Every week working with the kids is a new adventure, simply because this is a new experience for both groups. This week, however, the kids were right on top of everything, and we were able to run through our scene again to make sure the kids understood and get a rough script made for our scene. The idea to gamify the entire process worked really well! We explained to the kids how they would be playing a game similar to improv. From there, the entire process went smoothly, as we would set up the scene for the kids, and they would act out how they would behave. At this point, we could expect to clean up the script in the next week or so, and we can begin with the drawing or other forms of visual media we may be using.

Overall there is a tremendous success in how this project is turning out, and I am confident that the kids will do really well as we begin to enter the second half of the project’s timeline.

This week was definitely a week of technical difficulties as we met during the remnants of tropical storm Zeta, and connectivity at the school was not ideal. The kids didn’t end up logging on until 3, which is 15 minutes past our usual start time, however, when we got to meet with them they were really excited about using their action figures and deciding which character would be each action figure. They had a different aid in the classroom who was definitely a bit more helpful than the other aid that we normally have, and was able to control the kids a bit better so that they could start the drawings for our backgrounds. From what it looked like, they were able to start drawing the first scene, but we lost contact with them about 15 minutes into the google meet and were unable to reconnect. It was definitely disappointing to only be able to see them for such a short amount of time, but our group is still confident in the progress that we have made so far and think that we will be on track to have it completed in time. The next step is to have the kids complete the background drawings and take photos of the action figures in various positions so that we can include them in our iMovie, which we decided will probably be the best tool to make the final product.

This week was a lot better in terms of chaos and we were successful in creating a plan and getting the kids engaged. They were absolutely hilarious, maybe in some ways a little bit inappropriate for 5th graders, but we could not contain our laughter and smiles as they quoted tik toks and sang some pretty funny songs. We decided that we were going to have the kids draw the backgrounds for each scene and then use action figures to show the characters. The kids definitely had a lot of fun and were really excited about the possibilities of everything that they could draw; including a disco dance floor and beer pong which was quickly shut down. We met as a group without the kids on Wednesday to go over our game plan for the next class and decided that it would be best if we got the kids to draw while we were on google meets with them because it would be hard to get them to do so outside of class. We also decided that we might record their voices saying “and then he said” and small phrases like that so we can incorporate their voices without worrying about having to have them record the entire script.

I am really happy with our group’s progress this week! We have our scenes planned out with the adapted plot line and each character has been assigned an action figure. I feel like we were able to brainstorm more ideas with the students during this session, more so than previous sessions. Once they had a firmer grasp on the plot and characters, it seemed like they were more interested in coming up with plot points. They still needing some prompting, but I think that is just because they genuinely don’t know where they are supposed to be going with this. They also drew settings today, which allowed them to be a little more creative. Each student drew part of a setting for a scene, so that we can put the action figures in the setting and then ‘act’ out the play.

I am increasingly excited to see how the final result is. Once we got the students more excited about the project, they seemed to think of more ideas and have more fun. I’m hoping that they are excited to come up with dialogue for our next session, so we can begin recording!

Today was a little more challenging. We began with some technical difficulties over Google Meets and got started 15 minutes late. When we began the students were entheastic because they had gotten their action figures! They spent 10 minutes taking the action figures out of their packages and then we discussed which character would be which action figure. This was a little hectic, but the teacher with the group today was very helpful. She was familiar with Much Ado and was able to help the students decide on characters.

Last week we had asked the students to begin working on their drawings, but they were unable to do so before class. That was okay because they began working on their drawings during our call. We lost our connection with the class shortly after they began and were unable to re-connect. This meeting was very short because of technical difficulties but it is okay because we will be able to meet with them next week.

Our hope is to get lots of different background drawings and photos of the action figures in various poses in front of them. We do not have that much more work to do with the students besides helping them complete their artwork!

This week’s meeting with HEF was great and hopefully set us up to start recording the beginning of Act V next week! We started by getting more details about what the students wanted to happen in each of the scenes. In Scene 1 we decided to have the conflict between Leonato and Benedick with Claudio to be a challenge to a one-on-one basketball game between Benedick and Claudio. However, before they begin they will hear rumors of Hero’s innocence. We also decided to combine Scenes 2 and 3 into a combined promposal event with Benedick, Claudio, Beatrice, and Hero at a football game. Benedick will disguise himself as a marching band member and sneak into the crowd to surprise Beatrice with her promposal where she will excitedly accept. However, Claudio will ask Hero in front of everyone after he makes a touch down in the football gam, but Hero will not give Claudio a response. The last scene at the prom still has some details to figure out since the student assigned the last scene was not there today. In terms of the final product we decided to record it on an iPad that the teacher has in the classroom. The students will draw the backgrounds of the scenes on big sheets of white paper with the action figures (they decided on last meeting) acting out the scene in front of the background with voice overs. We ended the meeting with the students beginning to draw their backgrounds with one drawing the crowd at the football field, another drawing the stands on the football field, another drawing the end zone of the football field (for when Claudio makes the touch down), and the last student drawing a basketball court.

This week we began by discussing who wanted speaking roles versus working behind the scenes. We have A LOT of kids who want speaking roles. We confirmed that the group wants to use Stop Motion with pictures and Legos for the visuals of the play. We then returned to our discussion on the characters and personalities (something we worked on the week prior). The kids all have such great imagination but continue to give contradictory pieces of information but that is great for us to have many options and then we can just make the final decision. It was confirmed that they wanted Claudio to Claudia.

We have gotten to work on a script and will work to have a great potion done for our next meeting on Monday. The group of kids are great and so engaged. I think it helps that they are all at home and online rather than in a classroom together, less distractions!

I thought that this week was much easier than last week. Our group was only two kids this week, but they seemed to be more focused and excited for our project. Because we realized that our kids are hesitant about reading the lines out loud, we decided to read the lines of scene 1 to them and then asked them if they understood the point of the scene. This seemed to be a lot more productive – I think that before, they were so worried about the words they were saying that they weren’t fully paying attention to the scene as a whole. I think that in the future, we should keep showing them the scene that way so they have a better idea of what’s happening. We also started drawing out scenes which was super exciting! I think that they are getting much more into it now that they feel like they have a say in what we do, and can physically contribute to the final product. I can’t wait to see how the next few weeks go and how this project turns out!!

This week was significantly better then last week. Although only two students were in class yesterday, we had a discussion on scene one. The boys didn’t feel that comfortable reading out loud so the four of us read the lines to them and then asked them questions afterwards. Both of the boys are very interested in drawing so they immediately got into drawing pictures for scene 1!  Next week we plan on doing the same thing, reading and discussing scene 2 of our act and them drawing pictures to go along.

How the 6th-grade students set the “stage” for the Homecoming Dance as they did their own improv version of the scene.

On our third week working with the 6th-grade students, Group 4 was super happy with the way things went! Diego had the idea to make our script-writing process run more smoothly: an improv game! We had, on our own screens, the list of plot points from Act 4 and we asked them, scene by scene, to act out what a particular plot point might look like (i.e. Claudia accusing Hero at the Homecoming dance). We didn’t use the names of the characters in an effort to not be too confusing. We just did general plot points (in that case, someone accused another person of something really big at the Homecoming Dance). The title quote of this post was shared by a student named Joy and comes from the scene where Bea is telling Ben how mad she is about the accusations made against Hero.

This was such a fun exercise and I think the students really enjoyed it. I think it also helped that we had a teacher this time who was pretty good at helping them stay focused and also because one of us had the idea to split the group into partners, so we had two students doing the “acting” while the other (there was only one other at this time) was drawing. Our plan now is to put the quotes/lines altogether into a script and share it with them so that we can figure out what pictures we need/when we can record.