Partners in Playwriting: 

Creating a Script Club to Engage Junior Students in the Playwriting Process

by Claire Holland

Entry Points for Student Voice and Choice

As the nature and demographics of our learning landscape shifts, one of the best ways to be responsive in our practice is to centre student voice in our work. Two spaces that lend themselves best to nurturing student voice are the English classroom and the Drama classroom. In both spaces, the curriculum requires students to use their lived experience to respond to issues, events and texts through their voices, their bodies and their words as a means of meaning making. Given this built-in opportunity to capitalize on student experience, these two classes became the sites for experimentation where I began to ask myself: How might I amend the structure and content of my program so that it allows for more student voice and choice? How might I create authentic learning spaces where writing and devising spark creativity and develop artistic/aesthetic voice? The following is an account of some of the practices that I began to incorporate into my program as a result of this period of play. 

Extra Curricular Clubs as Experimental Spaces for Story Creation

For six years, I worked in a K-6 school in midtown Toronto where I taught the English Language Arts program to junior French Immersion classes in combination with delivering Drama as prep coverage for a number of classes from grades 2-6. Both disciplines were at the core of my own interests. I take great pleasure in reading and writing, both personally and professionally and have been performing or devising creative work in some form or another since I was ten. 

As an English teacher, I wanted to provide opportunities for my students to express themselves and to fall in love with language. Traditionally, this took the form of scheduling big blocks of time for story writing and poetry. In both genres, I abandoned a strict pursuit of form in favour of an exploration of purpose and audience and painting a picture with words. We shared and celebrated our work with one another and I got better at honing in on craft. And while my students lapped up these opportunities to experiment and play and engage their whole selves in the work, these indulgences into creative work became more and more short lived. As pressures to focus on nonfiction forms of reading and writing began to mount, our creative work became relegated to shorter stints here and there- rest stops mid-semester where we’d take some time to catch our breath, to laugh a little and feel the sun on our faces before we’d return to ‘work’.

Sensing the need for more time to tell our stories, I created a Story Writing Club for students in the junior grades. We’d meet at lunch time and assemble in our mini-computer lab, have brainstorming sessions to help focus our ideas and then we’d settle in at our own work stations and write. If ever they were stuck, students would just turn to an elbow partner and problem solve - “What’s the best way to describe that feeling when…”, “How should I make this part creepier?”

We set a date for drafts to be due and then read each other’s work. After revisions, I published an anthology of the work, gave each of the club members a copy and saved one for the school library where it was given a barcode and made available for circulation. The experience reinforced my instincts that there was an appetite among students for the opportunity to write beyond the classroom context and that all I needed to do was to provide the space for it. 

In my other role as a Drama prep provider, I also tried to find more opportunities for students to develop as writers and storytellers. I introduced monologues recounting significant life events as a tool to help build community and voice. I included cultural storytelling units where students could engage with rich, descriptive language, internalize story structure and experience the intimate exchange between the storyteller and the audience. I was also experimenting with inquiry-based pedagogy where students would vote on an issue of interest that we would investigate as a collective and then use a variety of drama conventions to explore, devising collective creations or whole class pieces as culminating tasks. 

Outside of classroom work, where each class would engage in some type of small-scale performance for peers or the school community as a whole, I wanted to provide an opportunity for students to participate in a schoolwide production. When searching for a source for a school show, I became frustrated with the selections on offer. The cast was either too small, the content culturally irrelevant or the writing too corny. I decided that rather than work from a text I would write the play myself. I had been writing scripts for school aged children for a number of years and was excited by the challenge of writing something with a longer run time on a bigger scale. 

When I began the work of developing a draft, I realized an opportunity for student learning. If as an English teacher I wanted students to engage in writing for authentic purposes and audiences and as a Drama teacher I wanted a program which would nurture the next generation of theatre artists and theatregoers, then what better way to achieve these goals than to invite students to engage in the playwriting process?

I decided to form a Script Club that would be open to students from the junior division. The following is a breakdown of the process I developed and revised over the course of the five years that I ran the club. 

Script Club Process and Timelines:

The Pitch

In early October, I put out a call over the announcements for any students interested in participating in a Script Club to meet me over the lunch hour. In this first meeting, I tell the students that the members of the club are going to write the school play. In order to pick a focus for the play, members (alone or in teams) will prepare story pitches that will be presented to the whole group for their consideration. After all of the pitches are shared, club members will vote on their favourite pitches. Once the winning pitch is selected, all of the club members will collaborate to flesh out the story details and write the scenes.

Before they develop their pitches, I walk them through some factors to consider when developing their story. 

A good script would feature a story that:

-would be appealing and appropriate for K-6 students

-blends humour and drama

-has a message about life that is worth telling

-features a variety of characters (aiming for 6-10 leads with the potential for several secondary characters and opportunities to incorporate dance at some point)

-has a clear beginning, middle and end

-has characters we could portray in a socially responsible way (colour conscious casting, no use of accents, if portraying a person with mental or physical disabilities could we do this in a way that would be respectful/authentic vs caricature?)

-has potential for the characters to be played by people of different gender identities/racial identities/sexual orientations

We then discuss some narrative structures that they like in the plays, movies and tv shows that they watch and brainstorm some examples that they might use to structure their own stories:

-travelling back or forward in time

-mixed up fairytales

-mistaken identities

-quest-need to go on an adventure to seek an item that will help to break a spell/solve a problem for the community

-story about friendship or feeling excluded and finding confidence in yourself

-modern versions of fairytales

-crimes or mysteries that need to be solved

-stories taking place in another historical time period

Then, I describe what they need to include in their pitch:

-a basic plot outline (setting, main conflict and steps taken to address the conflict)

-a description of the main characters and their personalities and their relationship to one another

-the lessons that the audience could learn about life from watching the play

-why they think this play would be appealing to their target audience

At the end of October, we typically meet to share their pitches. Each group presents their ideas to the Script Club members and students fill out ballots for their top three choices for production. These choices are then discussed by the members of the group for their merits in terms of how large the cast could potentially be, how entertaining/engaging/meaningful the story would be for a wide audience and whether or not it was different enough from other things that they had read or written in the past. 

During the deliberation, as director I have the final say between the options provided. Once the pitch that won is decided, students can either leave the club if they are not interested in writing the piece that was selected or stay on for the next phase of the process. As we tend to lose some members at this point if their pitch is not chosen, I put out a new call over the announcements with a synopsis of the selected play pitch for people who might want to join us to write the script. Over the five years that I ran the club, participation usually started off with about 15-20 students and then fell down to around 8-12 students by the project’s end. 

Getting Started with a Script

In November, we hold our first official meeting as a Script Club and invite the people who came up with the pitch to share their ideas again. I take the key plot points and record them on cue cards and place them on a table where we can all see them. We then ask questions like -Is the problem getting resolved too quickly? What kinds of obstacles might we add to create interest or tension? What obstacles would make sense for the setting or the time period? How should we start off the story so that we can establish the characters and setting? How can we create an extra scene to inject some humour or comic relief? Where is a spot that we might work in a crowd scene or an opportunity for dance? Sometimes this results in the creation of a B storyline that runs in parallel to the original plot.

Next, we consider tone and character development. Are there too many serious scenes that need to be balanced with lighter ones? Too many funny ones with not enough exposition/action that move the plot forward? Do the characters change over time? Are we given the opportunity to see the impact of the problem in the story from more than one point of view? Scenes where a character is alone with their thoughts or where they confide in a loved one are often added at this point as are scenes which shift perspective away from the protagonist.

Once we have a decent framework for the scenes, we add any extra characters that have been created as a consequence of plot changes and work to develop distinguishing physical and personality traits for each one. We also develop a backstory for each character and discuss the relationships between them. 

Finally, I would take each of the scenes and do a write up of what needs to happen in the scene to drive the plot forward and to reveal something about the character. (Ex: Pete tells Jen that the only way to get the rain to stop is to see the woman who tends the secret garden. The audience learns about the rumours about the woman and her past, her powers) 

We Write!

By early to mid-November, we are ready to write! The plot outlines are shared on a Google Doc and the students in the club decide which scene(s) they want to write. During our weekly writing sessions we gather in the computer lab and write simultaneously. Often students work in pairs or groups of three trying out dialogue with one another before typing it out to punch-up jokes. I often take on the task of writing the first couple of scenes to help establish the tone of the play, the setting and the characters’ archetypes if I am working with a group of less experienced writers. Once we have this shared understanding of these story elements, I find the work is able to take shape in a more coherent way. 

In some iterations of the club, the students prefer to have me sit at a computer while they sit/stand around me, calling out lines of dialogue while I scribe their work. Other times, I would pitch a scenario and give a starting line of dialogue and they would come up with the next few lines of dialogue or they work to refine my idea. At some points, late in the writing process when students become fatigued, the students’ contribution might consist of coming up with the scenario and motivations for the character in the scene or the mood they wanted to convey and I would write the dialogue then seek their feedback afterward. 

Since we work with Google Docs, students can do the work at home as well, making up for our limited amount of time to work during school hours. The Doc format also helps them read what other groups have written to help for continuity of plot and tone. Sometimes, I will create smaller pieces of writing for students to tackle within a scene -a king’s speech, a letter home, a poem, lyrics to a song, narration for the scene etc. For some, this is a more achievable contribution that they can manage within the time constraints and to suit their attention span. If students finish early, they can work on scenes that haven’t been started or they can make lists of props or lighting/sound design ideas and cues that might work with their scenes.

Read-through and Final Edits

Once we have drafts of all of the scenes, we get together to do a read through of the play. During the read throughs many things became evident-gaps in plot points, inconsistencies about plot points or a character’s voice, clunky language or places where more exposition was needed. At this point, a handful of students typically emerge as strong writers who take on the bulk of this work and are able to rewrite scenes. I also might add a scene or rewrite transitions between scenes to create better flow. Once revised, we’ll have a second read through and go through a round of final edits. 

The Audition Process

In January, we announce the plot of the play to the school over the announcements and invite students interested in being in the play to come to a meeting. Here, Script Club members review the plot outline and describe each of the characters for the potential actors. The students who wrote the play are then invited to cast the play. As prep for the auditions, we create sides from the script for each of the leads and make copies of them. When students sign up for spots we give them the sides to read through before we see them. The Script Club students film the auditions and take turns taking notes and asking questions about the actors’ availability and potential conflicts. 

The members of the Script Club then meet to review the videos and audition notes to cast the show. As writers, they are the ideal people to help determine the casting as they know the characters intimately. I attend all of the auditions and invite a colleague to do so as well so that there is a balance of staff and student voices in decision making. While I worried about bias in terms of student friendships between script club members and those auditioning, or when script club members auditioned, the students consistently rise to the occasion, taking their work very seriously and seeking the best person for the role. Having lived with the characters for so long, it is clear when someone is right for the role. 

Every time we went through the process (I wrote 5 shows using this method), we ended up having more talented people than we had parts for, and we wanted to include them in the show in some way. This would lead to the creation of new scenes or creating lines for what had previously been envisioned as background characters in crowd scenes. Sometimes I would take on this role and sometimes I would co-write these extra scenes with a student. 

Rehearsing 

From February-early June we rehearse the show. Rehearsals occur twice weekly, once a week afterschool and once a week over the lunch hour. The rehearsals are organized by scene and a schedule is sent home to parents, another is posted outside the Drama room and reminders are written to be shared over the announcements.  I always start with blocking group scenes to help build a sense of community, to establish the norms for rehearsals and to help maintain motivation for those who do not have major roles. When I am blocking shorter scenes, I’ll often schedule rehearsals focusing on more than one scene where one group of actors rehearse lines in a corner of the room while I block another scene and then they’ll swap out as I work with the next group. The stage manager (a student volunteer) attends all of the rehearsals to mark the blocking and to record any modifications to the script. (We often revise the writing during the rehearsal process and update the script as we go). 

While many Script Club members audition for roles in the show, those who don’t want to act can take on roles of prop or set designers or stage managers. Some take on roles as choreographers for dance scenes and others won’t be reunited with the group until the show is performed. 

Sharing the Work

During the final week of rehearsals, I meet with the cast to come up with a name for the play. The cast votes on a title that they feel best captures the core ideas of the work and volunteers design a programme to share with parents. The programme outlines our process and credits the members of the Script Club as co-authors. 

When the play is shared for our school community, the Script Club members are introduced and come out for a separate bow. They remain onstage after the curtain call to take part in the Q and A session that follows each performance. Standing in the wings during the curtain call and the post show chat is one of the most thrilling parts of the process. To see a group of young people, standing so fully in their accomplishments in front of their peers is incredibly rewarding. Students who had previously walked the halls in relative anonymity are raised to celebrity status, both actors and writers alike are approached for their autographs and looked to as experts when they field questions from their peers about their writing or acting choices. 

They leave the process with increased confidence, experience in leadership roles, in writing and performing for an authentic purpose and skills in effective collaboration and creative problem solving. They often bring these skills back to their classroom work and their ability to provide feedback to peers or to think like playwrights or directors when devising drama work is remarkable. 

Closing Thoughts 

Each time I engage in the process I marvel at the way that the young people that I work with pour their hearts into the writing, the way they problem solve, negotiate, and celebrate each other’s work, the way they revel in their own love of words, their own understanding of structure and their growing sense of what will move and what will delight the audience. I hope that by pulling back the curtain of how plays are made, they might pick up the tools they’ve been offered and send their own stories out into the world someday.