Role Playing
A Creative Writing Activity
By Steve Sanders
Grade Level/Subject: High School Levels, Creative Writing
Overview: Interacting with literature in an active way helps one not only connect to a specific work, but also for that person to experiment with their own writing styles and abilities.
Purpose: Getting inside the minds of other people and characters is a skill that successful writers need to have and improve. An activity that forces students to take on the identity of someone else and write from that perspective furthers the creativity and cognitive processes of the students.
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
1. interpret the situation and message of the speaker of a piece of literature.
2. visualize a character that the speaker may be speaking to or may come in contact with.
3. create a creative piece of literature from the point of view of the character they visualize with
regards to the piece we have been dealing with.
Resources:
Handout
Automatic for the People, "Try Not to Breathe" R.E.M.
CD Player
Activities and Procedures:
1. I will begin the lesson with an introduction on the value of being able to write from another person's point of view. I will talk about how successful novels, movies, and television shows depend upon the depth and accuracy of characters. 2. I will then handout the lyrics to the song "Try Not to Breathe" by R.E.M. and explain to the students that the speaker in the song is in a certain situation and he is saying something about it. I will then play the song.
3. After the song, I will then ask the students about the speaker. "What is his situation? What is he saying about his life and what he wants?"
4. After a brief discussion about the song, I will then ask the students who the spekaer may be speaking to. "Who may be a part of his life and be affected or a part of what is going on here?"
5. I will then make a list on the board of possible "other" characters as offered by students.
6. I will then ask for students to choose a character to be the voice of their piece. They must
have some contact with the speaker in the song and the piece must involve the original
character in some way.
7. I will then have students pre-write for about five minutes on what genre of creative piece
they would like to create.
8. After they have a certain plan in mind, I will give them five to ten minutes to get started on
creating their piece.
9. If time allows, I will have the students get in groups to collaborate with each other on their
individual pieces.