Day #8: Structuring Stronger Plots with Nursery Rhymes Origins

2/4: Today was a day of great theatre with really strong playwriting and acting. We started off right with a warm-up activity I do with usually my younger grades (Pre-K through 3rd grade) but I wanted to try it on these older kids and see how it went. I like to call them "Movement Medleys." We used our imagination to picture ourselves in three very different locations, and then acted like things or people we would find at each. I use music to transition us back and forth to the different locations, thus the music is a medley of different songs. We brainstormed what characters we could be before we did this warm-up activity. Also, each of the songs repeats, so we visited each location twice.

This movement medley started us out in the desert. I played the song "Desert" by a music group called Other Lives. I showed them a food chain chart from a book about the desert to give them options of different animals (or plants and people) they could portray: jackal, eagle, meerkat, antelope, scorpion, lizard, worm, snake, camel, cactus, person running out of water, etc.

Then the song switched to "Caribbean Amphibian" sung by Kermit the Frog, and they pretended to be at the beach or a swamp. They pretended to be frogs, dolphins, whales, sharks, people sun-tanning on the beach, hula dancers, some even made a conga line!

Then the song switched to "Alive" by Blue Man Group and we pretended to be on the moon. People pretended to be astronauts in zero gravity, spaceships, aliens, shooting stars, craters, etc.

Here are some pictures of the class performing the movement medley of Desert, Caribbean, and Moon:

Space Monkeys on the Moon!

Fish and hula dancers from the Caribbean!

Probably my favorite response to the Caribbean setting: a Conga Line!

These two hula danced for most of the locations, but changed their
speed and personality based on location: it was much slower on the moon!

Look, Ma! No gravity on the moon!

Theatre Vocabulary of the Day: Plot Structure 

We reviewed the 6 Q's of storytelling (who, what, when, where, why, how) and the R.O.O.T. of every story (relationships, objectives, obstacles, tactics) and then we talked about how every story typically has a standard structure or order of events, which reference all these vocabulary words. It is called the plot structure and it reveals the beginning, middle and ending elements to good stories. It looks like this:

We learned the words written in black marker:

1) Exposition: the very beginning of the story, where the audience learns the who, when, and where: the main characters and the setting.

2) Inciting Incident: the moment when the main character gets an objective. Now they have a goal to meet and they become more entertaining.

3) Rising Action: all the obstacles and tactics that act like stairs, getting more intense and more exciting each time, as we wait to find out if the character will reach his/her initial objective.

4) Climax: the highest point of tension when we finally find out it if the character will achieve the objective. It is the answer to this Yes or No question the audience has been waiting to have answered.

5) Falling Action: the less tense moments that wrap up the story and occur once the climax is over.

Then I explained that fairy tales are examples of strong plot structures, with a good beginning, middle, and end. However, in my opinion Mother Goose NURSERY RHYMES are really only part of a story. They are so short, they leave create a lot of unanswered questions. So for the activity, the students were in charge of adding a beginning and an end to a nursery rhyme.

ACTIVITY: MOTHER GOOSE ACADEMY AND THE ORIGIN OF NURSERY RHYMES

Tool: Assigned Puppet and Nursery Rhyme

Technique: Write a Beginning and End, then Narrate and Act Out

The students were put into groups of 4 and given a nursery rhyme along with a picture of the nursery rhyme and a random hand puppet. They had to incorporate the puppet animal into the story in any way possible. I have found that using any kind of prop, especially if it is a character, motivates them to create and keep them engaged so much more.

Some of the animals were: 

• Dog, Cat, Giraffe, Pig, Bear, Cow, Donkey, Monkey, Zebra, Tiger, Lion

I order these from Fun Express on Amazon

I provide the students with a sample story using the Nursery Rhyme "Little Boy Blue" and incorporating a bird puppet. (I do not give the students this puppet or this poem as an option.)

Some of the Nursery Rhymes they performed were: 

• Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater
• Mary Had a Little Lamb
• Jack and Jill (or Phil)
• Little Miss Muffet
• Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat
• Little Jack Horner
• Jack, Be Nimble
• Humpty Dumpty

Example: 

Nursery Rhyme Title: “Little Boy Blue” 

Puppet: Bird

Beginning: Little Boy Blue receives a horn for his birthday. He is so excited, he plays it all day inside the house and doesn’t even sleep! The next day, his mother says he needs to play it outside from now on, but only after he does his chore: vacuuming the entire house! He asks for a different chore: using his horn to call the animals when it is time for their feeding. She agrees. She sends him to buy more food for the animals. When he comes back, it is not quite time for the animals to eat yet, so he takes a nap on a haystack. The animals get really hungry and start to eat all the family’s crops! His Mother and Father run outside to stop the commotion and find their son.

Middle: (recite the nursery rhyme) 

“Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn. 

The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn. 

Where is the boy that looks after the sheep? 

He's under the haystack, fast asleep.

Will you wake him? 

No, not I! For if I do, he’s sure to cry.”

Ending: A nearby bird sees that Little Boy Blue’s mother and father are afraid to wake him, so it swoops down and squawks and flaps its wings until he wakes up and starts to cry. His mother comforts Little Boy Blue and takes him inside while the father shoos the bird away. Little Boy Blue calms down, feeds the animals, and goes to bed. That’s what happens when you stay up all night!

I was always so impressed to see how the groups work together to write their scripts during their 15-20 minute rehearsal time. At first, they all want to play with the puppet, but eventually they decide upon roles and often share the writing portion as well. This scene works out nicely with groups of 3-4 because one person can narrate, one can be the puppet, and 1-2 can be the main character(s) featured in the rhyme. 

I mentioned to the students that their beginning and ending parts should be about 2-3 sentences long (each) and they do not need to rhyme. Also, they could all take turns narrating if they like.

Here are some scripts (so you can see their stories and the worksheet I made for this assignment) and pictures of them acting out their scenes.

I always think it is so cute to see how well they handle the puppets,
and how they love to have them crawl on the floor as if they were real.

Great acting and good support for one another. Too bad the cow gets left behind!

Little Miss Muffet sitting under a tree (a music stand and a coat).
Then along came a tiger (puppet)!

Some groups requested one extra puppet to tell their story. Here, a lion fights a pig!

A group with a bear and a pig, visiting Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater's wife
in her pumpkin shell of surrounding chairs.

These boys always get into using their entire bodies and faces to act.
Here, they are fighting crime with a monkey and using light sabers with
Luke Skywalker (the narrator). They had an all boy group and turned
Jack and Jill into Jack and Phil! So clever!!

Mrs. Ormsby was very helpful to this group of students and helped
them come up with ideas and even wrote them down for them.
They incorporated the Boston Tea Party into their plot for
"Jack Be Nimble."

These girls are so smart! For "Little Miss Muffet" they took a toy that looked like a spider and attached it to a belt from a girl's shirt. And then they used their lion puppet, of course!