Lesson video

Hi there, I'm Mr. Buckingham and I'm so glad you decided to join me for today's lesson.

Today we're going to be doing some drama work to help us explore a really important plot point from Alma Nichols, "A Kind of Spark" which is going to feed into our writing later in this unit, let's make a step.

Today's lesson is called Using Drama to Explore a Character Low, and it comes from my unit called "A Kind of Spark Narrative Writing." By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to take part in a role play to deepen our understanding of character's perspectives in a key part of the buildup in "A Kind of Spark." For this session, you will need to have access to the 2020 Knights of Edition of "A Kind of Spark" written by Alma Nichols* and Illustrated by Kay Wilson.

If you're ready, let's make a start.

Here are our keywords for today's lesson.

The buildup is the part of a narrative where problems are introduced and tension rises.

Dialogue is a conversation between two or more people written in a text or story to show what each person is saying.

And internal monologue is the inner voice of a character, their thoughts to themselves not spoken aloud.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by role playing a dialogue, and then we're going to be role playing from internal monologue.

So in the coming part of this unit, we're going to be writing our own version of part of the buildup to "A Kind of Spark." And we know that the buildup is the part of a narrative where we add to the tension by showing problems and obstacles that characters face.

And during the buildup, the reader's starting to feel worried for the main character.

They want them to overcome the obstacles that they're facing.

And we know that Addie faces numerous challenges in the buildup of "A Kind of Spark." For instance, her idea for a plaque is rejected several times.

She's worried about Keedie and she has issues going on with Jenna still and she's upset by the treatment of the witches as well.

So which of these events could be considered part of the buildup to "A Kind of Spark" pause video and have a think.

That's it good job.

So the school trip is definitely part of the buildup.

When the plaque is unveiled wouldn't be, that's part of the resolution where the problem in the story is solved, when Addie's idea is rejected by the committee.

Yes, that's part of the buildup, we're adding tension there.

And when Addie goes to Key University, again, it's part of the buildup because we're ramping up the tension in the story by giving some obstacles to our main character to Addie.

Well done if you have you spotted this? So one key part of the buildup is the situation involving Emily and the thesaurus and the aftermath, the events that follow that.

Here's a summary of those events.

We see in chapter 15, Addie entering that classroom to find that Emily's destroyed her thesaurus and written an awful word.

And then we see Audrey tries to comfort her, but Emily keeps saying unpleasant things to Addie, Addie gets overwhelmed and she attacks and hits Emily.

Then we have Mr. Allison coming in, he pulls Addie off of Emily and Ms. Murphy arrives.

She blames Addie for what's happened and calls her sisters in for a meeting.

And then in chapter 16, Ms. Murphy is alone with Addie, isn't she in that office room? And Ms. Murphy's being hostile or unpleasant towards Addie? Then Addie's sisters arrive and Ms. Murphy withholds the truth from them, she doesn't tell them the full story.

But finally, Mr. Allison and Audrey arrive and reveal the truth and of course is furious then and says she'll take this up with higher powers in order to get Ms. Murphy punished or have some consequence for what's happened.

So can you match each character to what they do in this section of the story? Pause the video and have a go.

Well done, good job.

So Audrey is trying to stop Emily bullying at bullying Addie.

Mr. Allison pulls Addie off of Emily.

Ms. Murphy tries to get Addie suspended from school and Jenna stands by as Emily bullies Addie.

Really well done if you made those connections.

So now we need to recap that section in a bit more detail.

So I want you to listen now as your teacher Rereads or you read to yourself chapters 15 and 16 from the buildup of "A Kind of Spark." Pause the video and do that now.

Well done, good job.

So now I'd like you to try and retell this section of the story in your pair and I'd like to swap after each event, pause the video and chat to the person next to you trying to retell the events of this part of the story, have a go.

Well done, really good job.

And you could look back at the summary I showed you before if you want to check that you've covered those main points, but I bet that you probably added lots of extra details that I didn't cover in my summary, really well done.

So who are the main characters in this section of the story? Pause the video and tell your partner.

Well done, good job.

You might have mentioned Addie, Audrey, Emily and Ms. Murphy and Keedie and Nina as well.

All of these people play a key role here.

I haven't put Mr. Allison there, even though he did also have a role as well, you might have included him too and that's fine, well done.

So now can you match each character to the words they're most likely to have said in this section? Now these aren't real quotations from the book, I've made them up, but which character matches this with each quotation.

Pause the video and try and match them up.

Well done, good job.

So for Audrey, we might have said, "Stop that book's precious to Addie." For Addie, you could have said, "I'm sorry, I really am, I dunno what happened." For Nina you might have said, "The way you've treated my sister is an outrage." And for Ms. Murphy, "You nasty girl, you are like a wild animal." So I've made up these quotations, they're not real ones, but we can imagine those characters saying similar things in the book, good job.

So this situation, as we know, is a real character low for Addie, it's a bad negative situation for her character.

And we can use drama and role play to explore this character low in a bit more depth.

For instance, we could think, what could we say if we were acting in role as Ms. Murphy when she hears what Addie did to Emily? Well maybe Ms. Murphy would say this, "You horrible child, look what you've done to poor Emily, she's going to be traumatised for life and for what? You should be ashamed, sit in the corner this instant." So I've taken on the role of Ms. Murphy, I've spoken as if I was Ms. Murphy in that situation.

What could we say in role as Audrey, as Emily goes and cries to Ms. Murphy and blames Addie completely? Maybe Audrey would say this, "Why are you crying? This was all your fault, you are a bully, you ruined her book and you attacked her family, you are just jealous." So this time I've taken on the role of Audrey to help get inside her head and understand what her motivations and ideas might be in this situation.

So now you try, what could you say in role as Addie in each of these situations? Try not to stick exactly to what's in the book.

Try to think what you might say in this situation, but also bearing in mind what we know about Addie as a character and putting that into your ideas as well.

Pause the video and have a go at acting in role as Addie.

Well done, good job.

So when she enters the classroom and sees Emily with her thesaurus, maybe Addie might say this, "What are you doing? That's my thesaurus, that's from my sister, what did I ever do to you? And how about the rest of you? How could you just watch this happen?" And for when Ms. Murphy is criticising her in the office, maybe Addie would say this, "I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt her, it's just, I can't explain.

You didn't hear what she was saying, you can ask Audrey." So we've tried to take on the role of Addie and speak as if we were her in those situations, which are part of this character low for her.

Well done for your efforts there too.

So let's do our first task of this lesson.

We're going to use drama to act out this section of the story, focusing on the dialogue between the characters, what they say to each other.

So I going to work in groups of four, focusing on five key characters.

So one person will have to do two characters.

So person A is gonna play Addie, person B will be Ms. Murphy, person C can play Audrey and person D can start off being Emily and then switch to being Nina or Keedie, so they have just as big a role as everyone else.

So I need to begin from when Addie enters that classroom, try to say the words out loud that youth and the characters might say at each point to try to act out this whole scene.

And remember we're using the events from the story, but you don't have to stick to the same words that are in the book.

In fact, I would suggest you shut the book and really rely on your own ideas here.

You are gonna use your own imagination to get inside the character's heads and think what would they say? What might they say in these situations? So pause the video and have a go acting out this section in your group.

Well done, really good job.

So here's some examples of what you might have said in your dialogue at different points, we've got, "You're only doing this because you're jealous that Addie can read better than you." You might have said that, well done Audrey.

What about this one? "Your sister was just the same as you and absolute hooligan, neither of you belong here." who would that be? Yeah, Ms. Murphy well done.

What about this one? "Please don't look at it Keedie, I don't want you to see what she wrote." who would that be? Addie, well done.

And here, how could you let us think? Addie was to blame for this, I'll be making an official complaint, who is that? Sounds like Nina doesn't it? Well done.

Good job for adding that out there, hopefully you feel like you understand that character a bit more now, now you've added it out from different people's perspectives to see how everyone is feeling in that situation, good job.

So now let's have a go at role playing some internal monologue, so let me act out a dialogue.

We're showing the character's speech, the things they're willing to say out loud and we've just done that, but people also have an internal monologue.

Internal means inside, so an internal monologue is your inner voice, that's the thoughts that only you can hear.

So here we've got an example of Miss Murphy's dialogue, what she's saying out loud.

"Ah, Keedie, you are here as well, I wasn't expecting to see you again." But here we see what might be her internal monologue, what she's thinking inside her head, what on earth is she doing here? I thought I'd seen the last of her.

So at the same moment we've got Miss Murphy's dialogue spoken out loud and her internal monologue, which is just inside her head.

So what might be the advantage of using internal monologue as well as dialogue when we write a narrative, pause the video and have a think.

Well done, really good job.

So using internal monologue in our writing allows us to show what characters are feeling inside but not sharing outside.

So this might be ideas they're not willing to share in speech, but they've got going on in their head.

So it could be their truest feelings, couldn't it? Which might be different to what they say.

For example, perhaps Addie is so upset that she can't express in dialogue what she wants to say when she's sitting in that office with Ms. Murphy.

But by using internal monologue, we can show what she's thinking to our reader without her having to be able to say it out loud.

Similarly, maybe Ms. Murphy's internal monologue, which shows some doubts or worries that we don't see in her dialogue.

Now we don't see Miss Murphy's internal monologue at all in "A Kind of Spark." because the book's written from Addie's perspective.

But if we did see it, maybe we'd see that she doesn't, she's not quite as confident as she seems in this situation and that would be really interesting to know.

So you could write that entire chapter, can't you? From a completely different perspective, Miss Murphy's perspective, including both her dialogue and her internal monologue and you might get an entirely different view of this story.

So to help us get even deeper into this character low, we can imagine different characters internal monologues at different points in that section that we just acted out.

So what might Audrey be thinking when Addie enters that classroom, which she's already in.

Audrey already knows what's happened, but Addie doesn't yet.

Maybe Audrey would be thinking this.

"Oh no, how Addie's here! I hope she can see, I did my best to stop them.

Oh, I'm such a terrible friend.

I should never have let this happen, she's gonna be devastated when she sees." And what might Nina be thinking as she comes into school for the meeting? Or maybe her internal monologue would sound like this.

"I know Addie doesn't like this new teacher, but I hope she's not done anything silly.

She'd never hurt anyone, of course, but it must be serious if they've asked us to come in." So neither of these would be spoken out loud.

Their thoughts that are going on in the character's heads, they're internal, so they're internal monologue.

So which of these might be part of Ms. Murphy's internal monologue? Pause the video and decide.

Well done, good job.

So for A no, probably not.

Because this sounds like something she would've said out loud as dialogue, B sounds like something which would be internal monologues inside her head, it's thoughts to herself and the same for C.

She's saying it maybe I've overreacted, but I can't back down now, but she's definitely not saying that out loud.

And for D, you should be ashamed of yourself suggest you saying this out loud to Addie, so I suspect that would be dialogue and not internal monologue.

Remember, internal monologue isn't spoken out loud.

Really well done, have you got this? So because internal monologue is a character's inner thoughts, we'll often use "I" statements when we write it or when we try and show it.

For instance, I hope, I wonder, I can't believe, I wish, I know, I feel or I don't think.

An internal monologue might also may use of questions and repetition to show thoughts.

Here's an example of internal monologue that does that.

"I wish I could turn back time, why did it have to hit her? Why couldn't I stay in control? Mom and dad will be furious." What Emily wrote was awful, but what I did was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

So we can see some repetition there of the word wrong and we see lots of questions and there's even repetition within the questions.

Why this? why this? So the word why is repeated as well.

So in our writing, which we come to do later in this unit, we are going to be writing Addie's internal monologue like we see in this example.

So what might be Addie's internal monologue when Ms. Murphy calls her a demon in that meeting in the office, what do you think Addie's thinking when she hears that, pause video and have a try? Good thinking that's it.

Maybe it might be something like this, "Maybe she's right, maybe I am a demon.

Only someone really bad would hit someone like I hit Emily but I only did it because of what she was saying, those awful words, I wonder if Ms. Murphy ever even looked inside the book.

Not that she'd care, I don't think she'd do anything but shrug, but she'd probably say I was just being dramatic." So this is how we've used the present tense in this internal monologue.

For instance, we've said maybe she is right or maybe I am a demon, both present tense verbs.

And we do that to show that these are Addie's thoughts right now at this moment in the text or in this case in what we're saying out loud.

Really well done for coming up with your ideas there.

So let's think about the section we just started out those scenes from chapters 15 and 16.

What are some of the key points where we might want to show Addie's internal monologue? Pause the video and have a think what the key points might be, where we want to know Addie's inner thoughts.

Well done, now we could disagree on this, but maybe you chose some of the following points.

Maybe you chose when she walked into the classroom and also when Emily is abusing her in the classroom.

Maybe you chose when she sat alone at the back of the classroom as punishment.

Maybe you chose when Ms. Murphy talks to her in the office or when her sisters arrive and when Audrey brings in that thesaurus.

Now all those four points are mentioned in the book, aren't they? But we could also imagine points that are not mentioned in the book.

For instance, it'll be really interesting to know Addie's thoughts as she walks from the classroom to the office.

So maybe she's following Ms. Murphy down the corridor and it'd be really interesting to get an insight into her thoughts during that event, which is not mentioned in the book at all.

So let's do our final task for this lesson, we're going to see some more role play here.

We're going to work in groups of three this time and within each group, each person will prepare an internal monologue for Addie in one scene.

So you should have three different scenes, one by each person.

So you might choose the following scenes, maybe you'll choose as Addie sees thesaurus has been damaged.

Maybe you'll choose as Addie walks towards the office for meeting.

That one I've just said isn't in the book, but we could imagine it and maybe you choose as Ms. Murphy talks to Addie on her own in the office.

So I've got three different scenes for my three people in my group.

So for your scene, the one that you choose to have, and you might have to decide this together, I want you to think about how you might be thinking at that point and practise saying those thoughts out loud in the present tense as an internal monologue that we see and then I want you to share your internal monologue with your group.

So you'll each take a turn to share your internal monologue for the event you are showing.

Now, of course there's a bit of a twist here, isn't there? Because internal monologue wouldn't normally be said out loud.

It is actually going on in our heads, but we are going to share it as if it was internal monologue so that everyone in our group has an idea of what we think Addie might be thinking during our scene.

Pause the video and have a go at this drama task.

Really well done, good job.

So let me show you some examples of the kinds of internal monologue you might have come up with for when Addie sees the thesaurus being damaged, maybe you said something like this.

"Wait, is that, It's my thesaurus.

What has she done that was a gift from Keedie? And the rest of 'em are just standing there watching and she's smiling about it.

If it's funny, what did I ever do to her?" So I tried to share with my repetition and my kind of hesitations there, that Addie's gonna be really, really upset at this moment.

So she might not be talking as fluently in her head as she normally would do.

And what about that? As Addie walks towards the office for the meeting, maybe it's something like this going on in Addie's head.

What's going to happen to me? Why do I have to hit her? I'm sorry, Emily, I'm sorry Mom and dad.

If I could have stopped myself, I would've, I just lost control, I'm sorry.

So we see there the repetition of, sorry, and we've got those questions as well, which lend this, that tone of internal monologue and again, it's in the present tense.

And your internal monologue for Addie when she's in that meeting with Ms. Murphy, may have looked like this.

"I wish you'd just stopped talking for a minute, I feel like I can hardly think, why would Nina hurry up? I hate being stuck in this tiny room with her looming over me like this.

Why does she hate me so much? Why does she always think I'm in the wrong? I mean, I know I was wrong to Emily, but she was in the wrong too.

Should I try to explain? Should I tell her about the word Emily wrote? No, should never understand." So again, we've kept in the present tense here and I'm really trying to show what Addie's inner thoughts her internal monologue might be in that moment.

Really well done for you, a fantastic effort in that task, good job.

And this is gonna be so useful for us when we come to write, because when we write, we'll be taking these ideas and making them into more detailed sentences, well done.

So let's summarise our learning in the session.

We know that the buildup is the part of a narrative where problems were introduced and attention rises.

And we know that in a kind of spark, Addie's confrontations with Emily and Ms. Murphy form a cool part of that buildup, adding lots of tension and drama.

We know that we can use drama to explore this character life for Addie thinking of dialogue the characters might have had in these scenes.

And we can consider what Addie's internal monologue, her inner thoughts that aren't spoken aloud might be during these scenes.

Really well done for your effort in this lesson.

I hope you've enjoyed using drama to explore these events and I hope you'll find it really useful when we come to write in the future.

I'd love to see you again in a future lesson, goodbye.