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.
