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K–12 teaching and learning · from the UNC School of Education

Audio broadcasts and podcasts: Oral storytelling and dramatization

http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=901

A lesson plan for grades 9–11 English Language Arts

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After exploring the historical information surrounding Welles’ famous broadcast, War of the Worlds, students create criteria for effective audio dramatizations and then compose their own production of a group-selected scene from a recent reading. After engaging students in a conversation about the qualities that make stories more vivid, students create a working checklist of the criteria for a good story based on their responses. Then, students either work individually or in small groups to explore the web resources about the Mercury Theatre production of A.G. Wells’ broadcast from October 30, 1938 and complete a travelogue guide. Once students have read the script, they compare the readings with the list they composed for interesting characteristics of a story. As students listen to the audio broadcast, they follow along in the script, noting any features of the recording that surprises or interests them. After they have heard the recording, students compare the characteristics of the story with the class checklist. Then, using excerpts from short stories or novels they have read, students plan how they will create a podcast of the piece of literature. The teacher guides students through pre-production, production, and post-production steps of the project. Halfway through the project, students and teacher evaluate their progress using a rubric to guide the revisions they make. Finally, students record their dramatizations using free sound recording programs suggested by the lesson. When students have completed their recording and editing of the literary piece, they share their work with the class. Readwritethink provides helpful rubrics, project guidelines, and links to online interactive tools. This lesson also suggests several extension activities and provides links to helpful web resources.

North Carolina Curriculum Alignment

English Language Arts (2004)

Grade 9

  • Goal 1: The learner will express reflections and reactions to print and non-print text and personal experiences.
    • Objective 1.03: Demonstrate the ability to read, listen to and view a variety of increasingly complex print and non-print expressive texts appropriate to grade level and course literary focus, by:
      • selecting, monitoring, and modifying as necessary reading strategies appropriate to readers' purpose.
      • identifying and analyzing text components (such as organizational structures, story elements, organizational features) and evaluating their impact on the text.
      • providing textual evidence to support understanding of and reader's response to text.
      • demonstrating comprehension of main idea and supporting details.
      • summarizing key events and/or points from text.
      • making inferences, predicting, and drawing conclusions based on text.
      • identifying and analyzing personal, social, historical or cultural influences, contexts, or biases.
      • making connections between works, self and related topics.
      • analyzing and evaluating the effects of author's craft and style.
      • analyzing and evaluating the connections or relationships between and among ideas, concepts, characters and/or experiences.
      • identifying and analyzing elements of expressive environment found in text in light of purpose, audience, and context.
  • Goal 4: The learner will create and use standards to critique communication.
    • Objective 4.01: Evaluate the effectiveness of communication by:
      • examining the use of strategies in a presentation/product.
      • applying a set of predetermined standards.
      • creating an additional set of standards and applying them to the presentation/product.
      • comparing effective strategies used in different presentations/products.
    • Objective 4.02: Read and critique various genres by:
      • using preparation, engagement, and reflection strategies appropriate for the text.
      • identifying and using standards to evaluate aspects of the work or the work as a whole.
      • judging the impact of different stylistic and literary devices on the work.
  • Goal 5: The learner will demonstrate understanding of various literary genres, concepts, elements, and terms.
    • Objective 5.01: Read and analyze various literary works by:
      • using effective reading strategies for preparation, engagement, reflection.
      • recognizing and analyzing the characteristics of literary genres, including fiction (e.g., myths, legends, short stories, novels), non-fiction (e.g., essays, biographies, autobiographies, historical documents), poetry (e.g., epics, sonnets, lyric poetry, ballads) and drama (e.g., tragedy, comedy).
      • interpreting literary devices such as allusion, symbolism, figurative language, flashback, dramatic irony, dialogue, diction, and imagery.
      • understanding the importance of tone, mood, diction, and style.
      • explaining and interpreting archetypal characters, themes, settings.
      • explaining how point of view is developed and its effect on literary texts.
      • determining a character's traits from his/her actions, speech, appearance, or what others say about him or her.
      • explaining how the writer creates character, setting, motif, theme, and other elements.
      • making thematic connections among literary texts and media and contemporary issues.
      • understanding the importance of cultural and historical impact on literary texts.
      • producing creative responses that follow the conventions of a specific genre and using appropriate literary devices for that genre.

Grade 10

  • Goal 1: The learner will react to and reflect upon print and non-print text and personal experiences by examining situations from both subjective and objective perspectives.
    • Objective 1.03: Demonstrate the ability to read, listen to and view a variety of increasingly complex print and non-print expressive texts appropriate to grade level and course literary focus, by:
      • selecting, monitoring, and modifying as necessary reading strategies appropriate to readers' purpose.
      • identifying and analyzing text components (such as organizational structures, story elements, organizational features) and evaluating their impact on the text.
      • providing textual evidence to support understanding of and reader's response to text.
      • demonstrating comprehension of main idea and supporting details.
      • summarizing key events and/or points from text.
      • making inferences, predicting, and drawing conclusions based on text.
      • identifying and analyzing personal, social, historical or cultural influences, contexts, or biases.
      • making connections between works, self and related topics.
      • analyzing and evaluating the effects of author's craft and style.
      • analyzing and evaluating the connections or relationships between and among ideas, concepts, characters and/or experiences.
      • identifying and analyzing elements of expressive environment found in text in light of purpose, audience, and context.

Grade 11

  • Goal 4: The learner will critically analyze text to gain meaning, develop thematic connections, and synthesize ideas.
    • Objective 4.01: Interpret meaning for an audience by:
      - examining the functions and the effects of narrative strategies such as plot, conflict, suspense, point of view, characterization, and dialogue.
      - interpreting the effect of figures of speech (e.g., personification, oxymoron) and the effect of devices of sound (e.g., alliteration, onomatopoeia).
      - analyzing stylistic features such as word choice and links between sense and sound.
      - identifying ambiguity, contradiction, irony, parody, and satire.
      - demonstrating how literary works reflect the culture that shaped them.