USING
READINGS FOR SKITS
Many materials
I sell were designed to serve as basis for skits, which my seventh and eighth
grade students loved. What I called “skits” were meant to last an entire
period.
(I will give an address at the end of this if you might be interested; but if not you may be able to use many of the same ideas.)
I
believe my materials are ideal for enrichment, if you have students interested
in in-depth coverage that textbooks do not provide. If you have a student
interested in the Civil War there are three handouts on the Battle of
Gettysburg. These include Gettysburg:
Human Interest; Gettysburg: Two of the Wounded; Gettysburg: “Terrible beyond
Description.”
(I developed the story of the two wounded
soldiers at Gettysburg after I retired; but I believe there would be an
excellent writing opportunity associated with this selection, as explained
below).
 |
| Belt buckle from the Battle of Gettysburg. If I was still teaching I might ask students to write about what this soldier thought after he recovered. |
*
First: In my class students
used many of these detailed readings to prepare for skits. The Puritans of New England and “Remember
the Ladies” (detailing the contributions of women in the American
Revolution) both served as excellent foundations.
Often
we had multiple readings that might apply. When we studied the Civil War, I had
classes read A Rebel Soldier’s War (provided
free), Recollections of a Private Soldier
and The Battle of Bull Run. If we
had time we read Elisha Rhodes’ Civil War
and Gettysburg: “Terrible beyond
Description.” The Civil War Diary of
John Ransom might interest students. Again, I can’t say for sure. It was
written after I retired.
Second: I always asked for volunteers for any skit. My students were
expected to do four projects during the year and a full-period skit counted as one.
If you don’t do a lot of projects, you might offer extra credit. I also allowed
students who performed well to skip tests.
I can say
I never had trouble getting volunteers. Often some of the “weakest”
students performed beautifully.
Done
right, these exercises put students—usually three, four or five worked together—front
and center in every class.
I felt
that was a huge plus.
Third: I always took time to
explain to volunteers the basic structure of the skit, make sure they had good roles
picked, and allowed them time to discuss ideas on how they wanted to perform.
Allow
me to focus on a skit about the Civil War as a good example. For this performance
I normally asked one student to take the role of Sam Watkins (A Rebel Soldier’s War), a second to take
the role of Frank Wilkeson (Recollections
of a Private Soldier), and let others pick their roles. I had girls who
asked to be “wives” of soldiers and agreed to talk about what husbands did
during the war. We might have Sarah Seelye appear, a young woman who served in
the Union army in disguise (mentioned briefly in The Battle of Bull Run). The options were nearly limitless.
Many of
the finest ideas came from students themselves.
My
favorite performance of all time was turned in by Ryan (alias), a severe
stutterer, who asked to do a skit based on Sam Watkins’ life and eventually went
up in front of his class alone.
(HIS
PERFORMANCE IS DESCRIBED IN FULL ON PAGE 12.)
Fourth: I explained to
students that they absolutely must study the material, but assured them I would
never ask questions designed to trip them up. I would not ask Sam Watkins:
“How
many men did your army lose at the Battle of Perrysburg?”
My approach
would be to ask open-ended questions whenever possible:
“Sam,
you saw a great deal of bloodshed during the war? Can you tell us about some of
your worst experiences?”
Or:
“Frank,
you were only fifteen when you enlisted. What made you want to go off to war?”
Or a
question for all members of the group:
“What
did you think army life was going to be like? Were you excited to have a chance
to fight?”
Naturally,
it was important to shape questions based on what performers seemed to know. If a girl, playing the
part of a soldier’s wife, knew a great deal about the Battle of Antietam, where
her husband was “killed,” I asked for detail. I tried to pose questions that
would allow for humor. In one skit a young lady named Sarah took the role of a
Southern widow and brought tissues to class and kept honking her nose, in
comical fashion, and weeping over the death of her beloved during the skit. The
class audience was drawn in, especially when Sarah kept shredding tissue into smaller
and smaller pieces.
So I
said:
“Sarah,
I know this is hard; but did your husband have any pet names for you…I mean,
before he was killed?”
“He
used to call me ‘Sugar Muffin,’” Sarah replied and started to cry all the
harder.
Gimmicks,
like Sarah with her tissue, helped keep the audience interested in what peers
were saying.
Other favorite examples: the
two boys who bought a pig’s heart and brought it to class for a skit on the
Aztecs, the two girls who did an entire skit from inside a TV, and any skit
where we could use sheets and interview “ghosts.” The broom and the pancakes
will be described below.
Fifth: I told volunteers to
be ready to help each other out. If
one member of the skit seemed confused by a question others might interject. I posed
as many questions as possible to all the members of the group. I wanted kids to succeed as every good teacher
does.
In a Civil
War skit such questions might include:
“What
advantages eventually allowed the North to win the war?”
“What
were your generals like?”
“Were
your men usually well supplied?”
“Was
there any point at which you said to yourself, ‘I think now, yes, we are going
to win/lose this war’?”
“Did
you have any funny experiences during the war?”
Sixth: I asked members of the
audience to ask at least one question. I counted this as a minor grade, 3/3 A.
Sometimes, for good questions, or for asking several, I gave a bonus point or
two, 4/3 or 5/3 A+. I printed a class roster and lined out each student as they
asked a question, keeping track that way.
It was
important to steer the audience away
from questions which might be picky, unclear, or aimed at tricking members of
the presenting group. Such questions could deflate a skit.
Seventh: Even
simple props could make a difference. Sarah’s tissue trick is a perfect example.
In a skit about women during the American Revolution (“Remember the Ladies”), giving Mrs. Day a broom allowed for a
little humor. I liked to ask the girl playing that role if she had any favorite
“moves” with the broom. Could she show us how she went about battering the British
officer?
In
another story about the Nevada silver rush (I’m
still working on perfecting the reading on this topic), it was said one
miner could throw a pancake up his chimney, run outside his cabin, and catch it
on the way down.
A
frying pan and a couple of pre-made pancakes or frozen waffles allowed members
of a skit to “demonstrate” their pancake-tossing skills. Having a frozen waffle
ricochet off the classroom ceiling made for a little fun.
Eighth: I trusted students. I
once had four young men ask to do a skit on the U.S. government—an idea all
their own. I asked how they intended to do it. Three would be branches of
government, they said, played as superheroes, complete with capes. In one case
a boy wore gym shorts and red tights. The fourth, People Man, would try to keep
the others in line.
They
did a fabulous job. (I told them I couldn’t have come up with that idea in a
thousand years.)
Reality
check: Not every skit worked. When I was a new teacher we set up
a shorter skit based on the Boston Massacre. This involved six or seven colonists
throwing “snowball” paper wads at British guards protecting the Custom’s House.
If
you’re a veteran teacher you already know what went wrong. The “snowballs” were
a bad idea and it was worse when most of the class decided to join the fray.
It
turned epically bad when a student in the role of Redcoat commander decided to
wave my wooden pointer like a sword. Before I could warn him to be careful he
struck Darryl, a “rebellious colonist,” squarely on the head.
Darryl
did what any “rebellious colonist” in that situation would do. Darryl bled.
We
never did that skit again.
The good news: on a
typical day, when I had six classes, say four volunteers in each skit, I’d
probably award 18 A’s and 4 B’s and one or two C’s or lower, for long skits.
Kids
were really good at this kind of work.
You’re
a teacher, though. You know. Some students are going to volunteer and fail to
prepare.
Ah!
The joy of watching a skit bomb and having half a period go to waste! I once
had four young men volunteer to talk about cowboy life. From their answers you
couldn’t tell if they were cowboys or car salesmen. After twenty minutes, we
pulled the plug.
I would
have been justified awarding four F’s. I served in the Marines before I taught,
however. So I marched the quartet to the hall and chewed them out, channeling
my Parris Island drill instructor. As always, I wanted them to succeed. I gave them a choice. Take their F’s or volunteer for some future skit and study next time. All four chose the second
option.
I
still remember Adam, who was naturally very funny in class. He did four skits over
the remainder of the year and earned A’s every time. The other boys redeemed
themselves too.
Odds and ends: Over
the years I saw a number of great one-person skits and all kinds with two,
three, four or five participants. If we had six participants (except when
holding debates) it seemed one person ended up being squeezed out and had little
chance to show what he or she knew. Occasionally, I talked with students in
that situation and simply credited them with a project done; but no grade. Or,
I let them volunteer again.
Katie,
one of my star students, once asked if she and six friends could do a skit about women in Colonial Days (The Life of Colonial Women). Their plan was to compare with life for modern women.
I told Katie I thought seven would be too many. Katie insisted she had a plan
to make it work and I gave okay.
She
and her friends interviewed their mothers and grandmothers beforehand, adding
an extra layer of knowledge. For the skit they sat in a “sewing circle,” with
Katie as moderator, three portraying colonial ladies, three talking about life
in modern days, all comparing notes. The group took questions from the audience
and Katie guided discussion herself. When they finished, it was my pleasure to
award seven 100 A+ marks. (In my class, I counted a skit grade the same as a
test.)
You could never be sure: We tried
a skit on George Washington and his life one year, but it kind of flopped. We
tried again the next year with similar results. I gave it up for several years
and then (stubbornly) decided to try again.
Failure!
Part of any real teacher’s life!
This
time, Jessica, one of the girls in class, came to me with a key idea. The
reading mentioned Sally Fairfax—George’s first love. Could she, Jessica wanted
to know, portray Sally in the skit?
We
already had “Martha” and two soldiers from the Continental Army; but I was
almost sure this added role would help. It certainly did. In the skit I told
“Sally” to make fun of Martha and talk about George and how he “loved her
best.” That change made all the difference in most classes.
One of
the greatest gimmicks I ever saw employed involved Derek, who played two roles in the Washington performance.
First, he put on a mangy looking red wig (we tried to have props for all skits)
and pretended to be Martha Washington. My room had two doors and “Martha” would
leave by one and moments later Derek, now a “young soldier,” would reenter by
the other and tell us why he enlisted in the army, or what it was like during
the winter at Valley Forge.
I told
volunteers it was up to them to be
ready to discuss anything in the reading/s and answer questions about what we
covered in class. Again, I always promised I would not intentionally trip them
up.
Good
skits were fun for the kids involved, for the audience, and for me.
A final caveat: It was surprisingly hard
to listen carefully all day to what kids in skits were saying, to play off
answers they provided, and adjust questions on the fly.
It was worth it to see kids
shine.
*
Here’s
how I describe my all-time favorite skit in my book, Two Legs Suffice: Lessons Learned by Teaching:
When Ken Burns’ documentary on the
American Civil War aired in 1990, forty million viewers watched. One source was
Co
Aytch, a memoir by Sam Watkins, who
survived four bloody years of combat. Once Burns alerted me to Watkins’ story,
I headed for the bookstore to find a copy. As soon as I read it, I knew
students would be interested in what Watkins had to say.[1]
All I had to do was stitch together parts
of his tale and hand it over to teens. The first time I used this handout, A
REBEL SOLDIER’S WAR, I let students begin in class, to gauge reaction. Every
student, all day, read quietly. No one asked, “What do we have to know this
for?”
I put good material in good hands and let
Sam do the rest:
He
was born in Columbia, Tennessee on June 26, 1839. Twenty-one years old when
shots were fired at Fort Sumter, he enlisted as soon as he heard the news. “In
my imagination, I am young again tonight,” he wrote twenty years later.
I hear the fife and
drum playing Dixie...I see our fair and beautiful women waving their
handkerchiefs and encouraging their sweethearts to go to war. I see the
marshaling [gathering] of the hosts for “glorious war.” I see the fine banners
waving and hear the cry everywhere, “To arms! To arms!”
Like
all young men, Watkins was blind to what lay ahead. When news came that the
South had crushed the Yanks in the first fight at Bull Run, he and his comrades
were disappointed. “We felt that the war was over, and we would have to return
home without even seeing a Yankee,” he explained. “Ah, how we envied those who
were wounded. We thought at the time that we would have given a thousand
dollars to have been in the battle.”
I threw in details, as below, because I
knew I had to make history meaningful at the human level if I expected anyone
to remember what they were taught after all the tests ended:
Not
long after, the eager soldier had his first taste of combat. It came one night
as he was standing guard. “While I was peering through the darkness,” he remembered,
“my eyes suddenly fell upon the outlines of a man.” The more he stared the more
certain he was that a Yankee was closing in. “I could see his hat and coat—yes,
see his gun.” Sam found himself in a “cold sweat” but called out, “Halt, who
goes there?” When the shadowy figure failed to answer he advanced. With a
sudden lunge he drove his bayonet “through and through” the enemy.
Too
late he realized: “It was a stump.”
Sam and his comrades had their first
chance to shoot at targets that shot back when they played a minor role at the
Battle of Shiloh (April 1862). Even when that battle ended, Sam found life as a
soldier less glamorous than he had hoped:
“War
had become a reality,” he admitted, and the men “were tired of it.” During a
winter march freezing rain fell on the troops and “icicles hung from their
clothing, guns and knapsacks.” Many suffered from frostbite. Sam’s feet froze.
Later his skin “peeled off like a peeled onion.” Another time he told about
marching on a hot day in Georgia. Dust in the road was so deep it was “like
tramping in a snowdrift, and our eyes, and noses, and mouths, were filled with
the dust that arose from our footsteps.”
That fall, Rebel forces moved north into
Kentucky, headed for a savage fight at Perryville (October 1862). Both armies
were mauled. Watkins described the fearful cost:
Joe Thompson, Billy Bond, Byron
Richardson, the two Allen boys—brothers, killed side by side—and Colonel
Patterson, who was standing right by my side. He was first shot through the
hand, and was wrapping his handkerchief around it, when another ball struck and
killed him. I saw W. J. Whitthorne, then a…boy of fifteen years of age, fall,
shot through the neck and collarbone. He fell apparently dead, when I saw him
all at once jump up, grab his gun and commence loading and firing…I heard him
say, “D—n ‘em, I’ll fight ‘em as long as I live.” Whit thought he was killed,
but he is living yet. We helped bring off a man by the name of Hodge, with his
under jaw shot off, and his tongue lolling out. We brought off Captain Lute B.
Irvine. Lute was shot through the lungs and was vomiting blood all the while,
and begging us to lay him down and let him die. But Lute is living yet. Also,
Lieutenant Woldridge, with both eyes shot out. I found him rambling [wandering]
in a briar patch.
Like Burns, I wanted students to feel what
it was like for those who fought this terrible war. We followed Sam through
four years of service, the South reeling ever closer to defeat, no matter what
sacrifices Watkins and his comrades were willing to make, no matter how much
courage they displayed, no matter how high the price for soldiers and their
families.
We
finished the reading with something Sam said about the sorrows of war. Looking
back, every death, he said, had lost its glory. All he saw was “broken homes
and broken hearts.”
In fact, if you want to refute the idea
that testing is the be-all-end-all of education, Ryan’s story is beyond price.
For thirty-three years, one rule I followed was never, ever tell a student,
“No, I don’t think you can do it.” Only once did I come close. Ryan was a
pleasant young man in one of my afternoon classes, but afflicted with a
terrible stutter.
Despite his handicap he was a pleasure to
deal with in every way. Ryan loved history and could add good comment to any
discussion. If I called on him, though, I had to have extra time. Words came
slowly, painfully, and classmates and I had to listen closely to follow his
logic. Occasionally, if I was in a hurry, I pretended not to see his raised
hand.
One day, I was seated at my desk, while
students started the Watkins handout. I reminded anyone who needed to do a
project that this would be a good time to come back and talk. Ryan approached.
For obvious reasons he had never
volunteered to get up in front of class. Now he said he would like to do a skit
on the life of a Civil War soldier, a subject that clearly interested him. I
held doubt in check, asking only, “Who will be working with you?”
Stumbling over every syllable, he replied
that he would go it alone. “I…I…I wa…wa…wan…wan…want to bu…bu…be a Rebel
sol…jer,” he stammered.
It was in my blood to have faith in teens,
to assume each young man and young woman could do more than they knew. Now I
wanted to say, “No. You can’t.” I could only imagine how awful his experience
would be, exposed in front of an entire class, trying to talk for forty-five
minutes.
The tip of my tongue touched my palette to
form the word “no.” I didn’t want this kind-hearted young man to be cut up by
the verbal knives of peers. But I couldn’t tell him to lose faith.
I caught myself and nodded approval.
A week later Ryan stood at the front of
the room dressed in gray jacket and battered, gray slouch hat. For all intents
and purposes he was naked emotionally at age fourteen, risking being stripped
of his dignity if he failed.
It was immediately apparent he had studied
long and hard. Ryan wove details from Watkins’ story and half-a-dozen sources
into a cohesive narrative. What surprised everyone was the clarity with which
he spoke. Perhaps because he was so focused on what he had to tell, his
stuttering was less profound. He still stuttered; but his classmates and I
sensed we were witnessing something great. Ryan told us about battles in which
he played a role, talked about seeing friends die, and mentioned love letters
his girl sent from home.
When I asked what she looked like he said
she was “b..b..beautiful, with d..dark hair and dark eyes.” He handled every
question, stumbled over syllables, but never faltered in his tale, and held
center stage the entire period.
When he finished, his class did something
I’d never seen before. They rose and gave a standing ovation.
I don’t think I was ever prouder of a
student—or a class—or happier to be a teacher.
If you have an interest in any of the readings I sell you can go to my TpT page. If not, I hope a couple of my ideas may be helpful.
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