Teacher's Guide for My First Acting Series

By Kristen Dabrowski

All the books in my first acting series have interactive exercises and games. But the Teachers Guide goes much further, providing suggestions and in-depth guidance for using the series to maximum effect in the classroom. Inside, you'll find: Building Blocks: general ideas and suggestions for creating great lessons; Critical Exercises: activites and games to help students interpret and evaluate text; Imaginative Exercises: activities and games to help students creatively build on the text, generating brand-new ideas; Work Sheets: a variety of fun and exciting activities that encourage students to interpret characters and texts and make decisions-all ready to photocopy direct form the book and distribute; Sample Lesson Plans: fourteen detailed lesson plans that show you how to draw it all together. These plans help you to either build a lesson around my first acting series or to add my first acting series to your regular lessons. The Teachers Guide coupled with my first acting series, will help you increase student particpation and enhance your teaching, whether your subject is drama, reading, writing, ethics, social studies, science, math, or art each exercise, activity, and game has been classroom tested-they work!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Smith and Kraus Inc
• Release date: Mar 6, 2009
• ISBN: 9781937738600

Kristen Dabrowski

KRISTEN DABROWSKI is a writer, actress, teacher, and director residing in New York City. Her books with Smith and Kraus include The Ultimate Monologue Book for Middle School Actors Volume I: 111 One-Minute Monologues, The Ultimate Audition Book for Teens Volume III: 111 One-Minute Monologues, Twenty 10-Minute Plays for Teens Volume 1 , the Teens Speak Series (four books), and the educational 10+Play Series (six books). She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Actors Equity.

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INTRODUCTION

Benefits of These Books

My First Acting Series can increase focus, empathy, and interest in reading and reading comprehension; foster self-expression, self-confidence, creativity, teamwork, and cooperation; enhance traditional classroom lessons; and provide additional tools for students who respond best to alternative learning styles.

The books in this interactive series address most learning styles. Supplemental activities engage students on more levels—linguistic, kinesthetic, spatially, interpersonally, intrapersonally, and even musically (to use Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences)—so they are often more likely to retain what they’ve learned. Students who may be left behind in traditional lessons can thrive and be leaders when the approach to learning changes. I have seen many, many students come out of their shells, gain confidence, and transform while doing these exercises. In short, this is powerful stuff.

Plays, scenes, monologues, and interactive activities are great ways to teach learning in a sneaky way—so it’s fun (and educational, too). Often students will have such a good time that they won’t realize they are learning. Working with My First Acting Series can make faraway situations, people, places, and problems real to children. Once a student puts him- or herself in the shoes of a soldier during the American Revolution or a child in Siberia or the new kid in school, for example, the facts and issues come to life.

Feel free to add to what you see here. In fact, I hope this sparks you to come up with your own creative activities. And remember, as the teacher, you are the best judge of what your students are able to do. Amend, adapt, and alter the exercises any way you wish. With this series, and this book in particular, you can become the teaching artist in the classroom.

That being said, it can be useful to try an activity more than once. The first time an exercise is done, with the teacher explaining, correcting, and modeling the activity, there may be a few puzzled faces, especially with younger students. Returning to an exercise a second or third time can increase self-esteem tenfold; what was once challenging and confusing becomes something easy that students have mastered!

If you like what you see, check out the other twenty books I’ve written. In particular, the 10+ play series has short plays, scenes, and monologues with performance tips, writing ideas, discussion questions after each play, and several games and exploration activities. As always, you are invited to give me comments and ideas and ask questions at [e-mail].

Enjoy!

—Kristen Dabrowski

A WORD OR TWO ABOUT THE LATINO BOOKS

The Latino monologue and scene books were written for an underserved group—children of Hispanic descent. To make the material more accessible for these kids, names like Aunt Sally have been changed to Tia Cecilia, as well as names of places and foods. But the goal is ultimately the same as in Kristen Dabrowski’s books—to encourage interactive learning and self-expression.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that the books are exclusively for Hispanic students—any kid of any ethnicity is welcome to use them. Though the monologues and scenes were written with the voices of Hispanic kids in mind, the pieces provide excellent educational opportunities for non-Hispanic students. By performing them, the non-Hispanic student can learn about Hispanic culture and how to pronounce (with the help of a Spanish teacher or speaker) Spanish words and phrases.

I envision the Latino books being used alongside Kristen’s books in any classroom that has students who speak Spanish at home. The Latino monologues and scenes can be used with the exercises Kristen presents in this guide without any artificial attempts to highlight their ethnicity.

—M. Ramirez

APPLICATION NOTES

Structure of this Guide

The first part of this teachers’ guide, Building Blocks, has general ideas and suggestions for creating great lessons. While there are some basic rules for making lesson plans work, all rules can be broken to good effect when a lesson is planned thoroughly. Additionally, there is some information about how to adapt activities for different levels and age groups as well as easy warm-up exercises to get a class focused, working together, and having fun. The warm-ups can be used whenever a class needs to be reminded of basic skills, such as teamwork, concentration, and observation. Once a class has learned these exercises, they take little classroom time and can create a feeling of mastery, while getting the entire group on the same page.

Next up is Critical Exercises. These activities call for students to interpret and evaluate texts. In various ways, students learn to pull important information from what they read. To keep the classroom active and everyone involved, Working in Pairs and Groups shows many ways to get everyone working together and keep learning from becoming static. Included are ways to connect this work to outside sources through research.

Imaginative Exercises shows how to start with the text and then progress to brand-new ideas. When students relate to and have a personal interest in who and what they are reading about, they tend to retain information better and have more interest in classroom work. With luck, this will spark additional ideas from you! It is important for students to know that there are no wrong answers as long as the answers are on topic and in character.