Since theater is a performance-based art, there will be A LOT of performance-based assessments in these classes. I could easily see using the blog or forum features to have students journal about their progress during a particular unit or to reflect on their learning/performance after an assessment.
In terms of specific assignments, there is one that jumps to mind. The Theater Arts students will be using selections from the book Working by Studs Terkel to write character monologues. This will be part of the unit where they read The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman and The Tectonic Theater Project, which features monologues culled from interviews with residents of Laramie, Wyoming. I’ve attached the assignment sheet here so you see the gist of the assignment—it still needs some tweaking, but it’s pretty decent for a first draft.
When I provide feedback to students on their rough drafts, I would use two different methods. For the first draft, I will provide feedback via a podcast. Since they are writing a piece that is meant to be performed, I will start by doing a cold reading of their piece on camera so they can see and hear their work. Then, I will provide feedback from the perspective of an actor interpreting and performing the piece and from the perspective of a director looking at the structure of the piece. Changing my role from teacher to collaborator will automatically force me to switch into descriptive, reader-focused feedback-mode.
Before the second draft is turned in, we will discuss the students’ reactions to the first round of feedback. I will try to guide them to recognize the helpfulness of reader-focused feedback and then provide a brief overview and practice session on that type of feedback. For their second drafts, students will post their monologues on the discussion forum of whatever site (Moodle or Ning) that we’re using. Each student will have two or three people from the class for whom they must provide feedback. In explaining this process, I will also encourage them to engage in conversation with each other as they respond to each others’ work, so it becomes interactive and collaborative, rather than isolated and disconnected.
In terms of the assessment piece, the monologue itself will probably just end up being a Word document they print off and hand in. There really won’t be a need for a specialized rubric that takes digital writing elements into consideration. Where I will need a rubric like that is the Character Study. Check out the attached rubric I created to assess the Character Study. I divided it into three sections: section one assesses on the content of the presentation; section two looks specifically at the visual and audio components; and section three looks at how the digital elements work together.
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