Playwriting Exercise: Observation

Do your students have trouble coming up with ideas? Get them started with observation!

Observation is being attentive of people, places, and things. That means you’re not vaguely skimming a room, you are aware. You look up when others look down. You listen to conversations. You watch relationships. You wonder what someone is doing or wearing. You write down a description of an oddly placed object. When you look at the world around you like a writer, everything becomes a play idea. 

How do you turn observation into a classroom activity? 

1. Use the five senses.

1. 1. Have your students describe your classroom using the five senses. What does the room look like, sound like, and smell like? What textures are in the room (for touch)? Ask them to think creatively about taste; we don’t want anyone licking the floor. It doesn’t have to be literal. For example, taste is often associated with smell. If you get too close to perfume, you can taste it. Over air conditioned rooms have a taste.  

2. Watch a conversation. 

1. 1. Ask students to observe a conversation that they can see but can’t hear. For example, something happening on the other side of the cafeteria, or at the opposite end of the hallway. 
   2. As they observe, ask students to make notes. What do you see? What is the relationship between the two people talking? What does the body language tell you about the emotional tone? 

3. Make it theatrical.

1. 1. After students record their observations, the next step is to try them out theatrically. 
      1. Classroom Observation: Have students choose one of the sentences and personify it. If they wrote about the room having a noisy air vent, have them write a monologue from the perspective of the vent. What do they want? What are they thinking about? Complaining about? Who are they talking to? 
      2. Conversation: Have students decide on the content of the conversation and write it out. What do they think is being said? 

By including these types of exercises in your playwriting process, you’re showing students that ideas don’t have to come out of thin air. You don’t have to be inspired to write. You can turn an observation into a monologue or a scene. It’s something all of your students can do.