Zachary Powell

English 112-B

Dr. Warner

Spring 2011

Unit of Study: Drama

I. Rationale

My rationale for completing a Unit of Study about Drama is that drama is a subject that in most English classes is rarely taught.  A high school English class usually brings about one Shakespeare play a year, which is a tragedy in itself considering the volume of quality plays that have been written since then. The works of playwrights and screen writers are seen so often by adolescents on television and in movies, this makes teaching Drama in high school both logical and practical.

Most high schools have a Drama program, but the popularity and amount of participants in each one is wildly erratic. For example, my own high school drama program had about 13 people, 3 males, making doubling (one person playing at least two roles) a necessity for male roles. Outside of school boundaries, Drama is alive and well and can be found locally in places such as the Hillbarn Theatre in Fremont or the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco.

Drama is so different from regular novels because it allows a class of 30 to be a cast of 10 and a class of 20. Counting interchangeable parts and double casting, an entire cast can be put into an miniature production. Drama offers what novels do not: speaking parts, and usually this comes with multiple scenes and acts to give everyone a chance to participate and feel that they are a part of it. The Reader's Theater we did in class for Karen Hesse�s Witness was so different from what we were used to because we got to move around and the reading of a piece of literature was done out loud with actors and not just in our heads.

II. Launching the Unit

The playing of �Margaret in Captivity� by The Decemberists.

�Margaret in Captivity� by The Decemberists is a good way to launch a Drama unit as the song is modern, contains multiple speaking parts, and is it relatively brief 3 minutes. The song originates from The Hazards of Love, a 2009 rock opera written by the band�s lead singer, Colin Meloy. Within the context of the play: Rake, the antagonist, has captured the protagonist�s love interest, Margaret, and is holding her captive. She cries out for William but her screams are not heard and the song ends with Rake threatening to wreck her where he is holding her.

The Rake:

My precious captive swan
Here all clipped of kickstand
You spirit won�t last long

Don�t you lift a finger
Don�t you snap and jaw
Limber limbs akimbo
Rest, till rubbing raw

Margaret:

O my own true love
O my own true love

Can you hear me love
Can you hear me love?

The Rake:

Don�t hold out for rescue
None can hear your call
Till I have wrest and wrecked you
Behind these fortress walls

After playing the song, students can respond to a prompt. Responses can be kept in a journal culminating all their writing done in the class.

1. Though out of context, what does �Margaret in Captivity� tell you about the album�s story arc?

2. Colin Meloy voices both Rake and William. What effect does that have on the piece? Is this a normal convention for Dramatic works?

3. If you wrote a rock opera (or any kind of opera) how long would it be? Number of characters?

III. The Centerpiece

I have chosen A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry as my centerpiece because it is a work that is commonly taught and works with examining discrimination in the United States as well as cultural assimilation. If class time is sufficient, have a Reader�s Theatre, double casting students for scenes and acts as fit. If class time is insufficient for a full theatre, have them act out the first scene, and/or Act 2 Scene 2. The Langston Hughes poem, �What happens to a dream deferred?� is listed before the introduction to the poem. This can catalyze discussion of the book�s themes once it has been read after the period of a week. Students can respond to a prompt with multiple questions linking the two works:

1. Is Walter�s dream �deferred?� What is Walter�s dream? Does the current climate of racial relations allow him to achieve his dream?

2. Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry wrote during different time periods. Do they seem to both have the same values for their heritage? Why or why not?

3. Is Beneatha right in cutting her hair? Does her relationship with Asagai mirror Walter�s with Ruth? Ruth�s with Walter? Explain their paralleling relationships.

IV. Extending the Unit

There are many ways a unit studying drama can be extended. Giving students the opportunity to attend a play near them and writing a paper on the performance�s character relations and themes can be turned in for extra credit or to make up a previously missed assignment. Students can also write a review on a play turned into a film (Zeffirelli Shakespeare films, such as Romeo and Juliet), or a modern adaptation of an old play (She�s the Man, The Lion King).

V. Connecting Works

�Witness� by Karen Hesse & �Joe Turner�s Come and Gone� by August Wilson.

Both �Witness� and �Joe Turner�s Come and Gone� function as plays, though �Witness� also works as a work of free form poetry. One or both of these works may be explored following A Raisin in the Sun. Following study of one of both of these works, students should write an essay responding to the following prompt:

1. �Witness� & �Joe Turner�s Come and Gone� both occur before A Raisin in the Sun, which is written to have occurred �sometime between World War II and the present.� Which time period seems easier for the advancement of colored people? Is this the same as which time period was easier for the advancement of colored people in the works? Explain.

Works Cited

Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Modern Library, 1995. Print.

Hesse, Karen. Witness. New York: Scholastic, 2001. Print.

Hughes, Langston, and Arnold Rampersad. "What happens to a dream deferred?" The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. Columbia [etc.: University of Missouri, 2001. 426. Print.

Decemberists. �Margaret in Captivity.� The Hazards of Love. Capitol/Rough Trade, 2009. CD.

Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Franco Zeffirelli. Perf. Leonard Whiting. Olivia Hussey. et all. BHE Films. 1968. Film.

She�s the Man. Dir. Andy Fickman. Perf. Amanda Bynes. Channing Tatum. David Cross. et all. Dreamworks SKG. 2006. Film.

The Lion King. Dir. Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff. Perf. Matthew Broderick. Jeremy Irons. James Earl Jones, et all. Disney. 1994. Film.

Wilson, August. Joe Turner's Come and Gone: A Play in 2 Acts. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin, 1988. Print.

Watterson, Bill. "Calvin & Hobbes." Comic strip. The Complete Calvin & Hobbes. Andrews McMeel, 2005. 487. Print.