Playwriting Unit

Lesson Plan Five – Personal Experience Monologue

Subject:Theatre Topic: Playwriting

Teacher: Mr. Kingsbury Date: April 29th 2009

NC Standard Course of Study Objective: COMPETENCY GOAL 1: The learner will write
based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history.
 1.01 Read, understand and relate the basic content of a play.
 1.02 Understand and describe the form and structure of plays
 1.05 Write a monologue.

1. Focus and Review (Establish prior knowledge)

(a) Description of Activities and Setting
i. Have several students who are willing share their edited monologues with the
class.
ii. After each monologue, have students point out how they covered the basic
points of a monologue.
(b) Materials and Time
i. Students' edited monologues.
ii. 15 min

2. Statement (Inform student of objectives)

(a) Description of Activities and Setting
i. Students will write a monologue based on personal experience and be able to
generate constructive criticism on each other's work.
(b) Materials and Time
i. 2 min.

3. Teacher Input (Present tasks, information, and guidance)

(a) Description of Activities and Setting
i. Explain to students that they must pull out their journal entry from the lesson on
the monologue, which contains the personal experience that they wrote on.
ii. Students are then asked to write a monologue from their own perspective of that
experience, keeping in mind voice, personality, emotions, etc., within the
monologue.
iii. Students will be given 20 min. to write their personal monologue.
iv. Once the monologues are finished, students will be paired off, and will exchange
monologues with their partner.
v. They will then construct a biography of the character in their partner's
monologue, solely based on what they can garner from the monologue.
vi. After they have written the biographies on their partner's character, they will get
back together as partners and see how accurate their biographies are, and give
constructive criticism on improving their monologues.
(b) Materials and Time
i. Students will need paper to write their monologues on
 ii. Students will need a separate sheet on which to write the biography.
iii. 30 - 40 min.

4. Guided Practice (Elicit performance, provide assessment and feedback)

(a) Description of Activities and Setting
i. While students are in their pairs, the instructor will move from group to group
providing feedback and informal assessment of each student through
questioning and observation.
(b) Materials and Time
i. 10 min.

5. Independent Practice -- Seatwork and Homework (Retention and transfer)

(a) Description of Activities and Setting
i. Students will write a monologue based on the journal entry of their personal
experience.
ii. Students will share this monologue with a partner
iii. Partners will write biographies based on each other's monologues.
iv. Partners will share these biographies with one another, as well as constructive
criticism on improving their monologues.
v. Students will take home their monologues for any necessary editing and
adjustment.
vi. Students must come back to class with the finished monologues, prepared to
share them with the class.
(b) Materials and Time
i. Students will need separate sheets of paper for their monologue and biography.
ii. 30 – 40 min.

6. Closure (Plan for maintenance)

(a) Description of Activities and Setting
i. Students will critique one another's monologues while the instructor moves from
group to group giving feedback and observing.
(b) Materials and Time
i. 10 min.