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Quick Links

Documentary: "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Fredericksburg" (WMV, 10 Minutes)
Podcasting Project: "Changing America" (External Live Site)
PowerPoint Hypermedia: "The Secret Palace" Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Game (PPT)
PowerPoint Multimedia: "Der Erlkonig" (ZIP with PPT and MP3)
Student Films: "Romeo and Juliet in Five Minutes" (WMV, 10 Minutes)
Unit Design: "Romeo and Juliet in Five Minutes" (HTML below)
Wargame Simulation Unit: "Battlefield: Arctic Circle" (External Live Site)

Angry Aliens, Short Bunnies, and my Buddy Dawn

My friend and colleague Dawn Moulen is an instructional titan. I can safely say that she is the single most efficacious (read: awesome) instructor I've ever met. She served as a Language Arts teacher for many years before becoming a Library Media Specialist and now a Gifted Education Resource Teacher. Her work is constructivist genius, solidly grounded in pedagogy, discovery-based learning, and the thoughtful, reflective, and progressive design of some of the most robust systems of scaffolding and intellectual stimulus you've ever seen. Just awesome.

Any opportunity to work with Dawn is an instant "yes" in my book, and in Spring of 2008 she took me up on an idea I'd been kicking around earlier: Romeo and Juliet in Five Minutes.

The Internet phenomenon "Thirty Second Bunnies" is hilarious. To make a long story short, the animator, Jennifer Shiman, takes feature length films, boils the content down to thirty seconds of the key events and lines in the plot, and animates that thirty seconds using cartoon rabbits. If that's not a recipe for hysterics, I don't know what is. However, being the "can't turn it off, why can't you just watch funny movies and laugh and move on" kind of educator I am, my brain leapt to the learning operation behind it: the distillation of larger works of literature into core constituent elements.



"Pirates of the Caribbean" from 30 Second Bunnies, © Jennifer Shiman.

Prelesson

Prior to the project, students were instructed in stage direction and theatre terminology by having them reenact scenes from simple children's books.


"No, David"

Introduction

The project took place over the course of approximately four weeks, and was not the only material instructed during that time. While students were working on the below sections, Dawn was instructing "To Kill a Mockingbird" in class. (Insert two mockingbirds with one stone joke here.)


The timeline distributed to students at the outset.
Students were provided with a comprehensive rubric of expectations at the beginning of the project.


A rubric helps keep things transparent and accountable from the start.

Brainstorming

While reading the play outside of class, students generated a list of three bullets per scene of the most important events in that scene.

Treatment

Students brought their lists together and collaborated in groups on a plain-language, short story-like description of their compressed act.

Storyboard

Using provided templates, students illustrated each camera shot and attached corresponding dialogue selected from the play.

Script

Scripts were typed in an easy-to-read format from the master storyboards, allowing students to take copies home to memorize.

Reheasal and Filming

A day for rehearsal helped students acclimate to framing the scene, practicing shot setup and timing, and getting used to being on camera. This day also allowed "wiggle room" for the unforeseen, from technology failures to fire drills.

We did not experience either.

Because students had properly prepared, filming was accomplished in a single class period. Groups split up and used areas around the campus to create their films. Students were given "Press Passes," spelling out who was in the group, what they were doing, and where they could and could not go.


A "press pass" used to identify students when out of class

In the event of a fire drill or other emergency, students were told to use the closest safe exit and to find the nearest administrator. Security was also advised of our project.

Our original plan was to have each group edit their own acts using Windows Movie Maker. However, the students' film work was so precisely what was requested, only assembly and slight trimming was required.

The project was completed a full class day ahead of schedule.

The finished films were clipped together along with a title sequence, inspired by student design choices, and accompanied by the score of a piece of music by composer Eric Whitacre, entitled "October," which Dawn overheard our outstanding band rehearsing during postproduction time. The finished "film-slash-minidocumentary" is available to view in compressed format here or at the link at the top of this page.

English 9 and 10 classes were invited to a screening of the films in the Auditorium after the completion of the project. The finished film drew critical acclaim from the students in the class as well as those outside it, from colleagues, and from the supportive administration, who featured it at a faculty meeting. Additionally, the unit was the subject of Battlefield's representation at the PWCS Technology Showcase that year, featured within the kiosk we constructed, "Ye Olde Bobcat Theatre."

















The "Romeo and Juliet in Five Minutes" presentation at the Technology Showcase took second place for the most popular display. Dawn and I were very excited to present this unit design and the students' outstanding work to the leaders of our community and school division.

At the end of the day, we delivered the entire unit of Drama instruction, covered all of Romeo and Juliet, and not once cracked the cover on the text in class. Differentiation for learners with particular aptitudes, needs, and learning styles can be accomplished in grand fashion with progressive constructivism, and ultimately save the classroom instruction time for other more direct instructional needs, thereby making the teacher a more effective practitioner overall.