5 Great Playwriting Exercises for Middle & High School Students

“Groak : To silently watch someone while they are eating, hoping to be invited to join them.” As a lover of words, nothing tickles me more than seeing words that used to have a life and do no longer. Death and Taxes has a list of 18 obsolete words – ( Don’t click there just yet! Read down and do the exercise first.) The website supposes these words should never have gone out of style. I’m not sure I agree on that with all of them, (I think you’ll see why when you click over there) but I sure do agree that these words make for an awesome playwriting exercise. Fair warning! Some of these obsolete words have a current sexual connotation. If you’re doing this exercise with students, I would present select words to them. *Playwriting Exercise: * • Review the following words. Decide what their definition is first without seeing what they actually mean. Resistentialism, Zafty, With Squirrel. • Write a scene in which you use the words based on your own definition. • Now click over to the site and read their definitions. • Write a scene in which you use the words based on the original definition. • Write an inner monologue from the perspective of someone who is Groaking (see above).

Use this exercise to practice creating titles based on a picture. • Find a photograph. A great source for public domain photos isflickr.com/commons. • Take a few moments and study the photograph. Look at it carefully, with the eye of a writer. What is going on? Who is in the photo? Who is in the foreground? Who’s in the back ground? What is the landscape? What might be happening out side the frame? • *Title One: * Come up with a title that you think best describes the picture. • *Title Two: * Come up with a title that defines the dominant emotion in the picture. • *Title Three: * Come up with a title that is inspired from a line of poetry. • *Title Four: * Come up with a title that rhymes. • *Title Five: * Come up with a title that is just one word. What is the one word that captures this picture? • *Title Six: * Come up with a title that has a symbolic connection to the picture rather than a direct connection. • *Title Seven: * Come up with what you think would be the absolute worst title for this picture. • *Title Eight: * Come up with a title that describes the emotional state of the person taking the picture. • *Title Nine: * Come up with a title that hints to an upcoming action of the person taking the picture. • *Title Ten: * Come up with a comedic title for this picture. • *Title Eleven: * Come up with an absurd title for this picture. • *Title Twelve: * Come up with a tragic title for this picture. • *Title Thirteen: * Come up with a title that includes the name of the picture location. Part Two of this exercise is something that can be done with a class. After everyone has come up with their titles, have them choose a couple, write them on slips of paper and put them into a hat. Then, everyone chooses a slip of paper and based on the title they receive writes a brief description of the play they think fits that title. It’s an exercise in how easy a title is to visualize as a full work. And another: Hand out brief descriptions of movies or plays. I would suggest choosing from older words that your class wouldn’t necessarily know. Based on the description, have students create titles. Then share the real title.IMDB.com is a good place to get short concise movie descriptions, for example: • A lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice. (To Kill A Mockingbird) • Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency. (The Shawshank Redemption) • A small time boxer gets a once in a lifetime chance to fight the heavyweight champ in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect. (Rocky)

One of the best activities for gathering writing ideas is observation. How are you experiencing the world around you? A great way to practice this is to have your students describe your classroom using the five senses: • What do you see when you look around? What’s something you’ve never noticed before? • What do you hear? • What do you smell? • What are the textures? • You may think that taste doesn’t have a place, but rooms can have a taste! Overly air-conditioned rooms can taste dry. The smell of perfume can have a taste. Encourage students to use their imagination when it comes to describing how the room “tastes.” Have students share their observations. What are the similarities and differences? If you get your students into the habit of observation, specifically looking at people, places, and things, they will never run out of material to write about. This inner monologue exercise takes observation to the next level. Students will: observe an individual, create a few character details, and write a monologue for this person. Who are they? What are they thinking? Instruction1. Go to a public place: mall, cafeteria, food court, library — a place where you can easily observe others. 2. Pick an individual who is doing a mundane activity: folding clothes in a store, eating, walking to class, reading, trying on shoes. Write down all your observations. It must be someone you don’t know. You can free-write, write in point form, just get it down on paper. Bring in these observations to class. 3. Divide students into groups and have them share their observations. 4. Students will then come up with a few character details for this person. This is why it’s important that they choose someone they don’t know; they’ll be making up their character. Remind students to review their observation source material. How can they take what they observed and turn it into character details? Students are to write one paragraph. Suggested character details include: • Name, age • Family situation. Who do they live with? What are their relationships like? • Where do they live? How do they live? (Is it neat, messy, minimalist, cramped, spacious?) • Significant relationship: What is the most important relationship for this character? 5. Lastly, students will write a half-page to one-page inner monologue for this character. What are they really thinking about? Focus on the idea that their inner thoughts counter their outside persona. Remember, they’re doing something mundane on the outside, so choose an opposing emotion for their inner thoughts. What do they want that they can’t say or share? 6. Have students share their monologues in small groups.