Script Writing
There are several forms of scripts including comic scripts, screen plays for movies, plays for the theatre, and readers theatre (RT). Scripts are used to present a story through narration, dialogue, and acting. Scripts can be adapted from many different things including books and themes.
Why use it in the classroom?
- New Experiences: As teachers we want our students to develop an appreciation (and hopefully love) for writing. By teaching script writing, students take away a new writing skill that they may find fun and interesting. With a new skill, students have a new form of writing to choose from in their future writing endeavors.
- Connection to Interests: Today's youth, and society in general, are fascinated with movies. A major aspect of movie making is script writing. Using script writing in the classroom gives students an opportunity to dabble in a field they find exciting, in turn enhancing student motivation.
- Analysis of Text: When adapting a book into a play, students have to look at the story and the text itself in a new light. Script writing gives students reason to look at the form of the story, characterization, what descriptions are essential/unessential to understanding and interpreting the story.
How to Write a Script
- Choose story idea (i.e. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie)
- Determine characters of the story (Capitalize character names: i.e. MOUSE)
- Define purpose of narrator (if using a narrator): Is narrator a character or just telling the story?
- Include scene headings (i.e. Scene opens in a messy kitchen)
- Include action/stage directions (i.e. A door opens and in walks MOUSE carrying a cookie)
- Dialogue: Lines of speech for each character (i.e. I'd like some milk to go with this cookie please)
- When adapting from a text, choose a scene with a lot of dialogue and action
- Determine if you need to cut or add a character in order for the play to make sense
- Determine if you need/want one or more narrators
- Do you need to combine a scene, or cut a scene?
- What props, if any, do you want actors to use?
- Your audience and your actors (i.e. 3rd grade readers vs. 7th grade readers)
Teaching Possibilities
Using script writing in the classroom can be very beneficial for student learning. Students can develop their own scripts with or without the use of a text. In the following section you will find a variety of activities in which students can use and/or write scripts. These activities can be adapted to best fit the needs of your students and the requirements of the curriculum: the possibilities are endless!
- Movie Making Presentation: Students can present new information through student made script and movie. These presentations can responses to texts, or presenting new information. This is a great way to allow students to use their creativity in a meaningful way.
- Reader's Theatre: With this activity, students are reading through (and acting out) a short script based off of a book read in class. This helps promote fluency, reading with expression, and reading confidence.
- Script Writing Based on Text: By using a a text as a guidance in writing a script, students are analyzing a text through a new literary lens. Students can write scripts directly showcasing events in a story, or they can write scripts based off of characters in the story (like fan fiction).
- Script Writing Based on New Information: Depending on the assignment, students can develop a script to present new information in an interesting way. In a presentation that students might normally use Power Point, students could present their material using a script depicting a news report, for example.
- Script Writing: You can teach script writing in the classroom to add to students' writing from repertoire. Students can develop their own stories and scripts as a project. The scripts can be all student imagined, they do not have to be based on a text.
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Mentor Texts
Writers can adapt any book into a script, however, some texts may be easier to use than others. Many children's books and middle grades books can be easily adapted into a screen play. Greek and Roman Mythology is another great source for older students. Below are some popular examples of texts students and teachers can use as a basis for writing scripts. Script writing can be paired with almost any text in the classroom, so don't be afraid to test students' comfort zones, as well as your own.
Educational Resources
Below you will find resources on writing scripts. These resources are easily accessibly to teachers and helpful for implementing script writing into the classroom. You can use these links to gain a better understanding of how you can write a script to use in the classroom, as well as how to help students write their own scripts.
http://www.writersstore.com/how-to-write-a-screenplay-a-guide-to-scriptwriting/
http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/Tips1.html
http://www.throughthetollbooth.com/2012/06/21/write-your-own-readers-theater/
https://www.teachervision.com/tv/printables/botr/botr_168_2-2.pdf
http://www.writersstore.com/how-to-write-a-screenplay-a-guide-to-scriptwriting/
http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/Tips1.html
http://www.throughthetollbooth.com/2012/06/21/write-your-own-readers-theater/
https://www.teachervision.com/tv/printables/botr/botr_168_2-2.pdf
The following resources are centered on reader's theatre. Some of these resources offer information on how to incorporate readers theatre into the classroom. Many of the links provide free, already prepared readers theatre scripts. Readers theatre scripts are easy to find even by just Googling 'readers theatre'. You will be able to find many scripts of texts you are reading in your classroom, but you can always write a readers theatre script to better fit your needs!
http://www.lwbooks.co.kr/dn/play_script.pdf
http://www.benchmarkeducation.com/administrators/curriculum-and-instruction/resource-types/readers-theater
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/unit/readers-theater-everything-you-need
https://www.readinga-z.com/fluency/readers-theater-scripts
http://thewiseowlfactory.com/literacy-free/
http://www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm
http://www.thebestclass.org/rtscripts.html
http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/index.html
http://www.lwbooks.co.kr/dn/play_script.pdf
http://www.benchmarkeducation.com/administrators/curriculum-and-instruction/resource-types/readers-theater
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/unit/readers-theater-everything-you-need
https://www.readinga-z.com/fluency/readers-theater-scripts
http://thewiseowlfactory.com/literacy-free/
http://www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm
http://www.thebestclass.org/rtscripts.html
http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/index.html
Current Research
With a strong push toward multimodal literacy instruction and multilteracies in the classroom, script writing fits in nicely with the curriculum. Writing can be closely coupled with texts being read in the classroom in a variety of ways including writing scripts based on the text. In many of the articles below, including Bedard, et. al (2011), researchers are finding that when working to develop a script, students are gaining a deeper understanding of the text and the author's purpose. When writing a script, students have to look at the overall picture of a scene, character development, and literary devices in order to best depict the events in the story. Writing scripts allows students to look at a text in a analytical manner, that might otherwise go unseen. It gives students the opportunity to manipulate a text and use their imaginations to create something new.
Bedard, C., & Fuhrken, C. (2010). "Everybody Wants Somebody to Hear Their Story": High School Students Writing Screenplays. English Journal, 100(1), 47-52.
Bedard, C. & Fuhrken, C. (2011). Writing for the big screen: Literary experiences in a
moviemaking project. Language Arts, 89(2), 113-124.
Horn, J., & National Arts Education Research Center, N. N. (1992). An Exploration into the Writing of Original Scripts by Inner-City High School Drama Students.
Swanson, C. C., & Australian Reading Association, A. (1988). Reading and Writing Readers' Theatre Scripts. Reading Around Series No. 1.
Bedard, C., & Fuhrken, C. (2010). "Everybody Wants Somebody to Hear Their Story": High School Students Writing Screenplays. English Journal, 100(1), 47-52.
Bedard, C. & Fuhrken, C. (2011). Writing for the big screen: Literary experiences in a
moviemaking project. Language Arts, 89(2), 113-124.
Horn, J., & National Arts Education Research Center, N. N. (1992). An Exploration into the Writing of Original Scripts by Inner-City High School Drama Students.
Swanson, C. C., & Australian Reading Association, A. (1988). Reading and Writing Readers' Theatre Scripts. Reading Around Series No. 1.
Common Core
Writing Standards:
3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
5. With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach
3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
5. With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach