perform a puppet play. Whether a student is a falconer or friar, mapmaker or midwife, in this unit students discover the hard work and the exhilaration of making theatrical enchantments happen!

Content Areas and Grade Levels
This unit is targeted for children in the 4th and 5th grades to use in conjunction with or independently from the Children's Museum of Indianapolis' exhibit On Stage and Behind the Scenes and the museum's theatre production of Young King Arthur.

Integrating learning episodes in the fine arts, language arts, social studies, math and science, "Catapult Thyself into Theatre!" encourages the development of self-expression and the development of communication skills by inspiring individual creativity through writing, acting, speaking, storytelling, and designing.

Enduring Idea: How does theatre come alive?
Telling stories through theatre is an art found across cultures and time. A variety of artists and craftspeople are needed to make theatre happen. People work collaboratively and make many choices regarding characters, drama, action, scenery, costumes, props, lighting and special effects.
Key Concepts and Questions:
Historical and Social Context — celebrating humanity using drama as a stimulus. Through the study of theatre, how did people live in other times and cultures, and what does this say about life and us today?

Students journey back in time to explore the lives of medieval people — their work and pastimes, their challenges and hopes. Students use this information as a basis to develop characters that they will portray at a medieval festival. In addition, students examine current day connections in this unit's "Past and Present" discussion questions.

Production — creating as a means to communicate with others — to express ideas, to teach lessons and to entertain. What skills and knowledge are necessary to create a theatrical production? Who are the people that make theatre happen?

Throughout this unit students study the elements that are necessary to make theatre come alive (this includes character and script development, music and sound effect choices as well as costume, prop, and set design). Students put their learning into practice by creating their own dramatic presentations/performances at a medieval festival.

Aesthetics — discovering and understanding the meanings and values in student's own work, and other's creative endeavors. What are the elements of a good story or dramatic production? In what ways does theatre contribute to our shared storehouse of culture? What is the value of one-of-a-kind beauty?

In this unit of study, exposing children to the best in children's literature and medieval art nurtures sensitivity to creative work. Read-aloud experiences, respectful examination of medieval manuscript illuminations and exercises in dramatic story writing are some examples of how this is achieved.

Criticism—responding to and making judgments about students' own work along with other's contributions. What makes this an interesting story to me? How does theatre enliven and enrich my life?

Daily opportunities are provided for students to reflect on their own work and other's through class-wide and small group discussions and by writing in their journals (their Books of Days). Students are also encouraged to fill out self-evaluation rubrics on their final festival presentations.

Unit Outline

Throughout this three-week unit, students become acquainted with the processes that are involved in creating theatre using the Middle Ages as a context culminating with a medieval festival and feast where students play medieval characters.

The unit is divided into four lessons: (1) Pre-production Learning refers to planning and organizing the people and procedures that are involved in making a theatre production so that the remaining activities go smoothly. (2) Backstage Learning involves many of the design elements such as props, costuming, music and sound effects as well as character and story development. (3) Onstage Learning refers to actor's preparations and stage design. (4) And finally, Performance Learning corresponds to the day students assume their roles. Each of these hands-on, multidisciplinary lessons takes students closer in preparing their theatrical event — a medieval festival where students play the roles of medieval characters that they have researched and developed.

Within this framework, each learning experience begins with a "Mental Joust" that identifies the essential question(s) for that experience. Background information is provided for easy reference, along with an estimate of the time it will take to complete the experience. (When necessary, most experiences can be easily adjusted to accommodate your teaching schedule.) "Worthy Words" is a vocabulary list specific to the experience, and "Past and Present" offers discussion options for making historical connections with today. "Exhibit Connections" provides information on the correlated learning opportunities that are available at The Children's Museum exhibit Onstage and Behind the Scenes and the museum's theatre production of Young King Arthur.

Ongoing assessments take place throughout this unit in several forms. Students create their own versions of a medieval journal called their Book of Days. The first half of their Book of Days is devoted to their medieval character development. The second portion documents students' work on "challenges" (in-class assignments that are related to this unit, but are not directly associated with character development). Students are also evaluated through participation in class discussions, the completion of challenges, and final dramatic presentations. Students' self-evaluation will be evidenced through their Book of Days entries, and their presentation evaluations.

A motivational aspect of this unit is for students to earn points in the form of coins enabling them to be knighted by the teacher-king/queen and achieve the title of sir or dame. These coins are also used to purchase food at the festival feast that occurs at the end of the unit. Coins are awarded at the discretion of the teacher, but it is suggested that coins go to the entire class whenever a learning experience has gone well. This way every student who participates is ensured of experiencing success.

References and Resources:

Dobbs, Stephen Mark. Learning in and through Art: A Guide to Discipline-Based Art Education. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Trust, 1998.

Wilson, Brent. The Quiet Evolution: Changing the Face of Arts Education. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Trust, 1997.

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