Out of This World! Class Summary 4/11/16

with Michelle Cameron

The play's the thing...

For the first time today, we didn’t critique the writing the kids did at home, as I wanted them to launch straight into their plays. We discussed that the back stories they wrote for their characters were chiefly for them to know more about them – and they agreed that it helped them understand them more clearly.

A little more pre-planning...

Before they launched into the scripts, I asked them to think first about their play’s beginning, middle and end (aka, the plot), and then to dive deeper by defining their scenes.  Here’s what they came up with:  

Group 1:
Beginning: Tiger Lily finishes building CM7A and Charlie tries to buy it.
Middle: Charlie plots to steal the robot.
End: Charlie hires a man to steal the robot, but he is caught and they find Charlie.

Scene 1: Tiger Lily finishes the robot.
Scene 2: Charlie reads the newspaper and sees an article about the robot in it.
Scene 3:  Charlie asks if she can buy the robot but Tiger Lily says no.
Scene 4: Charlie plots to capture CM7A.
Scene 5: Charlie sneaks through an open window to go into Tiger Lily’s lab/garage. When she gets in, she accidentally knocks down a can. The security guard hears it and arrests her.
Scene 6: Charlie is in jail crying with Tiger Lily rejoices

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Group 2:
Beginning (Scene 1): Zack and Lauren Underwood walk down a street in NY. They decide to make a healing robot for a school science fair.
Middle (Scene 2): Zack and Lauren make the robot. They have to test it many times. The robot is perfected on test 71. So they named him Zogar 71. They use a special chip that they invented themselves.
End (Scene 3): They are at the science fair. Their teacher, Mrs. Ranch, is not impressed. She eats an apple. Then she chokes on the apple. Zogar 71 gets the apple piece unstuck. Mrs. Ranch is very grateful. Zack, Lauren, and Zagar 71 win the science fair.

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Group 3:
Beginning: An alien space port
Middle: Woods
End: a clearing

Scene 1: Baby Maddie is lost.
Scene 2: Zocz and Roxy battle.
Scene 3: Roxy takes Maddie in
Scene 4: Old man helps Zocz
Scene 5: Roxy sends Maddie away to spy school
Scene 6: Maddie befriends Steve at school
More to come…

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They then began writing the actual scripts. These I won’t share, as I hope all of you will attend our reading/play performance during the last class!

They will continue to work on props and scenery at home this week. Again, we don’t need them to come to Mosaic yet! We probably need at least 2 more classes for them to complete writing their plays. While they’re working on this, I want to begin conferencing with them on the piece they’ll read/publish at the end of the session. Please have them type up and bring in the piece they think is best for next class – I’ll start reviewing and working with them as they write!