Good morning 8th graders,
Happy St. Patrick’s Day and welcome to day 2 of Distance Learning!
You have two main areas of focus today – reading log and monologue.
- Reading log
- Read for at least 30 minutes today and fill out your personal reading log for 3/17.
- Keep the evidence column interesting and change the type of evidence you use each day. You are welcome to use summaries, photos, character descriptions, and more – just change it up every day. If you are stuck, please refer to the March 16th (Reading Log section) for various evidence ideas.
- Note: I will periodically check reading logs to see what you are reading and how it is going. Each daily entry is worth points on PowerSchool.
- Monologue
- Monologue selection – I am missing monologues from two students in Thomas and seven students in Mansfield. I will be emailing each person shortly to check in directly.
- For those nine of you that need to select a monologue:
- For everyone, please review the bullet points below:
- Monologue preparation – Several of you have sent me rough drafts of your “Questions to guide your monologue” or your annotated monologues. It’s a good start, but all of them need more work. Please review the points below to help guide your preparation process.
- Your answers to the questions on the worksheet must be thoughtful and thorough – one to two sentences will not be enough. Your monologue should have annotations for every sentence – sometimes more than one. It might be about breathing, tone, body posture, or distinct changes in any of these things. You must take time to consider all the little details about your character and how that impacts the message they are trying to share. Some of this is already in your monologue, but most of it must be inferred by you, after closely reading the text!
- Think about:
- the setting of the monologue – Where is it happening? Why there? What will you do in your performance to show us that location? Consider how you would act in the following places – living room, library, diner booth, laundromat, race track, middle school hallway, public bus, private car, classroom, doctor’s office.
- the physical/emotional traits of your character (and the person to whom they are speaking) – Are they loud? Quiet? Shy? Brash? Exhausted? Jubilant? Broken? Are they taller than the person they are speaking to? Shorter? Same height? Sitting down? Standing up? Exercising? In pain? Relaxed? What other characteristics might your character have? Why are they important? How will it support your performance?
- what the character wants to achieve by sharing his/her/their thoughts (speaking the monologue) – Do they want help? From who? Are they trying to hurt someone? Help someone? Feel better? Feel worse? Explain something important to themself? To others? Intimidate someone? Express frustration? Prove that they are worthy of love? Demand action? Start a relationship? End a relationship? Why is your character speaking? Figure out their motivation!
- how this speech impacts the characters who hear it – How does the speaker change? Are they relieved? Broken? Scared? Surprised? Hopeful? Playful? Curious? Frustrated? What about the other character(s)? How do you think they react to the monologue? How do they behave during the monologue? How will that impact your performance?
- So, please review these prompts, adjust your responses, and use all of it to create the strongest possible performance. Remember, your worksheet and annotated monologue are not due until late March, which means they require a significant amount of thought and effort to complete.
- Please check in with me at any time for feedback on your work or clarification of expectations.
- Monologue selection – I am missing monologues from two students in Thomas and seven students in Mansfield. I will be emailing each person shortly to check in directly.
That’s all for today! I am working on Movie Talk presentations and what that will look like in Distance Learning mode. I will share more information with you soon!
Good luck and remember to get outside and enjoy the sunshine at some point!