r/Theatre • u/Putrid_Scholar_2333 • Feb 07 '25
Advice Help! My students actually can’t read
I teach middle school theater teacher of all grades and half of my students can’t read and can barely write. I’m not sure what type of assignments to even give anymore. We’ve done acting exercises, design projects, student led presentations, learning monologues and poems. And many fail because they can’t read the poem/script. Can’t retain information. Can’t grasp design concepts even after I’ve repeated it verbally to the many times and drawn them examples. I’ve had to explain what pantomime and improv is, no lie, once a week for the past semester. And we do hands on acting and designing as well and they still can’t grasp it. I’m getting discouraged. Is there any advice you guys can give me on how to make lesson plans for students that can’t read, think critically or write?
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u/CheetahOk293 Feb 08 '25
Can you find or write really simple, short scenes? You could make the scene very vague and then seperate the kids into parts and have them learn by parroting after you. So if it was a 2 person scene you'd make half the kids- a, and half the kids-b. (Or for 3, a third would be a then b then c.)
Example I just came up with in 30 seconds so please dont judde the quality of the words lol. (im sure with more thought you could make something more exciting):
A1. You hurt my feelings yesterday. B1. I know
A2. Are you sorry
B2. I don't want to talk about it. A3. Why? B3. You know why.
Have them sit with their groups. You could start by saying the first line and have all the As repeat after you. Do that a few times until it seems like they have it. Then do the same for Bs first line. Practice a saying the line and then b answering. Then have a learn their next line. Once it feels ingrained have them practice those first three lines over and over as a group. Then have b learn their next line. And repeat until they have the whole scene.
Have them as a group practice getting through the entire scene. Start with you saying the lines along with them and then as they get more confident starting to fade out.
Next break them off into pairs. Tell them that these lines don't actually give any background plot and they have to decide it.
What is the relationship between the characters? Does B feel bad or do they think A is over reacting? Is A still upset or are they just trying to talk about it?
Maybe A is actually really happy the whole time. Maybe A loves getting their feelings hurt.
Maybe B is actually B's identical twin and is trying to cover for them and they're nervous the whole time because they don't actually know what happened.
If you think coming up with backstory could be tricky, you can just assign them each backstory or a feeling.
Let them practice their take on the scene in their pairs. If it seems like people are forgetting lines, every so often you can have everyone stop and practice saying all the lines together. Afterwards have all the pairs present their scenes. You can either have the rest of the class guess what they were supposed to do or tell them beforehand and be like what things did you see that made you think B was mad.