Handout for Drama Assignment

Name: ___________

Mini-Play Assignment

The goal of this assignment is to develop projecting, narration, teamwork and defining character skills. Each student must choose a children’s story book, long nursery rhyme or short fairy tale to work with. It should be fairly short, with descriptive text and at least 4-5 characters (or important props). The story should take no longer than 10 minutes to narrate and act (ideally 5-7 – one team per day). The class will be broken into teams of 5. The team members will work with each other to act out all 5 stories. Each student – narrator/director -  must prepare their story or mini-play including casting, blocking, scripting and narration. The actors do not have to stay on script with the story book (the point of this assignment is not to memorize text). The narrator/director must narrate all non-dialogue from the story. The narrator/director may choose to speak all parts and have the actors do only movements, or they may choose to narrate and prompt the characters to speak their lines. Each teammate must narrate and direct their own story, play a main character in a teammate’s story and play a prop (if applicable) in another teammate’s story.

Rubric 

1	2	3	4	5
- Narrator is not audible. They turn their back to audience, mumble, speak to quickly, etc.	- Narrator is barely audible. White noise and actors lines are over powering narration.	- Narrator begins strong but fades in many places. Mumbles frequently.	- Narrator projects but is hard to understand at times, fading in places.	- Narrator projects well, is very easy to hear and understand and works well with actors.
- Director has given the actors no attention other than their roles. Loses control of the actors and the scene.	- Director worked very little with actors, having to prompt them far too much during the scene.	- Director seems mostly concerned with their own issues but is aware and works well with the actors, keeping control.	- Director worked with casting and narration but left blocking and cues up to actor’s discretion.	- Director has obviously given all direction including casting, blocking, scripting and their own narration.
- Did the bare minimum. Did not contribute to any story. Could not hear lines at all.	- Did not contribute to any story. Resisted working with others. Very difficult to hear.	- Was not committed to the other stories. Obvious resistance to taking direction. Difficult to hear at times.	- Followed direction and worked well with others. Projected	- Contributed well to other performances. Followed direction and worked well with others. Projected.

/15

Name: _____________

Narration Assignment

Each student must choose a children’s story, short fairy tale or long nursery rhyme to narrate to the class. The story must be short (less than 5 minutes to narrate). The students may take a longer story and edit it down to 5 minutes. The goals of this assignment include projecting the voice, using inflection, developing voices and pronouncing and articulating clearly. Each student must narrate the story including dialogue. The students must create an interesting presentation that is audible. They may use the visual aids from the children’s book.

1	2	3	4	5
Student can barely be heard. If they were using inflection and voices it is not audible.	Student is difficult to understand at times. There is little-no evidence of voices or inflection.	Student can be heard/understood. Inflection and voices are minimal.	Student can be heard/understood. They use voices/inflection at beginning, but this fades.	Student is easily heard/understood, uses interesting voices/inflection and is within time constraints.

 /5