A PURE Love of Theatre!

My Students

Do you believe you're an artist? Once I asked my students this and was surprised to only see 3 hands slowly rise. After we completed a 2-week playwriting residency, those 3 hands turned into an entire class of 30. I want to bring this confidence and experience to my ninth grade students in 2015.

My students are survivors.

I teach in a high poverty area at a Title I school. Even though the community often sees my school through a negative lens, I see it as a close-knit, positive, family environment. The teachers I work with love our students, and for the majority of them, our classrooms are where they feel the most safe. I teach ninth grade. Most of my students come to me below grade level in reading and writing, and for most of them, their confidence was gone years before they got to me. My number one goal is to teach my students to be brave. In reading, it's pushing them to raise their lexiles and read every day to gain fluency. In writing, it's lifting the pen to the page and simply trying. It can be a brave thing to "do it wrong," and I often find teachable moments when my students find the courage to take those risks. My students love to tell stories, and they all have great ones to tell. They also love acting, music, drawing, and being creative.

My Project

I am requesting an artist-in-residence to visit my ninth grade classroom to teach two weeks of playwriting workshops. We plan on teaching students to write ten-minute plays based on stories they make up or from real life experiences. We will start by reading short plays as a class - plays written by other teens - and having them act, direct, and use stage directions to help them understand the format and goal. Then, we will use improv games, neutral scenes, photo monologue exercises, and improv-to-sketch mini-lessons to spark ideas. Finally, we will guide students to craft 10-page, 10-minute plays that we will act, along with a professional ensemble of actors, on the last day in order to bring their words to life. Playwriting is an excellent project because it teaches students the basics of clear storytelling and instills the lesson of why editing is important. In the past, I've had students craft 10 drafts of one play, changing the way they see all future writing projects.

Besides teaching students how to edit and craft a writing piece, I've seen playwriting change students' lives by helping them become more empathetic.

Last year, my ninth graders wrote plays with ESL students, most of whom were refugees to our country. One student told me that before collaborating and playwriting, he would have made fun of these other kids. Through writing, improv, and getting to know their fellow students creatively, they all became kinder and more empathetic.