Using Plays in the Classroom. Part 4: Reflecting on the Play
This article is another installment in our Helping Superheroes Teach series. The aim of this series is to offer teachers helpful strategies and practical tips they can implement in their classrooms.
By Dr. Frances Boyd and Christopher W. Collins
In this series of blog posts, we’ve discussed a variety of language-learning exercises and activities for introducing the play, preparing for the play and digging into the play . In fact, some of the most satisfying moments come when the play has been finished. Completion of the play allows for a deeper, more reflective response on the part of students. While they have focused on comprehension and interpretation of individual scenes, students now have the opportunity to respond to the work as a whole, to make connections with their own experiences, and to think critically about their views.
Play Performance
Whether students see a stage or a movie performance, when the reading is done, they can step back to observe and react to the director’s choices. The teacher can give them a choice of what to focus on and then pose such questions as: How do the casting, costumes, setting(s), lighting and sound fit your imagined version? How does the audience react (in a live performance)? If the director omitted or changed any lines or scenes, why and to what effect?
In our experience, few students have analyzed film; fewer still have ever experienced a play in the legitimate theater. By empowering students to get into the director’s shoes, rather than elicit a simple reaction, teachers create an intriguing platform for students to think critically about the techniques, strategies, and expressive power of drama.
Integration of Grammar and Vocabulary
Throughout the unit of materials for a play, students learn new language and practice using it. By the end, it is appropriate to expect more nuanced, varied, and accurate utterances. To both elicit and model such language, teachers can create a structured conversation between two readers who have just viewed a performance. Such an exercise could either be a quiz or a final practice. In either case, it is also effective as a prelude to a discussion.
Two readers of “To Kill a Mockingbird” have just seen the Academy-award-winning film. Use modal perfects, adjective clauses, and past unreal conditions.
A: Wow! That was no run-of-the-mill film. Gregory Peck was amazing as Atticus. I read that Harper Lee, [1] ___________wrote the original novel, said the director [2] _____________[choose/not] a better actor.
B: Uh, huh. One big difference from the novel is the point of view. Jean Louise, [3] __________ is Scout as a grown woman, is only there in the beginning of the film. If she [3]_____________________[continue], it __________________[be]
Essay Writing
When students write an essay in response to a play, they practice their writing skills in an organic way: the motivation should be intrinsic and much of the language should be at their fingertips. In a variety of unedited quotes from student essays in response to August: Osage County, we can see some of the depth and breadth of their engagement with the work.
I really like this story and movie even though this is totally a tragedy, but this story gives me a lot of thoughts and made me reflect on what the family is…This story tells us an important thing: we are all part of our family and that is why we can talk to each other by heart and criticize them without offense, because we love them so much.
***
Every family has inevitable contradictions; everyone in this world has their own miserable problems.
While these students focus on the family, the following student delves into the emotional relationships themselves.
It’s an indisputable fact that some of plot is “fiercely funny”, but when I think rationally, I tend to think it’s “bitingly sad.” The emotions and implications of August: Osage County are complex….
Other students comment directly on how the reading of a play holds possibilities for understanding culture in greater depth.
Language and culture are the important factors that make the film or play have different national characteristics.
***
This play quintessentially displays the real American family who lives in the countryside.
***
As an international student, if I hadn’t learned this play so deeply, I would have never known those complicated aspects of real American life.
While excerpts from individual writings only give a narrow sense of the writing itself, we can see students responding to the piece of literature and to the culture out of which it emerges. We can also appreciate their search for connections to their own experience as well as explanations for the similarities and differences across cultures.
Concluding Remarks
“People’s need for theatre is as powerful as their desire for food or drink,” says Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of the Public Theatre in New York in his TED Talk “Why Theatre is Essential to Democracy”. In the dialog on stage, he explains, we hear the drama of conflicting points of view, and we “lean forward” in empathy; moreover, we do this together, as part of an audience.
In an in-depth study of an American play, English Language learners can partake of this powerful, ancient, collective experience – guided by teacher-made exercises and activities that move from comprehension to interpretation to reflection and coached by teachers who set the stage for students to explore new contexts, new relationships, and new ways of using language.
Here is a list of plays we have successfully introduced in the ESL classroom. This list is by no means exhaustive; we would welcome hearing recommendations for other plays, particularly those that are contemporary.
Selected American Plays for English Language Learners
Advanced: CEFR B2 – C1
All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, An Enemy of the People – Arthur Miller
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire – Tennessee Williams
August: Osage County – Tracy Letts
Inherit the Wind – Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee
A Raisin in the Sun – Lorraine Hansberry
Six Degrees of Separation – John Guare
To Kill a Mockingbird – Christopher Sergel/Harper Lee
Twelve Angry Men – Reginald Rose
Intermediate: CEFR B1
Lost in Yonkers, The Prisoner of Second Avenue – Neil Simon
Children of a Lesser God – Mark Medoff
Crossing Delancey – Susan Sandler
The Miracle Worker – William Gibson
Our Town – Thornton Wilder
Dr. Frances Boyd has been teaching students and developing teachers for over 30 years in the U.S. and abroad, in China, Columbia, Kyrgyzstan, and Mexico. She serves on the faculty of Columbia University’s American Language Program in the School of Professional Studies, where she has collaborated on the American Play Project for nearly all of those years. She is co-editor of the academic book series NorthStar, author of Making Business Decisions –both published by Pearson—, and a frequent featured speaker at international ELT conferences. Boyd holds the BA from Oberlin College, the MA from the University of Wisconsin, and the Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Christopher W. Collins is a lecturer in the American Language Program (ALP) at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, where he also co-chairs the annual ALP Winter Conference, and he has also taught in the Czech Republic and in Japan. He completed his M.A. in TESOL at The New School, with a concentration in Curriculum Development.
Using Plays in the Classroom. Part 3: Digging into the Play
This article is another installment in our Helping Superheroes Teach series. The aim of this series is to offer teachers helpful strategies and practical tips they can implement in their classrooms.
By Dr. Frances Boyd and Christopher W. Collins
In our last post, we described and illustrated –with examples based on the play version of To Kill a Mockingbird – four activities that work to introduce a play: purpose of studying a play, connection to themes, how to read a play, and Socio-Historical Context. One of the most important moments in teaching a play is the beginning. First, it is important to get “buy in” from the students. It is also imperative for students to have an understanding of the characters, contexts, and events they will encounter.
In this month’s post, we describe and illustrate an additional technique to introduce a play –in this case, a contemporary play: Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. We go on to describe the types of exercises and activities that guide students in comprehension, interpretation, and expressive speaking.
Introducing the Play
August: Osage County tells the story of a family that comes together around the death of the father figure in rural Oklahoma one hot summer. This family has secrets, resentments, and lingering feuds; over the course of a few days, all of these themes converge into conflict, confrontation, and, in the end, mutual understanding.
In 2013, the play was made into a film that is very similar in content and dialogue to the original text. As the play is challenging, both linguistically and thematically, it is recommended for mature students at level CEFR B2 and above. In our experience, working with difficult themes, including drug addiction, painful family secrets, and the use of taboo language, presents worthwhile challenges to students and teachers alike. Ultimately, students tend to recognize the common humanity expressed in this story and make unexpectedly moving connections with the challenges facing families in their own societies.
To introduce August: Osage County, one effective way is to show the first few minutes of the film. The opening scenes introduce the primary characters, the dry and dusty landscape of rural Oklahoma, along with the decaying old home where the play takes place. These images provide context for the text, particularly for students who may come from far different environments, cultures, and societies. Not every student will obtain the full emotional impact of the story from the text, but seeing a film adaptation can support their imaginations and make the text more accessible.
Digging into the Play
Once they have entered the imaginative world of the play, students can be guided to explore the content and language through a variety of exercises and activities. As you write these materials, consider collaborating with colleagues and remember that, over time, the materials can be refined and reused. At our program, we have some units that began over 30 years ago!
Comprehension of Content and Language
The focus of this set of exercises is to clarify and review the main ideas and details of the story, as well as notice and practice new language. We suggest providing plentiful exercises, using the playwright’s divisions into acts and scenes whenever practical. As a practical matter, the reading comprehension and vocabulary exercises can often be completed as homework, while inference and grammar exercises tend to require interaction.
For reading comprehension, write items that help the students follow the narrative by finding answers literally stated in the text. For inference, in contrast, write items that require higher-order thinking, such as inferring motivation of characters, and inferring opinion or stance of characters or the playwright. For vocabulary, select a range of items: multiword units—lexical phrases, idioms, phrasal verbs, collocations—that are common in spoken English, as well as some academic words. For grammar for speaking/writing, create exercises based on the plot and characters that review and deepen understanding of the play. Plays offer an authentic context to practice, for example, description (adjective clauses), speculation (unreal conditions in past and present), past possibility/regret (modal perfects), as well as all major verb forms.
Integration of Content and Language
The focus of these activities is to go beyond comprehension and move toward interpretation and creation with new language. While we generally avoid asking students to do any acting per se, we do ask them to take imaginative leaps into the shoes of the characters. Certain activity designs fit the play genre particularly well.
For example, we’ve had lively classes with character description, an activity in which students (1) work in groups to describe a character, express opinions about the character, and explain the character’s relationships, and (2) present to the whole group.
In one class, a student, who unbeknownst to the others suffered from chronic arthritis pain, was able to explain the feelings and moods of a character in August, Osage County, who suffered from an addiction to prescription drugs, with uncommon compassion. By making an unexpectedly moving connection, the student transformed her own and her classmates’ understanding of and appreciation for the central character of August: Osage County.
In panel of characters, 6-7 students prepare monologues from the point of view of a character (“I”), making a special effort to use new vocabulary and grammar to summarize information about their personal history, personality, and behavior. The others prepare “provocative questions” aimed at particular characters. In class, panel members (1) present their monologues and then (2) respond to questions which require them to make on-the-spot connections and inferences. If the playwright appears on the panel, students can ask about inspiration, writer’s choices, and message of the work.
Expressive Speaking
If you want to focus on crucial but tricky-to-teach speaking skills—expressive intonation and thought groups—a play script is just the thing. How do you express emotion in English? Focusing on a manageable number of lines, students become aware of their voice as an instrument, an actor’s skill. This gives them both a new perspective on speaking and an incentive to experiment with the vocal range of English.
We recommend beginning with dramatic reading. In small groups, students practice reading 2-3 pages of lines aloud, with coaching on pronunciation, intonation, and thought groups from the teacher. Then, they meet together and read their lines to the class, with periodic pauses to identify the emotions emerging from the text.
Once aware of the tools of expressive speaking in English, students can choose a character and set of lines to practice. When ready, they can record a monolog on their smartphones, along with an explanation of its meaning and significance, and send it to the instructor for feedback. Stepping into an intensely emotional scene and speaking the lines as if you were the character can be a transformative experience. Some learners literally find their voice in English for the very first time. And it is a truly memorable moment.
In the next and final blog post in this series on American Plays, we will discuss activities for reflecting on the play and present some reactions from students and instructors in our American Language Program at Columbia University. We will also offer a list of recommended American plays for advanced and high-intermediate English Language students.
Dr. Frances Boyd has been teaching students and developing teachers for over 30 years in the U.S. and abroad, in China, Columbia, Kyrgyzstan, and Mexico. She serves on the faculty of Columbia University’s American Language Program in the School of Professional Studies, where she has collaborated on the American Play Project for nearly all of those years. She is co-editor of the academic book series NorthStar, author of Making Business Decisions –both published by Pearson—, and a frequent featured speaker at international ELT conferences. Boyd holds the BA from Oberlin College, the MA from the University of Wisconsin, and the Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Christopher W. Collins is a lecturer in the American Language Program (ALP) at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, where he also co-chairs the annual ALP Winter Conference, and he has also taught in the Czech Republic and in Japan. He completed his M.A. in TESOL at The New School, with a concentration in Curriculum Development.
Using Plays in the Classroom. Part 2: Preparing the Play
This article is another installment in our Helping Superheroes Teach series. The aim of this series is to offer teachers helpful strategies and practical tips they can implement in their classrooms.
By Dr. Frances Boyd and Christopher W. Collins
Preparing the Play
To instructors, the amount of time it takes to develop materials for a play may seem daunting. Yet, there is much to be learned in the process, and good materials written for timeless plays may be refined and re-used for years. At Columbia’s American Language Program, we have built on original sets of exercises and activities begun decades ago for a number of enduring favorites, including Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” and Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.”
How to select a play?
- Look for a film adaptation and/or an upcoming stage performance: To give students a whole theatrical experience, you’ll want to complete the reading of the script with a showing of a film or stage version of the play. On the one hand, the similarities enrich comprehension. On the other, the differences create rich critical-thinking opportunities to predict, compare, and critique the director’s choices.
- Consider reading level: In our experience, intermediate (CEFR B1) students are fully able to engage with the authentic, informal, and idiomatic dialogue in such plays as “Children of a Lesser God,” “Lost in Yonkers,” “The Miracle Worker,” and “Our Town.” The choices for more advanced (B1 – C1) students broadens considerably, including several by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, as well as “Inherit the Wind,” “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Six Degrees of Separation,” and “To Kill a Mockingbird,” among others.
- Consider the topic: Family dysfunction, self-delusion, criminal trials, coping with illness and disability, gender, racism – this is the stuff of high drama in the American canon. Working with quality materials, an interested and engaged instructor can highlight aspects of setting, conflict, and language that appeal to a wide range of students. It is often true, too, that students pick up much more than we teach explicitly.
What about research on the play?
Understanding the context the play was written in, the world of the playwright, and the cultural and critical response to the play can help the teacher develop an overall understanding of the text to be adapted. Plays are reviewed as books, as stage productions, and as film adaptions; these reviews can offer cultural context and information which may inform the materials. Who was the playwright? What is their background and how does it inform the play? Learning the answers to these questions provide the building blocks for understanding the play itself.
What activities work to introduce a play?
We find it worthwhile to begin with three short activities, plus a research/report assignment.
Purpose of Studying a Play: Draft a list of the potential benefits that you see for your students. Here is a short survey task to complete with students at the start of working with a play:
Discuss the benefits of reading a play and seeing a film or stage performance of it. Check off your top three choices. Explain them to a partner. Agree on one to explain to the class.
___ Become familiar with US culture and history through a story set in a specific time and place
___ Interpret behavior, motivation, and relationships of Americans
___ Understand complex family situations, perhaps identify with an American family
___ Discuss serious themes in an American context
___ Learn lots of vocabulary, including expressions used in speaking
___ Think critically about American culture
___ Use advanced grammar to infer, hypothesize, consider alternatives
___ Practice using my voice expressively in English
___ Read a whole work of literature
___ Imagine a performance of the play
___ Compare the written play to a film or stage performance
___ Analyze elements of film/drama, such as setting, casting, lighting, sound
___ Learn about an American playwright
___ [Your own ideas]
Connection to Themes: Craft a few questions that get students to connect their personal experience to key themes in the play. Here are sample questions from the materials for the play version of “To Kill a Mockingbird”:
Discuss with a small group. Reflect on a possible personal connection to the themes of the play version of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” [Harper Lee’s novel, dramatized by Christopher Sergel.]
- In the play, a father intentionally teaches his children crucial ethical values.Think about your parents. What ethical values did they try to teach you: integrity, compassion, courage, respect for nature? How did they teach you these values?Did your mother and father participate equally in these “lessons”? Tell your story.
- In the play, a group of people is segregated and discriminated against in every aspect of public life: housing, employment, religious worship, the legal system, and so on. Has this ever occurred in your country or in your experience? Tell your story.
How to Read a Play: Select a short section of Act I to read aloud in class (in roles). Write a few questions that ask about: comprehension, prediction, and the reader’s role. Help students see themselves as a director: they need to imaginatively construct the story out of dialog and stage directions.
Socio-Historical Context: Identify 6-7 key words that students can research on the Internet and then apply to the play. In other words, they try to answer these questions: “What?” (What does the key word refer to?) and “So what?” (Why is this important in the play?) Such knowledge should enhance their understanding and deepen their enjoyment. Three-minute reports by pairs of students can be distributed over several classes. Here’s a list of key socio-historical references for “To Kill a Mockingbird”:
Jim Crow laws; segregation
The Great Depression; WPA
The jury system
Lynching; National Memorial for Peace & Justice (Montgomery, AL)
The black church: A.M.E. Churches
The Southern belle; social expectations of Southern women
Racial stereotypes in the l930s: how blacks viewed whites; how whites viewed blacks
To begin drafting materials, you’ll first want to be fully conversant with the play and the movie yourself. From this point, you will be able to identify the most salient themes for your students – for Connection to Themes questions– and the most salient aspects of the larger setting – for key words for Socio-Historical Context reports.
In the next post, “Part 3: Digging into the Play,” we will describe and illustrate the process of drafting exercises and activities for the heart of the play: Comprehension of Content and Language, Integration of Content and Language, and Expressive Speaking.
Dr. Frances Boyd has been teaching students and developing teachers for over 30 years in the U.S. and abroad, in China, Columbia, Kyrgyzstan, and Mexico. She serves on the faculty of Columbia University’s American Language Program in the School of Professional Studies, where she has collaborated on the American Play Project for nearly all of those years. She is co-editor of the academic book series NorthStar, author of Making Business Decisions –both published by Pearson—, and a frequent featured speaker at international ELT conferences. Boyd holds the BA from Oberlin College, the MA from the University of Wisconsin, and the Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Christopher W. Collins is a lecturer in the American Language Program (ALP) at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, where he also co-chairs the annual ALP Winter Conference, and he has also taught in the Czech Republic and in Japan. He completed his M.A. in TESOL at The New School, with a concentration in Curriculum Development.
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